Who is the New Katie?

This journey has changed me. I wish I could describe it - but, I can only convey each day's challenges and the reactions to them. I can't tell people how my soul feels like it's been twisted and wrung out. I can't describe the anxious, nervous, bone-scraping feeling I get trying to communicate with other people now.

I have a tribe that I can talk to - sort of. I have one person in my tribe that I can communicate with incredibly effectively. And my husband, of course. But when I have to talk to strangers, I get -- itchy in my bones. I slip into the plaster mold that I've constructed for myself in the last few years and just get through the interaction.

I probably look completely weird, and utterly fake. Otherwise, I get caught off-guard -- by simple things. Silly things. The other week, I was at a social function with friends. We were seated at a table with strangers. Initially, I was terrified - but I quickly relaxed and realized any conversation would be centered on the function, and not on getting to know each other on a personal level.

Somehow, "How many kids do you have?" flew out of someone's mouth and *thunked* through my throat and into my heart. Like a well-placed arrow. I panicked, and said one.

Then I sobbed inside of my emotional plaster cast, because I felt like I betrayed my boy. I wanted to be strong enough to say that I have two children -- but this would lead to more questions, and I wasn't emotionally prepared to open up to strangers that evening.

I know, one day at a time. But it's frustrating.

Henry's Heaven

I've been having a tough week. I spent the entire weekend with my girl, which is fabulous.. But, in the between moments, when she's napping or elsewhere, there's this feeling of swallowing sadness.

I'm full of it, and yet I keep on swallowing this feeling down. How much can one person hold? It feels like this infinite pool that just absorbs it all.

I feel it even as I tickle my little monster, and as I roar as mommisaurus. It's always there.

There used to be a time that I thought that, maybe, it would go away. But now.. It's only been a year, but I don't think that the drowning ever ends.

I named a star. For Henry. It's actually a double star -- two stars locked in a dance of gravity, shining as one. One star is his shining light - the other is the pieces of ourselves that he took with him when he left us.

http://palebluedot.whitedwarf.org/stars/6859813

Ticking By

There are days that I go through the hours without thinking. And then it hits me - my son is gone. There's no changing this. I'm having a rough week.

I can't believe it's been over a year since we saw his face. I don't want to believe that time has passed at all; I despise that clock for taking me, second by second, further away from the last moment I held my boy. I can smile and say that it's okay, just to get me through, but it's not. It's not okay.

I'm angry at the world today.