Whiplash

I kind of feel like I've been giving myself whiplash over the last few days. It's no surprise at all that it is because a year ago, today, I was lying in a hospital bed on the L&D floor, not totally knowing what to expect from the process but being fully aware of the outcome. The weather today is exactly the same as it was last year - bright winter sun, filtered through a high layer of clouds. You can feel the warmth coming through the windows but the air still has a little bite to it. I'm sure this weather will always take me back to that place last year. The last few days have been very strange. I'm also dealing with messed up hormones from losing Collin. Double whammy. My emotions have been a little more exaggerated higher highs and lower lows. But through it all He keeps holding me.

I've been trying to keep my body and mind really busy by working outside, working inside, playing with the kids, teaching the kids, brainstorming house projects and other various things. It, for the most part has been really helpful.
For the most part...
Yesterday was a great day. We went to story time at the library, then to lunch at Ikea so the kids could watch airplanes and the MAX train. We picked up the furniture for Rylan's room. We stopped by the school supplies store. The weather was beautiful and I felt great! I set to work on Rylan's room and ended up getting the ceiling, walls and floor all painted before my bed time. He slept in Karleigh's bed and she fell asleep in ours.

There's something cruel about grief though. It doesn't have any rules that it has to follow. It can just hit you whether you give it permission to or not. I wasn't even sad while working on Rylan's room, in fact, I was thrilled that I had decided to paint the ceiling - it really needed it - and I loved that the paint color really did turn out the way I was hoping. I was cruising along with the radio on to keep my mind from drifting. I moved on to painting his floor and as I got to the last 3 square feet, I just started silently bawling!?!? I kept painting over the tears. I don't even know what set me off, I wasn't even really thinking about anything. I think it was just one of those "this looks so much cleaner..." things and then I was quickly thrown into the thoughts of there I was, painting a bigger boy room instead of a nursery. And not only was I crying about the fact that had Eli not died, it would be the nursery for a little guy who would be starting to crawl, eating solid foods, squealing with delight at everything around him... it would be different. And then I was crying about the fact that had Collin not died, I'd have been painting for a nursery at 20 weeks pregnant with him.
But, that's not what I was doing.
I was painting a big boy room for the sweetest, funniest little guy that I know. And while that thrilled me, the ache was unstoppable.

I haven't gotten much sleep over the last couple days either. I've said it before and I've heard other people say it as well, your mind and body remember on their own whether you purposefully give into or not. I slept almost 4 hours last night and about the same, maybe a little less, the night before. I just can't turn my brain off. I can't stop the memories of last year. I hope this is just a hurdle that I need to get over and I will have all the 'firsts' behind me. I don't know though. I do know that there is peace in my sadness. I know that my sorrow is only for me and what I feel like I'm missing here.

I don't know where this broken road is going to lead me but wherever it's headed I will not be alone. How appropriate that this is the verse from my daily e-votional, dated for tomorrow:

Psalm 46:1-3
"God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. Selah"

I suppose that since I posted about drama while working on Rylan's room, I should show his before and after shots too. I don't think his are dramatic as Karleigh's since the wall color is, essentially, the same but we really like it and even more important, he loves it! Though the goofball crawled into bed for nap this afternoon and looked at me with a twinkle in his eye and asked, "Hey! Where's my hockey pillow!?!" I have no idea what his current fascination with teasing me with hockey statements has come from.

Before:

After: