Eighteen Months

 I had to look at pictures from 18 months ago on my phone the other day... I keep them close to me because they are all I have, but I can't look at them regularly because they hurt me. I was airdropping my pictures from my old phone to the new one and I made sure I kept Radley's pictures so they're close. I also kept the video of his heartbeat from a couple days before he was born. I can't listen to that either, but I can't have it far away from me. It's all I have left. 

 The whole problem is, I wanted so much more than pictures and a video of a heartbeat monitor. I wanted the first birthday pictures and the random pictures of him and Revven wrestling furiously. I wanted to be able to kick myself for forgetting to take all the milestone pictures like I do with the rest of the kids. I wanted to have him wear hand-me-downs and I wanted him to cry when Reece leaves. I wanted to kiss his head when he used it for a battering ram on some immovable object. I wanted to have to stay awake for hours because he felt sick and wanted to be held. I wanted exhaustion and fear and heart stopping love when I saw him wandering around doing weird little boy things.

 I have the exhaustion, fear and heart stoppage. But not for the reasons I was thinking of when I dreamed about my baby. They are here on a whole different level because he isn't. I realized this morning at 3 am that I have been sleeping with his bear and blanket for 18 months now. 18 months because he hasn't been here for that long to sleep with them himself. I imagine my audience is rather tired of hearing all this from me already, but you know what? I'm tired of it too. We can agree on this matter. I'm tired of missing my baby and having him be away. I'm just not tired of talking about it and that's because he's still gone and I'll always miss him.

 I found the picture of me holding him right after he died and I realized I feel the same inside as I look in the outside in that picture. I look like death, exhaustion and horror. Now I just feel that way and look normal. Nobody would recognize this unless they've seen the same look in their own eyes. In 18 months you learn what the proper mask is for the day... it's just harder to hide your eyes. It's true that the eyes are the windows to the soul, and mine is crippled and ancient.

 I know how to rebuild, I've done it before, but it just gets tiring to keep burning the house down and starting over from scratch. People have all sorts of theories and methods and words to try to bandaid the problem in the way they think is right, but the truth is, none of them are me and none of them know how I feel or what I need to do. They have no clue because they're not me. The best thing to do is sit back, shut up, hang on, and join me on the ride. No armchair quarterbacks allowed. No fly by night word spouts. No comparing me to anybody else or anybody else's stories.

 It takes courage and compassion to do this, and one thing I've most definitely discovered in the last 18 months is that most people don't dare make themselves that vulnerable to this kind of pain. It's easier to talk a lot than it is to just sit and listen. It's easier to pontificate about how you "need to say something" instead of accepting the reality of the fact that just BEING there is better than any words you could speak. Could you just shut up and let me swear? That's all. That's all I'm looking for most days when I crawl into my cave. That's why I crawl into my cave in the first place. I need to hide in the back section and scream at the ceiling.

 You're welcome to join me if you dare. You don't even need to scream and swear with me, just listen while I do. Maybe we could even scare some bats out of my cave. I hate bats.

*disclaimer* I also hate math. I can't do math at 3am on a 4th after a 31st. It's actually only been 17 months... Heh. Heh. Ha. *insert eye roll here*