I Deserve This Space

It has been over a year since I’ve been here.

I spent the better part of a decade working to cultivate this site. I wrote some damn good pieces here – and elsewhere – in that decade. I did some stuff I was really proud of.

Then, I started to simmer out and just as I was trying to turn the heat up again, I walked away.

2019 was a bitch of a year. And 2018 was even worse. In June of 2018, I found out we were pregnant with our second child. In August of 2018, I found out that child was going to be our second daughter. In September of 2018, I found out she had died in utero and I had no choice but to deliver her prematurely.

Her name was Olivia Michelle, and her loss gutted me. I don’t even think I knew at the time how much I was hurting, but after her loss and the trauma of her delivery, I had no choice but to strip my life down to the bare minimum and build back up from there. This site has always been important to me, but it was something that required extra emotional energy I didn’t have at the time. And, frankly, I wasn’t able or willing to put myself out there any more than I had to.

Then, in January of 2019, I found out I was pregnant again, this time with a son. After losing a baby at 17 weeks pregnant when you think you’re in the “safe zone,” entering another pregnancy pretty much means you’ll never feel safe again, so I spent most of 2019 just trying to put one foot in front of the other. I still wasn’t ready to open myself up on here.

Then, in October, Landon Michael was born. Full term, healthy, and – to date – the happiest baby I’ve ever met. I don’t think I even realized how worried I was until he was here, and the relief was palpable. People see me and look at pictures of me now and tell me how different I look because I just look so calm. And I feel calm, mostly. But, occasionally, I’m still really sad and anxious and all the things that come along with losing a baby you desperately wanted.

So, I haven’t come back here. Well, that’s not entirely true. I’ve come back and done the necessary updates to the site with the intention of writing, but then I’ve just stared at the blank new post window and I’ve never been able to figure out where to start. And then a baby cries or a five-year-old needs something and I close the laptop with a promise that I’ll try again later. Couple all of this with the fact that blogs seem to be dying and I haven’t really found the motivation.

But writing has always been my “thing.” It’s been my way of making sense of the world, and getting all that stuff out of me that I can’t keep inside. I’ve missed having that outlet. So I thought about trying to start journaling, but there’s something about having an actual audience that is so powerful.

I turned to crafting. To running. To yoga. To meditation. To teaching. To my relationships. To reading. To therapy. But nothing seemed to hold the same healing power for me that writing does.

I just finished editing a dear friend’s memoir, and I found myself wondering, Why am I not writing something? I always thought there were enough feminist voices out there, and enough teacher-writers, and enough people writing about marriage and motherhood that mine would just be another drop in an infinite bucket.

But I’ve experienced something less than 3% of women have experienced. I lost a baby in the second trimester. And not only that, I picked myself up and put one foot in front of the other and did it again, knowing it could all happen again. And not only that, but I remain staunchly pro-choice, even as I lost what I considered a life. And we are in the middle of the biggest fight we’ve had in as long as I can remember to keep our access to women’s reproductive healthcare.

I’ve spent the better part of two years telling myself that my voice isn’t special. That I don’t have anything important to say. That I need to focus on other, more important things in my life.

Well, it’s a new decade. And this is my space; it’s a space I’ve worked hard to carve out for myself. So I’m going to continue to use it however I want, even if I’m not entirely sure what that looks like yet.

Because I’m important. And what I have to say is important. And I deserve this space. And I hope you’ll join me for whatever is in store.