Easy Place To Be

Today was a rough day.

To put it simply, I'm tired of being a bereaved mother.

It's been a year now since we first started on our journey of finding a new church and while I've never really *liked* change and so that alone is hard for me, I find it close to excruciating to be somewhere where Rachel isn't known.

Ezra is approaching the 9 month mark and if you've been reading here long, you know this is one of my most favorite ages... and with that comes so much missing her.  I get excited about his milestones and I try to just be happy and focus on what he is doing, but it's impossible to not have each one of those moments be followed by an  "I wonder what she would have been like...."

We stopped at her grave on the way home from church.  The ice was finally gone, so we took down the garland and Christmas lights.  It was a rough visit....  I stood there, fighting with the flag stand and lights - trying to change things up so it looked fresh and tidy, (without actually having anything new to bring to her) as the wind whipped my hair in my face and my hands ached from the cold, I felt this... I don't know... anger mixed with defeat... building up in me.

I haven't been able to get there - I haven't been able to decorate like I used to or want to.... I haven't been able to find the time or have had the drive to bring my ideas to reality... and at times I just can't think of a single thing I could do.  I'm all out of ideas... I feel dry... and I want to just say that perhaps it means it's time to let it go and not worry about it, but any time I have let it go for more than a couple of weeks, I get really emotional and I usually don't even recognize why until I fall apart on top of her grave at some unplanned visit.

I put the flag stand in over and over and over... and over again... I couldn't get it 'right' and finally I blurted out "I'm so F-ing tired of cemeteries!" and I started crying...hard. (kind of goes with the majority of my day today) as I gripped the stand and pushed it deeper into the soil on top of my baby's grave... the daisy lights I had clipped on it fell off and I stood there, blinded by puddles of tears in my eyes and sobbing. Matt just watched me, unsure of what to do and said "It's not an easy place to be..."

Easy place to be?  I don't have one of those... this is my life.  I get no break from this.  Whether I'm fighting with a flag stand in a windy cemetery, sitting in a new place where nobody knows she is *always* on my mind, or watching my newest baby stand for the first time... nothing is easy.  Nothing is simple.  Nothing is what it appears at face value.  And honestly, I'm so tired of things being so emotionally complicated.  I can almost not even stand to be in my own head anymore.  I wish I had an 'easy' place.  I wish I had a simple place.  I *wish* I could talk "normal" mother stuff and have that actually be all that was on my mind. If only for just a short time here and there, I could slip into a space in time where I was more like everyone else and less like a mother who watched my little girl die in my arms before I even knew for sure that she heard me say "I love you".

I would love to have an easy place to be.