People only do their best

I have to believe this, otherwise I just don't know how I could comprehend some people/situations, including my own.

I would assume that others have this view too. But perhaps not.

Perhaps it's difficult to walk a mile in someone's shoes. Perhaps I am talking from the dysfunctional stance of having had a childhood of emotional and mental abuse, scarred as I am by a mother who "knew no better and was only doing the very best she knew how." I had to trust, I had to just believe it would be better once I made it on my own, went my way, but constantly the learning was there in me: be forever obliged to do right by people, reserve your judgement of others, to each their own, take people at face value and don't guess where they're "at".

I am still like that. And yet now I struggle. I struggle because so many things seem so fucking futile since losing Ella. I mean, for God's sake, a client on the phone yesterday telling me they're concerned the colours on the last run of brochures doesn't "quite" match the new ones. And I just want to scream "IS IT SO IMPORTANT that your blues aren't identical when I haven't got my baby with me?"

But of course I can't. Not in the real world, oh no. You're not allowed to inflict such displays of selfishness on others when you're the parent of a deceased baby. It's all about making those in your presence comfortable. And it is completely tiring to live like this, knowing that people don't want to know, don't want to talk about, your child. So I turn here, to somewhere I used to deem relatively controlled, sort of private, bar the fleeting visits from browsers who haven't a clue who I am and couldn't give a toss.

And so I have made a few wrong turns, as all good people do, and I've ended up here. In a place where I am equally gagged and adored by people. How utterly bizarre!

You'd be forgiven for thinking I'm bored. I'm not. I am dreadfully taken up by work commitments, especially of late, and yet still nagging at me is the thought that I ought to be bouncing a bouncinette with one foot or warming a bottle - or prepping a boob, ok ok, for any BFA zealots - and quite frankly, WHERE I HAVE BEEN AND WHERE I HAVE COME FROM the vast majority of happeners across this space I have set up here have not and will not EVER be.

I am on a different plane now (or planet, some may argue, and you'd be forgiven for thinking that, sure). I am on a very new, separate road. It has massive opportunities for giving, seeing, healing, more than I ever had before Ella. And yet, it is such a devastatingly lonely place. I see the things people do in a far different light - and I do believe I am judging more harshly than I ever have in my life. The reason is this: I never before saw the butterfly effect of people actions/words/way of living and interacting with each other and Mother Nature. I see it now. In my own personal headspace, I am not letting people off as lightly as I used to. And I think it is shocking and scaring people who have known me for so long. Get to know me again, the new me now, and they will see someone with so much more depth than before. But all they see are these blips on the radar here and there, because they don't really want to look. Are they scared? Scared of how much I have changed, of how I am somewhere they'll never be?

It's a curse and a blessing, this suitcase of gifts my daughter has left me. I liken it to my version of other mothers' attempts to "learn as you go" with your baby/toddler/school child - how often have you thought you were doing it all wrong where your young charges are concerned? Imagine trying to figure it all out with the obvious lack of that child in your life! And then judge me again. There are a very few around me, who can't stand back and see the big picture, who may feel she should've taken her luggage with her and not entrusted it to me. But to be a trailblazer, I guess I have to start trusting that all this shit that's happening now is still going to pass. And good things do come to those who wait. I guess it's the choice of closing the lid and saying "Nah, thanks anyway, but I don't want to grow or change, I'd much rather wallow in my grief and never appear normal again". I've chosen to get in and rummage around and wow, the things I am finding in there are scary and confronting - but godammit, I am trying everything on to see if it fits.

What the HELL gives someone the right to think it is ok to invade, invade, invade every last bit of solace and comfort that I have? What? Do you want me to break? Look in my eyes, darling, you will see the mended canvass of a million pieces that have been put back together. You are not going to shatter me. Because nothing ever could again. Not after losing my girl. May you sleep soundly in your sheltered little fantasy.

"namaste"