Thursday, December 11, 2014

The Least Wonderful Time of the Year

There is ugliness in my heart tonight.  It is spilling out of me, in tears and rage is leaking out of me.  I am so angry and sad and mixed up, everything is wrong and just plain hurts.

Every year I struggle with this season.  This season of joy and excess and forced happiness.  There is never enough time to get everything done.  I feel rushed and inadequate.  2011 was bad, I was so hopeful that with Grace here the following year I could shut out the darkness, because she was light, the light that would make everything possible.  Every year since then has been an even worse struggle.  I try to put on a happy face for Rosabella, but I really want to crawl into a hole and smash every fucking Christmas tree and ornament I see.

This year I tried to start out with a clean slate, but this damn season just gets me no matter what.  Money is really tight, so I am having to make everyones presents.  The project I planned for my DH he told me he did not want, so after hours of planning and shopping I need to return the supplies I bought and I told him that he is now not getting anything.  I have like 2 things for Rosabella to open, and am running out of time (and honestly momentum) to finish making her what I planned.  I participated in a baby loss ornament exchange, so for the first year since she died I did not pick out an ornament for Grace.  I made one for Rosabella and one for the baby that I am carrying (another girl if I have not mentioned that here).  I also made one for a friend's daughter, all little bears made from felt.  I made an ornament for a baby I never met for someone I don't know and mailed it across the country.  I made what the mother said that she wanted: butterflies in pink and purple.  I also made that baby a devotional candle and wrote a letter to her mother.  I worked on all those things late into the night and paid extra for priority shipping so that it would be there by the deadline (Dec 4th).  Then I waited for another mother to do the same for me, trusting that she would put the care and love into Grace's that I did into this other baby's.  The deadline came and went and nothing came for Grace.  I got an e-mail from the mother who was making Grace's a few days ago that she had been busy, but that Grace's was in the mail.  I waited some more, I was upset since I am busy too and I made the time to get my ornament made and in the mail, but at least it was still coming.  Tonight it arrived.  I was so excited I was cutting into the box as soon as my husband brought in the mail.  He was on the phone with his Dad and once he realized I was opening it he started to complain that I was opening presents without him and before Christmas.  I was pretty nasty to him that this was not a present and it was to be opened now.  I needed this, I really did.  Then I finally got the box open.

Here is where the real ugliness of spirit starts.... I hate it.  I know that some one made this for me and for Grace, and it should not be about the quality, but I hate it.  It is this heavy ball ornament, that honestly is too heavy to hang on our tree.  I asked for her name and this year and that it be blue or green and having something to do with the ocean.  It is cream colored, with pink, fake foot print butterflies in pink.  It is not right at all.  With my DH yelling at me for being a bitch to him while he was talking to his asshole father on the phone, I looked at this thing and just lost it.  I yelled at my DH and then ran to my bed sobbing.  Thankfully Rosabella was in her play pen happily amusing herself and did not need me at the moment.  How could I let someone else make her ornament?  It was the one thing that I made sure was perfect every year.  The one gift that I give her.  I made her sister's ornaments, but not one for her.  I trusted and waited and got something I hate.  Something someone else generically planned that any baby's name could be added to, nothing that represents or honors Grace.  I am so upset and disappointed.  I am trying to let it go, but I can't.  I want to smash the thing into a million pieces.  Then I feel like a super bitch since maybe this was the best that other mother could do, maybe the mother I mailed an ornament to hates it also...  This was all a huge mistake.

I pulled myself together and gave Rosabella her bath, we read a story and fell asleep together in her room.  Then I got up and shopped for health insurance, our deductible is going up to over $13,000 for next year and between my pregnancy and Rosabella needing endoscopy for her regurgitation we will likely hit that, so my DH wanted me to look for something cheaper.  I was more calm, but still upset.  I talked to my DH about the insurance, but nothing of import.  He tried to apologize for upsetting me, but I told him I did not want to talk about it.  Since generally when he apologizes he wants me to do the same and I don't have it in me.  I don't feel bad for how I acted or what I said and I am not going to apologize for it.  I went to bed late, and then had a dream about hating the ornament and woke up crying.  Now here I sit in the middle of the night writing on my neglected blog, crying.  Wondering how I can make her a right ornament.  Crying that I am pregnant with a baby that is not her, feeling bad that I wish this baby were her.  Crying that the dog I want to bury my face in her fur and get her wet with my tears is not here, she died 1 year ago Dec 30.

Now I am not sleeping, have an OB appointment first thing (with my 1 hour glucose tolerance test) so no breakfast.  I am worried about the new baby, missing Grace so badly, worried about money.  And hating this time of the year.

I am sorry if this post ever finds the woman who made my ornament.  I hope that your feelings are not hurt, I know that mine would be if I read something like this about what I made.  It likely has nothing to do with you, just my hate for the season, my bitterness that Grace is not in my arms, that all I have year after year is an ornament for her and a donation for the children's hospital.  That this is the last Christmas that I will be pregnant, but no matter how many babies I have, none of them will be Grace.

Baby girl, Mommy loves you and misses you so much.  I am so sorry that I messed up this year.  I promise that I will make you something like I did for your sisters.  I wish you were here with me, I wish that I could hold you and cuddle you and read you a story and give you a bath and do all the things that I do with Rosabella.  I am sorry that I still can't stop crying and that almost 3 years later the hurt is still so strong.