Give Sorrow Words…A Little Break from Blogging

“Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak whispers the o’er-fraught heart and bids it break.” – William Shakespeare, Macbeth

I know I haven’t posted for awhile. I checked my stats email showing how many pages views I have had over the last week and they are higher than they have ever been. Perhaps because of the holidays. I wanted so badly to post again to keep the upward trend. I sat down to my computer this evening and rifled through all my incomplete recipes and photos and tried to come up with a post. I tried to make a list of great recipe ideas and came up with nothing. My heart isn’t in it.

Someone once gave me the blogging advice to always keep things positive when blogging. For the most part I try to do that. But today I really feel like I need to be real. And I normally try to keep things real on my blog too. The thing is, usually “real” for me is pretty positive and happy. But right now its not. Social media, including blogs, can sometimes paint a picture that the lives of other people are perfect and organized and wonderful with everything going right. But in reality every one goes through dark times and everyone has messy, difficult moments.

The last 6 months have been brutal for me. I moved from a town and friends that I loved to a new town across the country. My husband went from a pretty lax fourth year of medical school to an intense residency schedule. I knew it would be hard, but an ulcerative colitis flare up earlier this year and some other challenges that I wont go into detail about, left me feeling a little bit more vulnerable and fragile than I usually am. So it was kind of tricky adjusting to this new life. My toddler struggled adjusting to it all too, which made it even harder. Not to mention, it was a huge adjustment for my husband to figure out how to be a resident. But what did I do? I dove into my hobbies and started designing some sugar cookies for fun, creating new recipes, figuring out how to take food pictures in my basement apartment, exploring the Asian market. Stuff like that. I felt like I was figuring out how to adjust to this new life.

I also had something really exciting to look forward to because I was pregnant. I was so excited. The baby didn’t make it past seven weeks and I was shocked and I felt terribly alone. It took me awhile to bounce back from this blow. Not long after this loss, I started to get a horrible rash on my hands and bottoms of my feet. I will spare you the details and I am working with a dermatologist to figure it out, but its basically just a really bad form of eczema that may or may not be caused by a contact allergy. It became so debilitating and there were long stretches where I couldn’t bend my fingers at all. The itching was really messing with my head. All I could think about was how bad my hands itched. I couldn’t fully concentrate on conversations, I had no patience with anyone, I couldn’t cook or clean or do so many basic tasks. So when I usually get lost in my hobbies during hard times, I was left without my main coping mechanism and feeling totally helpless. Three months of this was wearing on me.

My one bright light was that I was expecting again. I had so much hope for this pregnancy. I thought surely the first miscarriage was just a random thing. By eleven weeks I was feeling confidant that this one was a keeper. An ultrasound at eleven weeks showed the cutest tiny baby measuring a week behind with no heart beat or movement. I was heart broken (still am). A week ago, at almost thirteen weeks, I had the D&C surgery to remove everything from me. My mom saved me and took care of me and let me cry like a baby to her. My hands are doing a little better, although not completely better. But I guess I still need some time before I jump back into this creative space. When I try to think up recipes I just feel blank and empty. I don’t know how long it will take me to be in a creative state of mind again or when I will be ready to start blogging again. But for now I am going to just step away for as long as I need.

I’m sharing this very personal post because it helps me to “give sorrow words”. The first miscarriage was so much harder for me to cope with because I kept everything inside and didn’t talk about it much with anyone. I also know that so many women go through this affliction. It seems like everyone I have told about my struggles has responded with their own words of comfort because they to had gone through the loss of a baby. It is still personal and real and hard. No matter how many people deal with it. If anyone reading this is going through or has gone through a loss, I am truly sorry.

I know many people from all walks of life visit this blog, so I hope you don’t mind if I get a little bit more personal. Remember, I am trying to be real and honest.  I believe there are angels watching over me through this hard time. Some spiritual, but many of these angels are sweet friends and family. My mom is truly an angel. Someone (possibly many people) from my old home in Ohio has been paying someone in my new town ( a sweet sister missionary who served in Ohio when I lived there, but who has since finished her mission and is going to college in my new town) to clean my house every week while my hands are hurting. And I don’t know who is behind this act of kindness, although I have my guesses. I am truly touched that someone would do this for me. Another friend from Ohio had her sister who lives in my new town bring over big pink sugar cookies after I vented my frustrations to her. Her sister looked so much like her and it was almost like my friend was there giving me a hug. I have felt the love of my Heavenly Father so much through other people. My mother in law cleaning my whole house while I was away, my sisters in law listening while I ask advice and vent, people bringing by dinner without even knowing what was going on, my brother visiting me and just spending the day with me to help me keep my mind off things, my other brother writing the sweetest letter to me, my little sister talking over ice cream with me, doctors in my husbands residency program helping me at inconvenient times of crisis, my husband taking up all his boards exam study time to drive me to my parents house so I wouldn’t be alone… The list just goes on and on.

There was awhile, when my hands were at their worst, that I felt so angry. I wasn’t in my right mind because of itching and hormones, but for the first time in my life I was angry at God. I am sad to admit that while praying one day I angrily yelled “Stop. No more. I can’t take any more trials. This is too much at once” I am past that point now and am able to see that opposition has its place in this life and that the Savior and Heavenly Father have not left me alone to deal with it. I would rather not have gone through any of my struggles. But it is a gift, in a way, to have the deep joy that can at times come after such deep sorrow. When my hands are better, I will feel such joy just to simply wash my own dishes because of the struggle I went through. Not everyone is lucky enough to be filled with so much joy just to wash their own hair or fold their own laundry without pain. When I am in remission with my ulcerative colitis, I feel so much gratitude and happiness just to be in good health. Its such a good feeling that I would never notice if I hadn’t had all the hard times of bad health. When I finally am able to bring another child into our family, I know it will be all the more joyful because I know the feeling of opposition and sorrow in trying and failing to have children.

A quote from a leader in my church has been keeping me going. I hope you don’t mind if I share it.

“I do not know why we have the many trials that we have, but it is my personal feeling that the reward is so great, so eternal and everlasting, so joyful and beyond our understanding that in that day of reward, we may feel to say to our merciful, loving Father, “Was that all that was required?” I believe that if we could daily remember and recognize the depth of that love our Heavenly Father and our Savior have for us, we would be willing to do anything to be back in Their presence again, surrounded by Their love eternally. What will it matter, dear sisters, what we suffered here if, in the end, those trials are the very things which qualify us for eternal life and exaltation in the kingdom of God with our Father and Savior?” –Linda S. Reeves

Forgive me if I got too preachy on you. I know good things are in store for me and my family. I can just feel it. There are happy times ahead. They aren’t here right now, but I know they will come again along with my creative energy and excitement for this blog. Thanks for understanding while I take a little break.

P.S. Sorry for posting this, chickening out and deleting it, and then reposting it again. Yesterday I posted it and then felt weird about it in the morning and took it down. Then I had a few people who read the original post when it first went up tell me that reading it helped them and they thought I should put it back up. It is scary for me to be so open, but maybe someone can read it and know they aren’t alone.

Happy Holidays