Four years of flowers.

I realized I've had this post in drafter since a few days after Lucy's birthday and I'm not sure why I didn't post it. I'm going to post it now because I use my blog as a journal of sorts and I find myself going back to read things from previous years to maybe understand where I was at.  

**

It is really strange to think Lucy is four. Every year I struggle with her birthday and I really hate it. I hate that her birthday, which is a time that I should celebrate and be grateful I have this amazing little kid, is also synonymous with the worst thing that has ever happened to me. It's the source of my trauma and the starting point of all of the things I struggle daily with. 

I hate that it is the same event. 

Most every year I think her birthday is going to be the worst, maybe the hardest day. And every year I forget that it is always the day before that is a struggle for me. I think maybe because I don't remember anything from the day she was born, which is certainly a blessing and a curse all on its own. The day before her birth is the last memories I have of my old life. When everything was easier, it made a little more sense, I had a little more control. 

On that day, I was in tremendous pain, I didn't feel well. I was sick to my stomach, everything on my body hurt, I was swelling up in weird places, I felt faint and dizzy the entire day. I had Olivia and Penelope at exactly 39 weeks so the goal was to walk this baby out because the next day, I would be exactly 39 weeks. 

It was mid morning so we went to Canal Park, that's where I successfully walked a baby out before. The kids pretended to be tourists, we threw some rocks in. We went to eat lunch at Grandma's Restaurant, just like before I had Olivia. 

After lunch, all of us went to the Rose Garden/Leif Erikson Park. We hadn't ever taken the kids there and we thought it was weird. It was starting to get hot. There were artists on the walkway and a woman with interesting art that she was giving away on magnets. I don't remember looking at her art, but I remember her giving me a magnet and telling me it would all work out. Thinking that was strange, I put the magnet in my purse. It's actually still on my fridge because I feel like I can't throw it out. 

Penelope was obsessed with flowers that summer so we spent so much time sniffing flowers, right up until her nap time. The last thing I remember of my old life is getting into the cry with everyone crabby and Penelope crying. 

That's it. 

Every year I think about that day. The last few years I've gone to Leif Erikson Park by myself. It's usually been after a doctor appointment or something, so I've always been basically right there. Every year I've sat on a park bench, looking at the lake, and cried. 

Alone. 

And I've been OK with that. I'm not sad because I'm alone. I'm sad because I struggle with being happy and being sad and being angry. I have a hard time being all of those things. I feel like if I'm angry, I can't be happy. If I'm happy, people think I've moved on and I haven't. I won't move on from this. 

This year though, I asked Matt if we could do our nightly walk there instead. 

Because he's such a great guy and he gets it because he has memories of his own from those days that he doesn't share with me, he said yes. 

So that's what we did. 

We did our whole walk, mostly in silence. I looked at the lake. I tried hard to not cry. I don't know if you know this, but if you sit on a bench, staring at the lake, and you are silently crying, people think you are mentally ill and unsafe. You get the quick glances, people point, some laugh, but nobody asks if you're OK. 

This year I had Matt though. He doesn't do any of those things. I didn't cry on the bench, though. I think maybe I was all cried out from earlier in the day, though. He will hold my hand and pull my hair back when it gets sticky on my face from the humidity. He doesn't say anything. Maybe he's thinking his own things. Life hasn't been the same for him either. He doesn't have the same wife, the same partner. We both make do with what we have. 

A theme I've really struggled with this year is being grateful and being angry and sad at the same time. I've worked a lot on it in therapy. I've thought a lot about it. I still do. 

So imagine my surprise when, on our way out of the park, I literally stumbled on this: 

I didn't even notice until Matt said the established year is the same year we got married. Maybe I'm just an actual klutz and the world is a coincidence. Maybe its something more. I don't know. 

On Lucy's actual birthday my friend Amy sent me flowers. Of course I cried. 

Then my friend Tammy sent me flowers. Of course I cried again. I am lucky, and grateful, to have friends who know those days are really awful for me. I know I don't even have to tell them those are hard days and I am at my emotional lowest point but I'm trying to be upbeat and happy because Lucy is so excited. I am lucky. I am lucky to have amazing friends, terrific kids, and a great husband. I know of other survivors who don't have that kind of support system and I don't know how they do it. I know I struggle so hard with it, I don't know what life would be like without them.  

💕

The Bike Incident

If you don't know about Another David, you need to go to his blog right now. He's so much smarter than I likely ever will be plus he rides bicycles and goes for insane 20 mile rides. How he doesn't permanently have a bike seat glued to his ass- I don't know. But he's fab and I love him to bits. AND if we ever meet up he's promised me an evening filled with midgets and debauchery.

Who doesn't need a friend like that?

Anyways. So I remember commenting on his blog somewhere about what I refer to as "The Bike Incident" which is what makes me leery to own a bike even though I know I would, for the most part, like it.

The story begins when I was around 12. This is me at like age 10. Apparently I wasn't cute enough to get pictures taken of me at age 12 or something. But you'll see I was still a hot bitch rocking my black spandex cropped leggins with the lace trim, the matching black/white shirt WITH a hot pink sweatshirt. While hiking in Jay Cooke State Park. In sandals.

Yo betta recognize.

Anyways. So most kids get bikes for Christmas and that's fine because they can actually ride their bikes on Christmas. For us it's kind of a great gift but torture because you know it's another 6 months before you can go out and really have fun with it. Bikes aren't super conducive to snow. Well when I was 10, my brother was 10, our parents got us mountain bikes. Not real ones, but we thought they were. All I knew was mine was white with pink and green paint splotches with black accents. It was the fucking hotness. It had gears and 10 speeds and hand brakes and yeah. It was the most bad ass bike I had ever had.

Fast forward to the spring and my dad decided he was going to teach us how to properly ride a bike. Now, I had bikes in the past and knew how to ride it. I mean, I wasn't a toddler here. But I apparently didn't know enough to not break this bike and my dad didn't want to see $100 go down the toilet. He was adamant about bike care and how we should use the kick stand and not just throw it on the ground, etc. He wanted us to take pride in our new vehicles.

So one afternoon dad comes home with this jalopy of bike he got from god knows where and he was going to take us out to what we called "The Gully" by our house. The Gully was basically an old logging road for trucks, unpaved but well worn and wide that would take you straight to the St. Louis River which is what the paper mill sits on. We had played back there and we knew that there were other trails we just didn't know we were allowed to go that far into the woods. Well, that wasn't mostly me because I was the chicken shit when I was younger and Travis probably was back there all the time lighting fires and such.

Anyways- so we get on our bikes and I figure I'm good to go. We are riding along this trail which was kind of high up. To our right was a bunch of woods and to the left was a drop off with train tracks at the bottom. We went as far as we could on our trail before realizing we had to turn around or ride down this drop off hill and ride along the train tracks.

At that moment, Travis screwed up his brakes. My dad stopped to help him and looked at me, told me to "take 'er easy" down the hill. I'm SURE he said "down the hill" which to me, means ride your bike down the hill. I see a path that is worn into the hill which obviously means it's safe because bikes have been down it. So I start out on this little path.

Approximately 2 seconds into said ride down the little path I hear my dad yell my name, and then I see it. A barrel. Half sticking out of the ground that you couldn't see from the top. Obviously, I panic and hit the barrel.

I then go airborne, do two complete somersaults in the air, at which point I separated from my bike, hit the ground, roll down the hill, land on the railroad tracks. It felt like 10 minutes that I laid there when it really only could have been a second when my bike came down. And landed on top of me.

I pretty much started crying and thought I was going to die. But here comes my brother and Dad, taking their leisurely fucking time around the path, not the way I went, and asked me if I was ok. I remember my dad telling me to get up because I had to ride the bike home and him asking me several times if the bike was ok.

Nice.

At some point I was hobbling along and it felt like I had blood running down my leg. My dad told me that I had to take my pants off to see if I had gotten hurt. So there I am, age 12, half naked next to some railroad tracks, crying, and the biggest bruise I have ever seen developing in my left inner thigh. This thing was the size of a dinner plate and was the inner thigh and part of the front and back. Black as night. And puffy. It was getting more and more puffy and it hurt like a som'of'a'bitch.

I had to walk home like that because riding the bike was not going to happen. My mom laughed. Travis teased me. My dad said I needed more lessons.

I rode my bike again, on flat roads only, for a few more years. And every once in awhile, I see them go on sale and I think I'd like to buy one and take the kids out. But then I think oy...I don't want to be that loser parent that rides bikes with their kids. Those kids always got beat up.