What to write?

It's been a while since I have journaled (I don't even think that's a real word, I can't get spell check to tell me it is).  I've been filling my days with arts and crafts projects with the kids and for the house.  With driving Jackson to and from preschool while getting Caroline on and off the bus.  Trying to encourage Ryan to speak, or at least make sounds, and arranging his Early Intervention services for a speech delay.  I find myself busy cleaning the house, playing outside with the kids, grocery shopping and going to the Y to work out.

These are the things I fill my life with since we moved.  I am really liking it actually.  Finding it rewarding, and healing.  A few new friendships are being nurtured.  Pretty sure God, and some angel babies, are coordinating these for me.  These women have kind hearts.  Open hearts.  They want to hear about Ethan.  About me as a mother of four.  Two of them know this road - one is guiding me along it, as her sweet daughter Elise was born still five years ago.  My neighbor lost her first set of twins, her daughter & son, to premature delivery 10 years ago.  Another thinks of me and Ethan and lets me know that.  And another lets me hold her baby, when I feel that I am able to.  It's all quite amazing really.  How did I ever fear not being seen as a mother of four in our new community?  Fear not being understood in my grief?  Of course I feared that, though those appear unfounded.  So thank you Angela.  Thank you Leanne.  Thank you Dee.  Thank you Michele.  Thank you God.

Overall I have been doing OK.  Lots of decent days emotionally - with several moments of genuine happiness around.

Then the tears come.  Once a week, maybe twice a week now.  Last night they came.  Not the painful, aching sobbing cries.  But the tears streaming down my face, quietly so, kind of cry.  I looked at the pictures of my sweet son because I wanted to.  And I smiled through the tears.  He was so beautiful, wasn't he?  Impossibly so.  His body just didn't do what it was supposed to.  None of the medical interventions worked how they were intended.  No explanations for that.  Early on I repeatedly asked myself "why?"  I don't know.  And never will.  I have come to believe that Ethan was given to Josh and me...as a glimpse into the Divine.  He was just that.

So I write tonight because it has been too long.  I don't feel pressured to journal because it has been a couple of weeks.  But rather know that writing is part of my self-care.  I've found myself forgetting to take my anti-depressant until the end of the day occasionally.  I don't go to therapy or a support group any longer - and don't feel the need to right now.  But I don't want to let my self-care regime slip completely.  So I take my pill every morning, journal tonight, and run 3-4 miles a few times a week at the Y.  Oh, and lose myself on Pinterest like any good stay-at-home mom.