NOT FOR PUBLICATION

I found this in my drafts today and, at the time I wrote it, didn't plan to ever publish it...based on the title of the post. I left the title, though. I left the title because I was too scared to publish this six years ago, but thankfully, I can now. I don't remember even writing this post, but as I read through it just now, a flood of emotions and memories overwhelmed me. Thankfully, the pain and fear I had while writing this post have been replaced by a remarkable four-year-old boy. But I also know that others are still hoping and praying and may not end up with the same results that I did. I'm not sure of where I would be right now if I hadn't had my son, and I'm not going to make assumptions on how other people would/are handling going through the same struggle. But I'm putting this out there now because it's raw and it's real, and I'm so very thankful for the wonderful support system I had surrounding me during that time.

I hate platitudes. The things people say to make themselves feel better because they don't know what else to say in an awkward, painful situation.

Yes, sometimes we need to be told that things will be okay, that we will make it through, that no matter what, it's all in God's plan. But the thing is, sometimes it's not okay, and sometimes it's really not God's plan. We live in a fallen world. A world full of sin and evil. I'm not saying that God isn't in control, but I am saying that we suffer. Not because He doesn't love us, but because it's a part of life after the fall of man. It was never God's plan that we endure such hardships, but it is now, based on the choices of man.

So the thing is...sometimes you don't want to be told things will be okay, because they aren't okay, and at that moment you don't really know how they will ever be. I mean, I get that things will eventually have to be, because you have to move on, but in that moment, you just want to grieve, to fall apart, and have that be okay.

There are a few things in life that are so permanent and have no alternative. At this moment, I can think of three scenarios: the death of a child, something else bad happening to a child, and the inability to have one. There is no alternative in either of those situations. They just are. How do you deal with those? For the first...yes, death is inevitable, but the death of a child would be unbearable, and I hope and pray to never deal with the former, because I'm barely functioning through the latter. The absence of an entire person from your life that you inherently feel should be there is exceedingly difficult to deal with. You look at every moment, and there is a shadow there; a place where someone is supposed to be. Everything is affected, because that other person would change every moment.

But I don't know if I feel anything anymore anyway. I don't know if I'm actually dealing with things okay or if I've just shut down and am in a sort of denial/lost limbo. I feel like a failure. I feel like my body isn't functioning in the way it was designed to function. I feel like I have failed my husband, my daughter, my parents, so many people. I don't do well with the unexplained, and that is the abyss I sit at, looking out over the precipice, the depth and darkness, with nothing but unknowns staring back at me.

I'm good in a crisis. I'm good at looking to the future and understanding that God will carry me through, and ultimately, I will be okay, but I'm scared now because I have no guarantee that things will ever be okay. I was so sure the IUI would work. So secretly confident that it would take just the one time...and I was even a little excited at the prospect of twins. I looked at it as a reason, the process God had to take me through to get me to a place where I would be okay with that. But now I'm still searching. Searching for a reason. Searching for an answer. Searching for something that makes sense.

I find myself in constant conflict with emotion and reason.  I would describe myself as very much both, and that's exceedingly difficult because I feel like I sometimes get caught. I can't just completely break down and work through my emotions because the reasonable part takes over, but I can't just reason my way out of the situation because my emotions are too strong.

Usually, I like the balance I find in emotion and reason. I believe that God blessed me with that because if I were only extremely reasonable, I would lack my innate ability to embody deep empathy. And if I were only extremely emotional, poor decision-making led by emotion could've been more of a reality in years past. Now, though, I don't know how to merge the two. I just feel caught, stuck in a place where I can't be rational or emotional because they are both vying for dominance.

I find myself dancing around the edges of darkness I have found myself at before. Places where Satan assaults me with lies in an attempt to move me away from God. I start wondering if I'm paying retribution for past sins. And then the guilt weighs in. Every sin I've ever committed weighs on me. Even with the knowledge that God has separated me from those sins as far as the east is from the west...I keep going back to that place.

I find myself wandering throughout the day. Going through the motions because I have to "keep it together". I have to teach. I have to be a good wife. I have to be a good mother. I have to do all these things when most of the time, I just want to give up.  By the end of the day, I just feel numb...like drinking myself into oblivion wouldn't seem like such a bad idea...I mean I can't really feel anything anyway and at least that way I might could stop thinking.

I'm scared. I'm tired. I'm angry. I'm spent.

School shootings and Netflix originals

Both the Columbine school shooting and the movie Bird Box evoke some of the same emotions in me. 

Some people will read that statement and feel like there's no way it can be true, some people may view it as disrespectful, but give this mama's heart a chance to explain.

I was in my freshman year of college when the school shooting at Columbine took place. In that moment, much like later during 9/11, a level of blind trust and security was ripped away. I experienced my school years without a lockdown drill and never had even the most fleeting thought that I was in danger at school. School was a safe place.

Now, though, as a parent, things have changed. My children have bi-yearly lockdown drills. My children practice how to behave if a shooter enters their school. My children never attended a single day of school without me understanding this threat. 

I remember when Reily was in kindergarten and had her first lockdown drill. She told me about it when she arrived home that day, and she relayed to me how she was scared and crying. Now, there was never a real threat, and the children were safe, but how do you explain to a five-year-old that they need to be prepared? That they need to know what to do...just in case. How do you explain that sort of evil to them when they see nothing but goodness? 

In the days that followed, we talked a lot about how her teachers would keep her safe and how I would keep her safe if she were with me, despite the reality of limited control in those sorts of situations. And in those moments, when things got too serious, I lied. I have no regrets about lying and still do it to a degree now that she's older because I recognize that there are too many variables, that there are too many things out of my control, that ultimately I'm not in control and can't guarantee that she will always be safe, but she needs that promise. It's now the same promise I make to my son, has his daycare practices what to do in case of a lockdown.

And it's that inability to guarantee security that pushed me to tears while watching Bird Box. 

The movie wasn't particularly scary, more unsettling. I did appreciate the fact that they never showed what the "thing" looked like, as our imaginations are far more terrifying than anything Hollywood could ever produce, but all in all, it was a decent suspense movie without being particularly "scary". 

So why then did I find myself weeping during the last third of the movie and shaken for hours after it was over?

The movie embodied some of my greatest fears. Not suicide. Not death. Not violence. 

It was instead found in the moments where Sandra Bullock's character talked to the children, and the empathetic connection I had with the characters that followed. In those moments, I was forced to a mental place that I usually try to avoid. Within the confines of the movie, I was forced to recognize that there will be times when my children are afraid and when I won't be able to comfort them because bad things will happen outside of my control. It's an unnerving feeling that makes me feel both weak and inadequate. 

It's those moments in the movie that touched me and drew the images of children huddled under desks in a library at Columbine High School. Because in those moments, children were afraid. Children's parents couldn't protect them. Children were exposed to horrors they never should've experienced, and all of those parents felt helpless. 

Because that's the fear of a parent. That our children will find themselves in the last few moments of their lives, afraid...wanting their mom, and we won't be there. 

So every day, many of us experience something older generations never really did. I'm not saying they didn't worry, and they weren't afraid or even that they didn't have things to be scared of that we no longer do, but each morning when I pull up to the curb, and my child gets out of the car, I pray. I pray that she has a good day, that she learns a lot, and that no one walks into her school with the intent to cause harm. 

Because my child deals with a lot of anxiety and sometimes cries for hours at night, because she is afraid to go to school - afraid of what can happen - I somehow have to figure out how to tell her things will be okay, even though I know that's not something I can guarantee. The facts are, she still needs to sleep, and she needs to learn to live her life beyond fear and trust that no matter what, God is in control, and even if the worst possible thing happens, He has her. 

Next year, Mason will also start school. And for a little boy so brave and bold when it comes to adventure and play, he's terrified of the dark and incredibly shy. He loves fiercely, and I know that as he gets older, I will face many of the same questions I have and am facing with Reily. 

So I steel my heart for another day and live, but that fear...the fear that made me cry during a Netflix original thriller...is never really gone. It sits there and waits. Because it doesn't need the fuel of an actual event to let loose, it just needs an easy trigger to ignite into flames that consume because it's always atthe  edges of my thoughts.