I knew this year was going to be quite the transitional one, moving from a family of 4 to 5, and knowing we would finally be done growing our family. I anticipated the long, grueling nights with an infant + 2 toddlers. I anticipated the octopus arms I would need to do all the things, and the fact that I would fail at “momming” at least 75% of the time. But I didn’t anticipate how hard it would be on my marriage. I didn’t anticipate how hard it would be on my friendships. I didn’t anticipate how much I would feel torn between what and where to focus without completely forgetting myself as a whole.

It’s like balancing 100 spinning plates and making yourself crazy trying to decide which ones to let fall to make your life easier, if only for a moment. But the funny thing about moments is that they are just that: moments. There are here and then they are gone. It’s so easy to focus on moments, obviously the bad being the easiest to recollect and dissect, but when do we just let moments be moments and move on? What is it about each moment of our lives that allow us to put energy into them, good or bad? Why is it that I can hold on to the stinging words from a “friend”, family member, or my spouse, but I’m all too engrossed in the things that enrage me to focus on the moments when things are good. When things are fine. When things are just as they are, as they should be.

The past few months have been incredibly trying for our family, but as I’ve tried to talk them through and out loud I’ve been made aware that it’s just me. Apparently, while we are riding out a storm, things really aren’t as bad as I make them out to be, it’s just my perception. The tough moments, again, are just moments that will soon pass. So, don’t get caught up in/on them and basically, “just keep swimming”. Well, damn. I feel like I am trying to swim, and keep my head above water in all facets of life being all the things for all the people, but sometimes when I feel something or someone important to me slipping away I tend to put all my focus and energy into them and overanalyze/try to fix whatever is failing.

But you know what’s also funny about moments? You don’t always get to choose them. Sometimes one of those moments is getting a phone call where you’re told that your best friend and her two children were in a terrible car accident and, “They didn’t make it. They all passed away. They’re gone. I’m so sorry”. Sometimes those moments are those where you literally and physically break in an instant, and when you feel like something else in your life is beginning to be taken from you, or that it’s no longer feeling as it should—even if it is completely self-manifested—you will fight like hell to keep anything or anyone else being taken from you like they were.

I can honestly say that it wasn’t until just moments ago (how fitting), that this realization even presented itself to me as to why everything has been such a FIGHT lately. I have texted countless friends using that line: “I’m tired of everything being such a FIGHT all the time!” I know that I haven’t properly grieved. I don’t know how, and I certainly don’t have the time—which is just bullshit, but it’s true. I am needed by so many people in my own immediate family, because that’s just the stage we’re in with our kids ages and my husbands work schedule (it’s not forever, but it’s TERRIBLE timing!), that I can’t even make sense of everything that has happened. I am trying desperately to fix things that maybe don’t need fixing, but could be better in my eyes, and in doing so I am creating panic and chaos when everyone else doesn’t fall in line. Ok, you win. It ISmy fault.

It is my fault for creating the (somewhat) self-inflicted emotion upon myself, just to be given that feeling of control and resolution. When you experience a loss SO senseless and unexpected, you suddenly feel out of control. Finding control in your everyday life becomes a survival/coping technique. But I LITERALLY just figured out that’s what I’ve been doing!! JUST NOW when I started writing this. So, clearly, I am still learning to recognize these moments of challenge: are they challenges I’ve been presented, or challenges I’ve created? I’m still learning, so give me grace…please.

I have never claimed to be perfect. I am, in fact, human. And while I am an advocate for improving areas of ones life with self-reflection, self-care, and joint efforts on the family front, sometimes there will be one person who needs a little extra. A little extra help physically or emotionally, and that doesn’t make them weak. It doesn’t make them irrational. It doesn’t even make them “owe you” if/when you do decide to step up and walk through a tough time with a friend, or partner. Sometimes that’s just what needs to be done. And right now, that’s me. I need a little extra help. (disclaimer: I am also a woman, so my emotions and frequency in which I may need said help may be higher than the average male—just sayin’)

And with that big bomb of emotion having been said, I will leave these words here in efforts to find a moment of peace:

————–

Kim, Solomon, & Tova:

I miss you guys more than I could ever put into words. I am so immensely broken by the fact that you are no longer here earth side. That every goddamn day I am faced with a moment, a sound, a smell, a memory with you in it and I’m still working through how to cope with that. I feel guilty that I haven’t been able to properly grieve you, but I honestly don’t know what that is supposed to look like. I just feel like I should have had more time to just stop and sit with my sadness and anger before being pushed back into the daily hustle of being a mother of 3 young children.

We still haven’t shared the news with them either, which is where more guilt comes from. I want to speak of you with the kids, because I know that talking about things helps ME, but it’s not their job to help me work through this. I don’t even know how/where to begin with an explanation of what happened either. I know you would be struggling with the same thing, because you’re a strong, protective mama too.  You’d live with the internal struggle for yourself to spare the hurt of your babies, so that alone gives me some comfort.

Nevertheless, I’m not the same. I’ve lost family before who have been sick. I’ve known people closely who have had sudden losses like this, but me….this is a first. And I’m SO FUCKING MAD!!!!!!!!  (I said the “F” word on my blog!! But it’s basically our favorite word, so I’m keeping it!) You ALL became such a huge part of our lives. You became family….family who should have been around forever. We had the same friendship that I watched my mom have when I was younger, and have always envied. You were the real deal, Kim. I have never, ever, had a friend like you and I honestly don’t know that I ever will. In words it’s so unexplainable, but I know we were 100% on the same page about this.

I miss you with all of my heart, and I so wish I could hug miss Tova and make her all squirmy and wiggly, and kiss Solomon and make him blush. And I really wish I could hear your laugh one more time. But it’s forever engrained in my mind, and you all will forever be in my heart.

I love you.