It's a good thing I decided that writing was therapeutic BEFORE my life got insane so that I didn't have to discover what to do with myself in the midst of the chaos.

And you all get to join me as I share because sharing is caring and I'm totally not strong enough to do this alone. You're welcome. So let me just confess:

It's quite the trial healing from the insane thing that is a c-section with no baby to make it worth it. Every day I get to look at the couple of stretch marks at the bottom of my belly and my 6 inch incision and wonder how little I would care if I had Ellie in my arms. But on the flip side I don't mind them..because clearly I wish she were with me, no need to even say that--but if this is the way it has to be then I'm glad she marked my body.

I'm sure this is going to come as a surprise to many of you, but I'm basically a really stubborn person. Jokes. Everyone and their brother knows this. But I'm pretty sure Ellie was too because she made it WAY longer than any doctor thought she would. And her dad's stubborn too but he won't admit it. Because he's stubborn. But basically what I'm trying to say is that the day I got home from the hospital I essentially ran up the flight of stairs to our door and my mom and husband and other mom and sister in law were there to witness it. I didn't literally run. That's insane. But my pain meds were out of my system by then and I didn't pause at all on any given step. This was probably dumb of me because I got inside, sat down on the couch and then cried for like 5 seconds because it hurt pretty friggin' bad--but for some reason I felt that if I stopped long enough on any one stair to rest, I'd realize how bad I hurt and then I'd feel defeated.

This is my problem.

Because I write and I keep busy and I listen to music and screw around and recover stools and then at the end of the day I realize that I'm too scared to just stop because of how bad it hurts. So last night before bed, I grabbed Ellie's box and I forced myself to hold her dress and smell her beanie and her blanket and I made myself do it alone. Then Chris found me and obviously he makes everything better but that's not the point. The point is that I'm the queen of running from myself. Sometimes I refuse to even listen to worship music because it forces me to think of heaven and eternity and then I get immensely jealous that God is with her and I am not. And that thought leads me down to a darker place of wondering what it would be like to just not be here.

Pause. Not suicidal. Promise. It's just a dark place, ya know? So I just smelled her and cried into her blanket and allowed myself to feel really freaking awful because that's what it feels like.

This is progress. I am proud of myself.

And this has been enough thinking about it all for today, so I'm going to go drink some wine and make Christopher hug me.