Two Weeks

Has it really only been two weeks?

Two weeks ago, actually, if you're going by the clock, I still had my baby in my arms. She wasn't, strictly speaking, my baby anymore, but P and M were great about letting me get in a few last cuddles with her, and I think it was closer to 9pm by the time I handed her over.

It feels like two months, at least. In many ways, this has been the longest two weeks of my life. I have had so little with which to occupy my time that the days, at times, seem endless. I have tried to find things to do. I have tried to keep busy. But when you are accustomed to spending your days (and nights) tending to a newborn baby, there is almost nothing you can do that will fill your time in a comparable manner.

I have spent the past three days painting my living room (I am a perfectionist, as well as a slow, lousy painter), and even that fails to keep me busy enough. Five, six hours a day and I'd had it; I needed to rest. It still feels strange to be able to rest. I find at times that I feel like I'm forgetting something, or like there is something that I am supposed to do that I've forgotten about. I still have moments when I panic - where's Roo? - before I remember that there is no longer a baby in the house.

I need a job, I suppose. But I still have too many moments where it's all too much, and I can't trust that I wouldn't, for instance, see someone with a baby wherever I might work, and simply fall apart. I think I need a little more time to get used to not being a mommy again before I seek out gainful employment.

Two weeks. Is that really it? The rough first few days after placement seem eons ago. Maybe that's my brain's defense mechanism. Maybe it's easier to pretend that it was much longer ago that I was in such a bad place, and in such a sad state.

I couldn't sleep without a sedative. I did not change out of my pajamas. I did not shower, I did not wash my face or hair, I did not brush my teeth, I did not eat. I don't know what I did during the day. I have vague memories of reading and watching TV and sobbing uncontrollably.

I feel that I have come a terribly long way in such a short space of time - but I still feel I have a long way to go before I'm anything near normal again. Or, what will be normal. One thing I have learned over time is that normal is a subjective term. What is normal will change five, six, seven times over the course of a person's life. One year later, it still doesn't quite feel right that my father is gone, but it feels a bit more normal for him to not be here. I wonder how long it will be before Roo's absence feels normal to me.

I think it gets just a tiny bit easier every day. I wonder how I will feel in two more weeks, when it's been a month. I wonder how I will feel in six weeks, when P and M will have had Roo for as long as I had her. Better, I hope.

I am going to have hard times, I know. I think that, for the rest of my life, I will have times every now and then when I will miss Roo more than I can bear. But as long as in the long run I feel better and better instead of worse, I think I will be okay.

I know I will be okay. I don't know when, but it will come. Roo's future is so bright. Why shouldn't mine be just as happy? God will bless me for placing Roo. I am sure of it.