Layers and Layers
I have spent the past year sifting through layers.
I still remember what I wore that day. September 3rd, 2015. I had on a new-ish red maternity shirt, and khaki maternity shorts because it was warm. I knew that I had a stash of maternity shirts somewhere that I had been unable to locate, so I had begrudgingly bought a few while I continued to search.
I went to the appointment nervous, after the alarming ultrasound of the previous week, with a list of questions about what intrauterine growth restriction meant, and what were the possible outcomes. I never got that far into my appointment.
I left the hospital two days later with those clothes stuffed into a bag, no longer pregnant.
When I became pregnant again, I could not wear that red shirt. I would have burned it if I hadn't simultaneously feared burning down my entire house.
I have spent the past year sifting through layers. Peeling back layers and exposing myself. Hiding behind layers of guilt and discomfort. Exploring layers through writing. Drowning in layers of tears.
Glennon Doyle Melton writes: "You wake up one day and realize that you have put yourself back together completely differently. That you are whole, finally, and strong — but you are now a different shape, a different size." I am not whole, but I have put myself back together, piece by piece, and I am a different shape.
I am physically a different shape. I am still working on accepting that. Two second-trimester length pregnancies within a year have left a toll. My shape is different, inside, as well, from focusing on yoga since March.
I am emotionally a different shape. I cry all the time. I cry hard. I cry in the bathtub. I cry openly, and behind sunglasses. There is a different understanding for people who are going through grief. I have needed to lean on others in a way that I had never considered before. We are a community of people who know what it is like to lose someone that you love so much that it has an emotionally altering impact on your life.
I am mentally a different shape. I am stronger in some areas, and weaker in others. I tend not to let the small stuff bother me anymore, because I know that there are much bigger life problems. I talk openly about being in therapy. There is strength in talking about my weaknesses. But my weaknesses are plenty as well. Guilt, resentment, and anger still plague me. I am weak in that I am sometimes not strong enough to show my emotions and instead try to hide or quash them.
Yesterday, one year after finding out she was gone, I was an emotional mess. Today I am numb.
I woke up this morning and could not muster the energy to go to hot yoga. This afternoon, Quentin wanted to do yoga with me. He dragged out our mats and his kid yoga cards.
The first series of poses were "partner poses" where we had to lean on each other for support. In one, he was draped over my back, with me curled up underneath, forming our own layers of parent and child.
That is my weekend. There is a weight on my back. My bones and body are tired.
Anna Burgess Yang