Bad Days

It's hard to remember what a bad day was like before Liam died. I remember crying every time I got my period, because I wanted to be pregnant so badly. That hasn't changed. But besides that, I don't remember what a bad day felt like.

What did I have to be upset about? How did a bad day even start? How often did I have bad days? What was a normal range of emotions in a given week?

I just don't remember.

Lately I can get through about 3 days at a time without breaking down. And then I have some where from 12-36 hours of feeling down before I somehow decide I'm okay again. Sometimes the lows are really low, and sometimes they're just a long, persistent sting. But it's always about the same thing. It surfaces in different ways. "I'll never be a 'real' mother." "Why does she get a baby and I don't?" "What's my purpose for being here?" But it's all the same at its core. I miss my baby.

We get in a car accident, and I think, "How could God allow an inconvenience like this when we're already dealing with so much grief? Isn't that enough? I can't deal with one more thing right now."

I have a less productive day at work, and I think, "It's been almost four months now. Hasn't that been long enough? Shouldn't you be able to get through a workday by now?"

I don't get a call back from the hospital about the volunteer position, and I think, "They probably thought you're still too emotionally volatile for a position like that. They're probably right. You can't help anyone. You're too broken from your grief."

You can't help people at the hospital.
You can't mother your dead child.
You can't get pregnant again.
You can't focus at work.
You can't even enjoy your birthday.
You can't be who you wanted to be.

You can't. That's what I'm always thinking these days.

And that's not just missing Liam. That's not what missing Liam should feel like. He isn't the core of my bad days at all. He's the reason I had good days. Missing him hurts. Missing him is feeling the absence of something wonderful. But that has nothing to do with the you-can'ts. If missing Liam isn't at the core of my bad days, what is? Shouldn't it be missing him? Isn't that the most important thing?

Is this just what it normally feels like to be sad? Is this what my bad days were like before?

I can't remember.