I hold my breath. I don't even realize it until I remember to let it out. My shoulders are high, and I forget to loosen up. I am so easy going except I'm not. And this surprises me every time. I think what I want to do is have a little tantrum and an ugly cry. But. That just sounds exhausting, and I don't have time for it anyway.
Ivy keeps carrying around this photo of me in the hospital after I had Grayson. Little Noah and Carter with their matching buzz cuts are on the hospital bed with me and baby Gray. But Ivy cries, face buried in her hands. "I wasn't borned yet. You forgot about meeeeeee!" And no matter how much I try to explain, she doesn't understand. But you were there, you were in my heart. God hadn't made you yet. She loves that photograph but it makes her so sad.
But I missed my brothers! I missed you so much.
And I imagine that she did. All that time waiting. And I think about me and my not-rightness for so long, maybe all my life. I missed her, too, and I didn't even know it. And how many things that I love make me so sad, too. Why they do that? Why? The things I miss that just aren't here yet.
School concert tonight: the high school gym was full of kids and coats and hot. Gray and Ivy would not sit still and there was music, so, Ivy thought it was a personal invitation to perform a ballet and her shoes squeaked on that gym floor with every spin. I took her to the stairwell so that she could dance, I took her on a walk, I sat down again in the bleachers and knew that if we could just get through this, it would be worth it. And it was.
*bff Jenny recommended the Pandora station to me, btw.
-- linking up w/ just write
"and how many things that I love make me so sad, too."
ReplyDeleteTears tonight reading about your sweet Ivy and your heart and head and mine, too.
Sometimes...dancing solves everything.
ReplyDelete:)
I just love you. I so get this.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I want another baby so badly.
Ivy breaks my heart and melts it all at the same time.
ReplyDeleteYou write melancholy so beautifully. And reading this makes me think your post today is not so very different from the one I wrote for JW.
ReplyDeleteI am tellin' ya these 2008 babies are heart tuggers for sure!
ReplyDeleteJen
Yes. Yes, and yes. Beautiful.
ReplyDeleteYou are so good at this free-writing, Steph. Really you are. Why do they have to do that? Maybe so we appreciate them more? I'm not sure. But they are worth it -- always worth it -- and yes, how very much we will miss it all.
ReplyDeletevery beautiful writing!
ReplyDeleteOh my, I have chills. She loves so very big, doesn't she?
ReplyDeleteBeautifully told.
{Sometimes I just want to give into the Ugly Cry, too.}
Love this! My daughter Jordan used to say all the time when she was little, "I miss your mom!." Mom died before she was born, but I have no doubt she knew her and heaven and DID miss her here!
ReplyDeletep.s. I love Pandora too! The other day I heard something GORGEOUS come up on the classical radio station and reached to the dashboard to press LIKE! Ooops! Pandora has me spoiled. :)
ReplyDeleteGorgeously written and felt. as always Steph.
ReplyDeletexo
You always write so beautifully, straight from the heart. It's lovely.
ReplyDeletePerhaps Ivy still remembers where she was before she was born and knows she wasn't with all of you yet. Bruce used to say I pushed him out of the way so that I could be born first. You are so good with your kids and Ivy will understand where she was in that picture in time.
ReplyDeleteSteph, thank you for helping me feel understood. I love you.
ReplyDeleteI love that girl. She is just so precious. :)
ReplyDeleteAnd I can totally relate to thinking that you're so easy going only to recognize that you're exactly not. Over the weekend, we were driving around near our mall to have lunch, & I REALLY did not want to go anywhere near the mall because, as I told my husband, "I don't like people." He asked me if I realized that I was one of those people, too.
Oy.
beautiful!
ReplyDeleteOh, that Ivy of yours is just so precious. I love her concern over that photo...and the fact that you can miss something you didn't even know you were missing yet. Isn't it crazy to look back on our lives before kids, before marriage...and wonder how we ever lived life withOUT them?
ReplyDelete"And how many things that I love make me so sad, too."
ReplyDeleteTruth.
Sometimes I feel like my comments have no business cluttering up your posts, Steph. But since I'm already here and making a mess, I'll go ahead and say this:
ReplyDeleteIf your heart ain't hurtin', it ain't workin'.
I like the thought that we were sad because we missed things. That we didn't even know why we were sad because of course we didn't know what we were missing.
ReplyDeleteOkay, reading that paragraph over was confusing. But you get what I'm trying to say :)
Hope your day is going better.
So beautifully told. Your daughter's words so precious and your words to her so sweet.
ReplyDeleteI sometimes want to quit too. But like you I'm not. Glad that you found some comfort in music :)
Ah! Adelaide asks me ALL THE TIME where she is in old photos of our family before she was born. No amount of 'splaining helps here either!
ReplyDelete1. I need that pandora station right now.
ReplyDelete2. Ivy and Libby would be best friends if we lived near each other and would dance all the time together.
3. Libby was just sure today when we bought gifts to donate in Emma's name, that she was not getting any presents at all this year. SO dramatic. Where did this come from?
Oh yeah...from us ;)
Music speaks to me as well, it speaks deep within to my soul and I hear things that I am sure that no one else does. Now I must check out that station...I am sure I will love it.
ReplyDeleteWe all want to quit at times, but look at all we would miss if we quit. I love how Ivy loves her brothers so much and they love her right back.
ReplyDelete