I don't remember what mourning looks like anymore. I can't tell if I am still mourning or if I've moved beyond it. It's been more than a year since it happened and I don't know yet if I have achieved the return to normalcy that I have coveted for so long.
I mean, how normal can it be when you send in an application that will change your entire life two months after a tragedy?
It seems to me that mourning is just more subtle these days. I don't always hide or unfollow my friends with giant baby bumps or new babies. It's easier every day to be okay. But okay also makes me feel like I should be taking next steps again, moving back towards shots and in vitro and blood draws, and then I'm filled with anxiety again, knowing I'm back at square one.
People always try to make me feel better. Asking if I have any frozen embryos (I don't) or if my insurance will pay (they won't) or when exactly I'm planning to try again (how should I know?). I appreciated the other day in my Spanish seminar when the teacher noticed my heart tattoo, presumably for the first time, and asked about it. I explained the poem and the miscarriage, and, in a very blunt but welcome way, asked, "Doesn't it make you sad?"
I forget what exactly I said but I know that it doesn't. The tattoo reminds me that I experienced a real thing, and that for a couple of months I had real hope and a chance.
Sometimes when I'm lying in bed with my hand supporting my head and the mark I chose fully visible, my husband leans over and kisses it. And I remember the hope we shared and the joy I felt more than the pain that followed.
But has the pain ever really left? That I can't say.
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