I started out with a huge gusto and had flashes of white hot writing that left me beat at the end of the day. And then, a day passed without writing, and another and another. It has been almost two and a half weeks since I've contributed much to the project at all. And I wasn't sure why until tonight, when I had a bit of a breakdown.
The act of remembering this story has become rather difficult. It had been something I thought I had left behind us in the NICU. But as I put our story down and detail it in as close to an unfiltered tale as possible, it had become increasingly more difficult for me to get out without feeling a rather embarrassing amount of anxiety.
I feel like I've scratched open raw wounds far deeper than I had allowed myself to understand. I had been so far in denial and shock that I had created a thick veneer of positivity I refused to look behind.
But as I had been writing, the veneer began to chip away and the process of writing became less cathartic and more traumatic. But even then I was in denial about what I felt, trying to blame my procrastination on the frenetic life of a mom with two little ones in the midst of cold and flu season.
Tonight, I made a promise to write with purpose every night this week, to try and restart my enthusiasm for the project. And as I wrote, trying to detail the day the Bean was born, it hit me. Hard and powerfully like a thump to the chest, an ache that hurt my heart so bad it brought tears to my eyes. I wasn't over the trauma of the day my sweet girl was born. I'm not anywhere close.
I spoke with Mister Magpie and we had a discussion about why we pushed through the awful parts and never really dealt with how we were surviving. We just knew we had to.
And he said exactly what I needed to hear. "This book you're writing, it isn't for us. It's for all of the families going through it right now. For the families that will go through it." And so I am going to make a promise to those people I haven't met and likely never will. I'm going to push past my fear, past my tears and fight to get this book together. I need to try and give some comfort to the most terrifying joyful experience I've been grateful to survive.
Please try and help remind me that this is important if I stop talking about it or mention I've been putting it off. There are families that might get some comfort from our experience!
Thanks for your love and support!!!
