Did I kill my twin boys? My babies?

"I killed my babies." 

That's the thought that goes through my mind at the most random of times. Laying in bed, staring at the ceiling, willing sleep to come, I think, "I was given one job. To protect my baby boys." And I failed. You'll either understand that. Or you won't. I went through hell to get pregnant. Shots, scan, hormones, pills, hope, disappointment...

http://stillstandingmag.com/2015/07/kill-twin-boys/

Invisible and Lost

I've loved 2 men, completely. One my dad, the other J. 

My dad has never let me down, has always had my back and has never left me feeling insignificant or that I didn't matter. 

J was the answer to so many prayers and dreams. After a divorce from a man I knew was wrong, losing a stepson I raised and loved, having my self confidence wrecked becasue he found he liked girlfriends more than me, my self confidence was nothing.

Meeting J, it was something so special. He's gregarious, he's outgoing, the life of the party. After feeling completely isolated and ignored, he made me feel beautiful, important and special. 

Life wasn't perfect, it was quite hard. There were a lot of road blocks thrown at us but we maneuvered our way around them, together. 

We lived life. So fully and completely. We raised kids who had completely hectic, full schedules, we laughed til we cried, we loved each other and I had never felt more loved, special and protected than I did with him. In his arms, I was safe and more content than I'd ever been.  

Losing the boys changed us. We grieved and dealt with things differently and as much as I wanted to be "ok" for him, I couldn't even be "ok" with myself until I had put in the sweat equity that comes with grief. 

And then when I got to the place I could take care of others becasue I could, finally, take care of myself, he was gone. 

I can't blame him. Life, those months after the deaths of our boys, was hell. There were days I didn't get out of bed. The thought of doing anything more than breathing was overwhelming because I was drowning in the pain of still living when my heart had died. Twice. 

You can't make people stick around for the "better" after the "worse" has made them hate you.  

I didn't cheat. I didn't lie.

I grieved.

The loss of the boys is a pain that lessens because the reminders aren't there everyday. I'd say, with that, that the pain is sometimes worse because the reminders come out of nowhere. 

But I lost them, and I survived. 

Losing my best friend, the one who wrote me poems, who would come to my defense to anyone who looked at me cross, the man who was at most every dr's appt during the rollercoaster of getting pregnant and after, to not leaving my side during the stay in the hospital is a pain and loss like one I've never experienced. 

So I don't know how to navigate. 

We are past the point of reconciliation, we are living completely separate lives and have for a long time. 

We each moved on differently. 

He with the kids and dog. 

Me without anything other than myself. 

Is this a pathetic blog about a girl that can't move on?  

I'd like to think not. 

I've dated, I've been "over" the loss of us for awhile because I didn't have a choice. 

If he came back to me tomorrow, I know we wouldn't be compatible anymore because too much has changed. We have grown in completely opposite places. 

Doesn't stop the pain of not having your best friend in your everyday life. I'm facing decisions that would be really comforting to have another opinion on. 

But I'm here, just me. 

I was made for more than I am. I'm successful at my job, I have financial stability that affords me the ability to breathe.  Which is great. 

But I'm also lonely. 

I'm successful as a sales person. It feeds a part of my soul, the closing and negotiating of deals, and I'm not myself without that. 

But I was made for more. 

I'm a wife. I'm a mom. 

Without a family. 

My heart desires that, more than anything, and after the chaos of such a full life, the silence of being alone is deafening. 

I've been great, really just good and at peace. My job has been more than successful. My family and friends are ao incredibly supportive. 

So I feel pathetic for crying over something that is gone. 

Not the boys, I couldn't have done anything to save them.  And that is a guilt and pain you don't know unless you've delivered, and lost, 2 babies. 

What is gone is the life I had with a best friend who I thought knew me better than anyone else.  Who was still willing to walk away from me, the person he knew so well. 

If that doesn't make you feel invisible, inadequate and unworthy, I'm not sure what would. 

I have felt, for awhile, because I love that man so much, that I would give up all the healing I've fought for, to give him some peace, because I know I'm strong enough to fight my way out of the darkness again if it meant that someone I loved didn't hurt.  

Then the benefit of social media smacks me in the gut and shows me that he is happy. He's ok. He's as handsome as ever and his smile is brighter than I was able to put on his face. 

He's moved on. 

I guess it's time for me to do the same.

I have a lot of blessings waiting for me in heaven. My heart, as damaged as it is, believes I'll have some more blessings here on earth, too. 

So, what more can I do than this?  I'll put a smile on my face, I'll continue to live my life and will be confident that God has laid the dreams on my heart for the sole purpose of knowing it will be because they will come to be. 

Life is hard. Some days suck a whole lot more than others. 

I have loved a lot of people. I've lost a great number of them but I'm thankful that it hasn't, nor will I allow it, to harden my heart to not continue to love, hope and believe. 

I'm just a crazy gal, with a lot to say about the realities of this hard knock of life. 

Divorce, sparkly souls and life.

Dang. 

Life. 

Crazy how it works huh?  

Heard a song "some days are diamonds some days are stone..."

Couldn't have said it better myself. 

I've had 5 new cars in 7 years. 

I've lived in 7 places in 10 years. 

I've had 2 husbands in 10 years. 

I've had a part in raising and loving and/or giving birth to 6 kids in 10 years. 

Answering basic questions should be easy, what's your last name?  "Neu,  No?  Umm, Billington?  Harris?   Address, Lanier?  No?  Um, Capital Dome?" 

The only thing I have left out of that is a new car and MEEE!  

I don't let a lot of weeds grow beneath my feet, not because I've had a choice in most of this but because it's the hands I've been dealt. And I'm playing them. 

Life hasn't made much sense in the past few years. I've been up, I've been down. I've been full of joy, I've been full of sorrow. Sometimes in the same day, sometimes in the same hour. If that's not confusing, I don't know what is. 

The past few months I've had a change in perspective. I've changed my prayers from what I want, to thanking God, out loud, for the things I have. There's something very real about driving down the road, praying out loud, tears streaming down your face, thanking God for a life you have when it doesn't make sense. 

I've been on the receiving end of so much kindness and support, I'm overwhelmed. I try not to let the well meaning people's sentiments hurt but sometimes they do.  Because as much as people try to understand, truth is, most people can't. And that's a lonely enough place to be, in and of itself, without their advise that sometimes makes you want to punch a wall. 

My life, over the past few months, has been crazy. In just a really good way, completely nuts, but still just crazy. 

I've made some really hard decisions that broke my heart, but also, set me free.

If that's not heavy, I don't know what is. 

I let my embryos go. I sold my wedding ring, I traded in the car I had that shouldn't mean anything but did because, that too, was something that held a lot of memories. 

I've picked myself up, every single day, and made a conscience decision to live. 

That day.  Day by day.  

Mother's Day nearly killed me. I expected to breeze thru it but I didn't. I cried for 3 days straight. 

But I made it through. 

Seems silly to say but what hasn't killed me, truly has made me stronger. 

Hear this though, I didn't just decide to "start living again."  I didn't just wake up one day ok. 

I made a decision, each time I felt like I was suffocating, to keep breathing. That each time I felt like I was drowning, to keep swimming. When I was crushed by the weight of everything I've lost, to truly let myself rest in the knowledge that if God was asking me to release what I've known and loved, it was because He has greater for me. 

That's not lip service. I believe it. 

With tears running down my face, I believe it. 

I'm strong. Stronger than I ever imagined I'd have to be but a funny thing happens when you lose your heart. 

It grows again.

If you let it. 

I've made the decision that I'm not ok with how things are. I won't accept that things can't be better because, if that were true, I'd never be in the position I'm in where I have more than I ever expected. 

It's not what I wanted. It's not what I prayed for and it's not what I expected my life to be, it's a different kind of ok. 

That's the funny thing about life. 

We don't script it. We simply love it. 

I've dumbed myself down to try to fit. I've minimized the work I've done, every single day, in an effort to mend things. 

That's not fair to me or the journey I've been on. 

You can either get thru life feeling, being present and growing from the pruning or you can die on the vine because you're not willing to hurt. 

I've hurt. 

More than I ever imagined one person could. 

But I made it through. 

I didn't just decide today to start enjoying life. I didn't just wake up one day and feel better. It's a process, it's a long and heavy road of confusion and chaos, and because I hurt, because I felt, because I went through the pain, I'm able to look forward to the beauty that is in front of me. 

I've never lost myself. I've lost a lot. I've lost an entire family, my world shifted and changed and I sometimes I don't know my address, my name or where I'm going next but I'm confident in this. 

Life is hard. 

But my will to have what I want and deserve and have worked so hard to have is stronger than any pain I've faced. 

I didn't get here alone. I got here with an army of beautiful people, a God whose grace is more abundant than anything I've ever known and a desire to make every single blessing more beautiful because of the pain I've allowed myself to feel. 

Life is hard. 

Let me say this, if someone shares with you a piece of their heart, even if it doesn't mean much to you, it took courage for them they probably don't feel too confident in. Acknowledge it. Be human enough to give them something back. Even if it's small. What may seem insignificant to you may go a long way in healing someone's brokeness. 

Seems silly not to do something as simple as a text, phone call, email back that literally takes seconds but could change someone's life. If you could do that, help someone's heart by being human enough to respond, wouldn't you? 

Won't you? 

What would be harder that the pain of loss, I think, is a life of regret, not lived out of fear. 

Had I not loved so greatly, the pain wouldn't be so deep. 

I'll never regret opening myself to the possibility of the pain that comes from having an open heart, because the love I've known has forever changed me and given me the courage, the strength and the fight to see how this story ends. 

I'm halfway through.  It's been a rollercoaster of crazy but it's not been boring. 

I can rest in knowing this, I don't know what tomorrow holds but I know I'm strong enough to make the decisions to get me where I want to go. 

High heels, sparkly soul and another last name.  

Selfies with Mom

I've had this "life is what you make it"

and "don't wait for losing 20lbs, a man, a baby, to write a book until blah blah blah to do what you want to do" attitude lately. 

I've thought, seriously, about taking a few weeks and traveling somewhere. Alone. Napa, Nantucket, I've even had a wild hair to get my passport and go somewhere I've never been and do things I've never experienced, with just me because right now, well, it's just me. 

Then I do something alone and realize I hate being alone. 

My Mom wanted to go to the Columbia for Mother's Day so I met them in St Augustine. I circled the restaurant for 20 minutes until I could navigate, with google maps, how to find it.  In the midst of being lost, my mom calls and can hear the panic in my voice and asks where I am so I look to the left and say "beside Monkey Balls Cafe."  My mom being my mom asks the host, "my daughter is lost, she's beside Monkey Balls Cafe, can you give her directions?" 

In a sea of tourists, going down streets I was certain weren't meant for cars and passing up parking spaces because I can't parallel park to save my life, on the brink of hysteria. 

With people everywhere. Everywhere!  

I guess the historic old town doesn't believe in valet. 

After nearly bumper checking clueless people walking in the middle of the street not hearing my obviously invisible car about to run them over, a verbal altercation with a parking attendant, and 14 3-point turns to make it into a spot, I finally made it to the restaurant. 

Pissy and anxious but had a lovely dinner with my parents. 

Part of being an adult is knowing your limitations and a vacation 45 mins from home at a beach resort where you don't have to leave the property is probably the closest to exotic vacations I'll get until I'm coupled up or have a higher dose prescription of Xanax. 

So I do what any emotionally on the edge person does. 

I went to the boy's tree. 

Alone. 

My parents would have gone, they probably wanted me to ask them to go with me but as much as I hate being alone, somethings just feel like they need to be done in solitude. 

My boy's tree is in a beautiful place. It's quiet, peaceful, healing, really just beautiful and as much as I hate it, I love it even more. 

Their tree is growing like crazy. It's taller than me now. Amazing what 28 months can do for things. 

I know people were staring at me. This crazy blonde, kneeling beside a tree, trying to take a selfie with the only thing I can that physically represents the passage of time without my boys, a grieving mother trying to pose in front of a tree. 

I'm trying to wrangle the tree, snap a selfie, and looked up to see a family stopped in front of me. The dad and kids had kept walking but the mom wasn't even hiding that she was staring at me. I smiled, embarrassingly, then looked at her family and realized she had 2 boys, same age, same clothes, probably 3 year old twin boys, and I just laughed. 

Because when you are at the tree where your boys ashes are buried and you see a mother staring at you with twin boys, there's not much else you can do. 

I'll tell you something about life. And grief. And feelings in general. 

They don't make sense. 

Hardly ever. 

I saw the bear I got the boys at Christmas, still there, beat up and probably assaulted by more than a few squirrels, but it's been there everytime I go. And still plays music when you press it's foot. So I'm sitting there listening to jingle bells, over and over, coming from this bear that's been through the elements, in front of a tree that is growing, with just myself, who is healing. 

I go up to walk away, feeling pretty ok. Then the anxiety hit me. A full fledged anxiety attack there in the middle of this beautiful place. It always surprised me, each time I went to the boy's tree, that the bear was still there and I didn't realize how much I needed it to be there until I walked away from it and knew how much it would hurt if I came back and it was gone. 

So I went and got it and took it with me. 

Not logical, but I realize logic went out the window a long time ago and I'm finding healing however I need to, as crazy as it may be. 

Everyday. 

Mother's Day is hard. For a lot of people. It's really special but it can also be really hard. And I'm trying to let the really special be louder than the really hard but sometimes just hurts worse than others. 

The past few days have hurt. 

I know my limitations and realize I probably won't be taking a solo trip to the south of France like I've thought about but I also never expected I'd be alone, after knowing such love and such loss, and still be able to smile. 

Sometimes you surprise yourself. 

I sat on a bench, overlooking the water and couldn't stop the tears from coming. This Mother's Day is different from last year, for 1000 different reasons and it hurts. 

As the alligator tears rolled from my face to my dress, I went to get my keys and hit the foot of the bear that has come to mean so much to me, jingle bells start playing again so I did what I needed to do. 

Sat there and cried. 

Alone. 

Until a lady walking her dog came up behind me, laid her hands on my shoulders and wished me a Happy Mother's Day.  

She was walking away by the time I turned around but the weight of her hand on my shoulder lifted a load I had been carrying. 

I'm not alone. Not today, not tomorrow. 

I carry two very special boys with me, everywhere I go. 

Happy Mother's Day- from my heart to yours! 

Daddy's little girl and Mom's best friend

I consider my a grown up. I mean, I'm 36, I have a job, pay my bills, have handled some crazy stuff. 

Then I go on a date. 

And the guy has a scar on his lip. Kind of a big scar. I'm imagining a knife fight, a motorcycle wreck, something crazy, right?  So I guess he caught me staring at it, rude, I know, and he touches it and tells me what happened. 

He got bit. By a horse. On his lip. I mean, tragic and scary. But all I could do was picture this and I'm pinching myself not to laugh at the thought of a 2000 lb horse biting this man's lip and I realize I'm not completely mature.

Today I had to make a very grown up decision. And I didn't even realize I was making it until I got in my car to go to my parents and found myself on a road leading me to a place I haven't been ready to go to. 

I found a peace. I knew I was ready. And I was proud of myself for doing it. Until I couldn't. So I do what every grown, adult person does, and called my mom, crying, asking her to tell me I was making the right decision. 

She didn't tell me I was. She didn't tell me what to do. She listened and she prayed and she talked me thru one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. And I did it. And then went to my parent's house and cried on my dad for a little while. 

Not very grown. 

But hugely important. 

I've never doubted whether I could go to my parents for anything. Sometimes I've gone to them for probably too much but I've never questioned whether I could or not. 

So I'm 36 years old, sitting on my parent's couch, first time out of the house in nearly 2 weeks, opening an Easter basket, talking to my parents about very real, very hard, very honest things and I realized I'm not ashamed of running to my mom and dad. Never have been, never will be. 

Life has handed me a lot of really hard times but the one thing that had always been a constant, a sure thing, a never have a doubt about, is that whether I'm 36 or 63, I will never stop wanting, needing or appreciating the 2 most beautiful, real, most selfless people I've ever known. 

My parents did a lot right and here I am, one of them.  They have given me the tools to get thru things they've never faced, they've given me a soft place to land when I needed it, tough love when I didn't want it and a never ending supply of unconditional love. 

I love deep, I forgive always and I trust without ceasing and I'm who I am because 2 incredible souls believed in me!  

I have a lot of voices in my head fighting for attention. Keep the comments to yourself. But of all the voices that speak doubt, fear, rejection and confusion, the voices of my parents speak the loudest. And the moments I question whether I can keep going with the pain, the hurt, the confusion and fear that life brings, I know I can. 

Their voices speak loudest and I've never doubted what I hear. 

I'm blessed. For so many reasons but for most of all them!   

If you have parents, grandparents, the person that's your inner voice, maybe call them, love them, tell them. 

They deserve to know. 

Mom, Dad, how much do I love you?  More than you could possibly ever know! 

When you belong nowhere, 2 years later...

My March article for Still Standing Magazine.

"In two years I've grown.  I've healed.  I've spread my stupid wings and have seen where they can take me.  To some beautiful place where all that is missing is everything I wanted with me. But 2 years later, I'm Standing.  Still."



http://stillstandingmag.com/2015/03/two-years-later-belong-nowhere/

Driving the Struggle Bus

Am I happy?

More so than I've been in too long. 

And it feels fab! 

Truly. 

Fabulous. 

I've taken a break from social media and it's made me look at life differently. After living my life in such a public way, taking time to live privately has been cathartic. 

I've got my divorce papers. I was ready for them. I was strong and ready and anxious to sign them.  

Then I opened them and had a complete and total good ole fashioned go to pieces.  

Seeing the name of the person you married in that context of ending something that was so much of who I was was harder than I wanted it to be. 

But...it's ending something that no longer is. I'm divorcing someone that no longer is to me what I fell in love with and someone I no longer am. 

That's heavy.  It's a very heavy load I've been shouldering, alone, for far too long. 

I recently saw some people I haven't seen in awhile and they all showered me with hugs and love and kindness. And the words, spoken from a lovely soul who has the biggest heart of anyone I've ever known said, "I've missed your smile, it's so good to see it again." 

I can't even say how incredibly good it feels to truly have it back. 

Life isn't easy, things fall on you that are meant to break you and the beauty that comes from walking away with your head high is a powerful thing. 

My head's not always high. I'm grieving the ending of something I didn't expect to end. I'm a lover, I'm a forgiver, I'm someone who needs answers and the struggle bus I've been driving is because sometimes there just aren't answers. And that's hard. 

What's harder was having so much inside me that was unfullfilled for so long. For chasing a love that died a long time ago. For running after answers that would never come and even if they did could never truly make sense. 

There's a peace in making a decision. 

And I feel like I've let the weight of the world and so many unfullfilled promises finally slip off my shoulders. 

So many decisions have been made for me and the control freak in me fought it at every turn. 

It's hard letting go of a dream you had. Even when the dream no longer fit, no longer was a benefit and no longer brought me anything but pain.

I don't have a happiness that lights my smile. Happiness, I know all too well, is fleeting. 

What I have found is a joy that cant be denied. I haven't had the luxury of Facebook to tell me job well done. I haven't had Instagram to tell me that I'm going to make it. 

What I've had, what I found, is that as much as I miss being part of something, the healing I've found with finding myself has been healing in a way I didn't know I needed. 

Dang, that feels good. 

With that understanding, I also know I'm meant to be part of something. I'm better when I'm part of a team, when I have someone else to love. 

I haven't had that but I found something really special I wasn't looking for. 

I found a love, a pride, a peace that can only come from not only believing in but loving yourself. 

What I went thru, what I've faced should have damaged me more than it has. But God has placed an impossibly strong belief that His plans are bigger than ANYTHING I can imagine for myself. 

I lost a lot. I gained even more. And I'm excited, I'm hopeful and I'm ready to see what the next chapter of this crazy life brings me