What a Mess

Roo's crib has been taken apart, but if you looked in my bedroom you'd still think I shared my space with a baby. Or, at the very least, you'd know that I had at some point. Where the crib once was are stacks of blankets and boxes of clothes, folded but disorganized. I was looking at them a few minutes ago and at the bottom of a laundry basket was my favorite Roo sleeper - brown with pink polka dots. I called them her gingerbread jammies, because she looked just like a little gingerbread baby. All she needed was a little hat. I loved her in those jammies. She was wearing them when she met her mom and dad.

The sight of those jammies made me sad. I asked myself why, two months later, all of Roo's belongings are still crowding the better part of my room. There's no need to have things sitting out in the way. I don't have a job yet, so I've got no excuse for not taking the time to pack everything away neatly and put them in the garage. So why haven't I done it yet? Staring at the gingerbread jammies, tears in my eyes, I think I figured out why.

So many of Roo's things have been taken apart, packed up, put away out of sight. My time with Roo seems so long ago, seems almost like a dream at times. Sometimes I think if it weren't for my c-section scar, I'd think I made it all up in my head. Did I really have a baby? Was I really a mommy for nine weeks? I don't want to forget. I don't want that time to disappear. And so my room is a mess. Because if I can see Roo's things, her toys and blankets and jammies, I know she was here, she was mine, and I was her mommy. I see these things and I remember, and as hard as it can be, as tough as it was to see those soft pink polka dots, it was also a comfort. Bittersweet, a happy sad. I almost feel that I need to keep these things right where they are, where I can see them, see them and remember.

Part of me worries that if I pack everything away, I'll have nothing left of Roo and our precious time together. That without a visual reminder, the memories will fade. I worry that packing things up will be too hard, like placing her all over again.

I think that eventually I will be able to do it. But not yet. And I'm not going to rush myself. If I want a mess of baby clothes and toys in my room, I'll have one. Whom does it harm? It's not as though the stacks and piles are doing me any kind of emotional harm. On the contrary, as I've said, I think they help me at this point. I like going into my room and seeing Roo's things. If it means being a mess for a while longer, so be it. I'd rather be a physical mess right now than an emotional one. And I'm feeling good today. So the mess remains.

I like to think of it as sort of a monument to my Roo. A freshly laundered shrine to the sweetest baby I have ever known. I see it and I am happy. And that's good enough for now.