Never Close Enough

I’ve been thinking on this post all day and I still don’t quite know how to write it. Maybe because this is just another variation on the same post I’ve already written more times than I can count and I’m just running out of ways to describe these same emotions.

I’ve had the longest string of fairly good days that I can remember having since Hudson died, I think largely because I’ve tried to keep myself busier than usual. I’ve found that staying busy in the evenings and on the weekends makes the time go just the slightest bit faster. It’s not that I haven’t had sad moments, lots of them, but for the first time, those moments don’t always turn into sad days like I’ve grown used to expecting them to.

And how do I react? I pick the scab. I go looking for the sadness.

Back when I used to work at the firm, I had a minimum number of billable hours I had to meet every year. There would be days, even weeks sometimes, when the work would slow down. Others would often tell me to just be grateful for those times while I had them, for things would inevitably get crazy again. And yet I couldn’t help but still be stressed during those times, I guess partly for fear things wouldn’t pick up again, at least not enough, and I would come up short on my billable time at the end of the year.

Now, during these days (well, weeks, I can actually say for once) when I have a bit of a respite from the worst of the grief, I can’t just be grateful for the break. Instead, I find myself poking into the dark corners, especially as the respite grows longer and longer. I spent some time today reading over old entries on the blog, ones from back in June and July, just because I needed a reminder of some of those rawest of raw feelings. I stop so often in front of her pictures, which are everywhere, and just stare at them, thinking about her, telling her how much I miss her, until I feel the welcome warmth of hot tears. I sometimes find myself crossing my arms over my chest, just trying to remember again what it felt like to hug her tight, wishing desperately that she would just materialize there. Often before I go to sleep at night, I ask her to come visit me in my dreams because I am just so desperate to see her. As we get farther and farther away from Hudson’s death and nearer and nearer to Jackson’s birth (a much-anticipated event that will bring much-needed joy, laughter, and healing into our lives), I am frantically clinging to my little girl in any way I know how. And yet no matter how much poking I do, I can never get close enough.

I guess this is why grief is truly a lifelong process. I will never be able to get close enough to her again. But I’ll probably also never stop trying.