The thoughts that haunted me then still haunt me now. They're a whisper now, constantly trying to break through to take precedence, just waiting in the back of my mind. I try not to let them anymore. I know I'm not the only one. If I was, we wouldn't have found a new house and moved as soon as we got our hands on the key. It's bigger but doesn't feel as empty. There were times I couldn't even stand to be alone in our room for more than a few seconds, when everything would come running at me and knock me over before I even knew what was happening. I hate that feeling. I hate being blindsided by ghosts from our past that continuously haunt us.
It's better here though. I feel less frazzled and more calm. I can fall asleep easier, I'm less stressed about Emma and work. But I'm worried all the time. I've never seen Nic so distant before, so tense. He's been stressed before. We've seen each other at our worst, but this is just part of it. I don't know what to do for him in this, there's nothing any of us can do aside from just waiting and hoping for the best. Waiting and hoping he'll wake up soon. Please don't take him. We've been through enough over the past year and a half and I think we're about at our breaking point. We're on this very fragile precipice that's threatening to collapse beneath our feet at any given moment.
October 11th. This would have been an important day last year. It already is an important one, just not the one we would have preferred. I still don't know when his/her birthday would have been, but I'll go with the estimated one because it's all I'll ever have. It doesn't get any easier to swallow. All of these lost opportunities swept away in the blink of an eye. We went from one day having everything at the tip of our fingers, just waiting in oblivious excitement and nervousness for something great to come along in a few months. Eventually it did, we have Emma. The hardest part is never knowing anything. There are questions I'll never be able to answer for myself and I've accepted that. I just don't like it. All of those "what if's" that ceased to exist the minute our clock seemed to stop that morning. "What if's" that will never fade like other memories in the past do, I won't be able to lose this to the passage of time. It's a pain that will haunt me forever, even if just in small doses when I least expect it.
The quiet of the night when everyone else is asleep. I can hear Emma's tiny breaths over the monitor, though I still check on her regardless (which might be excessive to others but a necessity to me) and Nic's louder ones next to me. I still have to have the TV on to distract me long enough to fall asleep without my mind drifting away. It's a rabbit hole I'm not too eager to fall down. The birthdays we won't get to celebrate, the big milestones like walking and talking. Forever rocking and feeding on the fussy nights and yet still being in awe of something so tiny. Which eyes and nose, what smile and color of hair? Your name. They were just within reach but were taken away without any warning. Excitement and nerves and hope reduced to nothing but a puddle and a lifetime of guilt over something that wasn't my fault.
Then when I'm holding Emma or watching from a distance away while Nic holds her, I understand it on some level. We appreciate everything so much more than I know we would have otherwise. A tiny ray of light in the darkness we had drowning us. I don't mind pain anymore, I don't mind exhaustion or having bags under my eyes. It's all worth it just to see those wide eyes brighten when she sees one of us. We would have still had that, we would have still be just as in love with that child, but now we don't take any of it for granted. Sometimes I wish we were just as lucky as others, but at least part of me is grateful for what we went through. It made us closer and bound us together in ways I didn't even know fucking existed.
I'm sorry you won't get to have a birthday party today, or smash your tiny little fingers into cake and get frosting everywhere. I'll get Emma two of them to make up for it next year. I'll never fully understand why it happened.
I'm so sorry you couldn't stay.
