from a distance
I often think I should go back and reread my earlier posts, partly out of curiosity and partly to take my emotional temperature, to gauge how far I've come and how far I have to go. I know I'm better. I even know I'm much, much better. But it's kind of like an accident scene, all crumpled metal and shattered glass. You might rubberneck and slow traffic as you drive by, but would you really want to get off at the next exit, turn around, and double back for a second look? I'm not sure I want to read the thoughts of the person I was four months ago, five months ago, six months ago. I'm not sure I would even know what to say to her.
Do you ever look back? And if you do, what do you see?
27 comments:
I look back at my first post sometimes because people occasionally still comment on it. And I'm surprised at how detached my words were in that post. In thinking back over my posts since then, I'm also surprised at how reserved I am in my expressions of grief. It's like a slow trickle, and I hope I'm achieving the purpose of the blog - to help myself grieve. I certainly wouldn't want to face the author of that first post again, I don't ever want to see that level of pain in myself head on again.
I'm glad you look back and feel you've been getting better.
I went back a few months ago to label my posts and had to read through them. It was super shocking. I was in a REAL low place. It felt good to know I had moved forward and came out okay. Now I am not saying it wasn't a hard read. I shed a few tears.
I haven't looked back in awhile. And for me, that means looking back at the hand written journal I kept during the first year after my loss. I didn't have a blog back then. When I do re-read that journal, I have a very split reaction. On the one hand, it takes me right back to that time. I am flooded with old emotions, and am reminded of the depth of my grief. But on the other hand, I also feel somewhat detached from the words, as though I am reading about someone else. All I know is that it makes me sad, and so I choose the timing of my trips down memory lane very carefully, and infrequently.
Honestly? When I look back I see someone who was a lot more hopeful and a lot less bitter than I am now. Getting repeatedly slammed with other people's BFPs (in life and online) this past year has beaten a lot of the stuffing out of me. More than I'd ever have expected, to be honest. Last year, my gut, internal reaction to someone else's pregnancy would have included at least a teeny bit of happiness for her. Now, although I make all the appropriate noises, my honest, initial reaction is, "F*CK YOU!" And that's not too nice a thing to realize about yourself.
I unintentionally do look back when I want to link to a certain post and can't remember exactly where or when it was. I cringe at many of my posts.
The other reason I don't like to look back is not because of what a bad place I was necessarily THEN, but because I use to have such hopes and believe that my jaunt with infertility would be brief.
Two years later and I've learned Hope is for the hopeful and youth is wasted on the young. I'm no longer either.
Not that i went through anything close to your story....but last Christmas, i was in such a horrible place. It's very hard for me to read those posts. They're so angry and hopeless.
But i do from time to time. I'm proud of myself for not wanting to drive off of a bridge. I also want to remind myself of how close i came so that I know what that looks like for (God forbid) next time.
I don't look back.
I can't imagine wanting to.
One of the things that terrifies me the most about trying again is that if things don't work out I am fearful I will end up in the same dark and hopeless place where I was last winter and spring. Sometimes re-reading my blog and pre-blog journal help remind me of how important it is to take care of myself when needed and move forward, lest I slip back there.
Yes, I look back. I sometimes see that I made progress, and other times I think I'm still in the same spot I was before. Sometimes I barely recognize the "me" in my early posts. It's like looking at a baby picture of myself. I recognize a few things, but I wonder, "is that really me"?
I go back and reread my posts sometimes on a particular topic or label, just because I have changed over time, not so much my opinions, but my moods and my writing style.
Some of my earliest writing is pretty raw, so it's harder to read for me. But some of those posts no one was reading at the time and I've since taken them down and rewritten them.
I can tell you I'm definitely not the same as I was 9 years ago. Definitely.
Nope, I never look back. Firstly, because I started my blog when I was pregnant and I can't bear to even remember it. Secondly, I've had 2 short lived pregnancies since then and I don't want to remind myself of how I felt when they went south. Thirdly, sometimes I don't like myself very much. I know I'm not totally honest on my blog at times - and I'm often a bit frightened of what I'll see.
That was a very apt anology. I also thought it was pretty hilarious. But I'm a jerk.
Funny. I was just reading my archives today in search of a date for some pertinant information. I think I wrote better back then. More to write about, I suppose. Now I feel like my whole blog is the same-old, same-old. My son died, people are jerks, wah wah wah.
I have never read my handwritten journal, though. I don't want to. It was emotional vomit. I don't need to see that; I couldn't stomache it (heh, heh, little pun there).
Funny, I go back sometimes for the same curious reasons.
In the last 6 months I've uncovered a much more mature (yet occasionally cynical) woman than I ever thought I would have been prior to this ride. Sometimes I wish I had started before I even got pregnant the first time around. I can only imagine a much younger, feebler girl dressed in blinkers ready to embark on a journey with no clue as to where she'd end up... God knows I didn't think it'd be here.
Anns xo
I think that I write more honestly in my personal handwritten journal than I do my blog. I can see that I definitely hold back while blogging whereas in my journal I write exactly what I am feeling. It's shocking to read and see how much anger I had. I wish I would write whatever I want or need in my blog but I always seem to edit myself so I don't offend someone. Who that someone might be, I have no idea...
I have looked back a few times. But, mostly I don't. I don't know if I want to go back there. I know I have changed a lot since I started blogging. Maybe one day I will read it all, just to see how far I have come.
It mostly just makes me sad.. I try to focus on moving forward.
I do think everyone looks back whether they want to or not because it was and still is a part of who we are today. You take it with you and may relive it a thousand times over before you integrate it to the point you are at peace - at least a level of peace to continue to grow.
I haven't really looked back, but the blog has only been up for a few months. Truthfully, I am afraid to see in writing what a train wreck I am! Somehow I think if it's written, then it's filed away and no one else will ever read it (including me).
my eyes are all forward these days. too much i don't want to see again behind me. i hope to someday be able to sneak a peek, though.
I have never looked back on purpose. I have in doing something, come across something I wrote in the early days of my loss. When this happens, I can't help but read. And when I have, I get so sad, it takes me right back. But there is another reaction too. I can't believe I survived those first few months. And I use that feeling to remind myself I can keep truckin, even on the bad days, even when I don't want to, that M would want me to.
Wow. I feel like these answers have really helped give me a better understanding of you -- of all of you.
Not at my posts, but at different points of my life, some of them really high and some of them really low. And I always walk a way with an entaglement of feelings, so glad that I'm not in certain places anymore, happy that I'm I've left some of it behind and am better for it. But also wistful for the happy moments that are now just memories, and sometimes, curiously disappointed that there is nothing to wallow in. I try not to look back too, too often, because while I want to see my progress and learn from my mistakes, looking back sometimes makes it hard to live in the present.
Twice each year, I go to a monastery on retreat, and I bring old journals, and I very consciously look back at my life over many years, and then record everything that has happened during that six months. It helps me to figure out patterns and what I need to change. And I'm with friends, at one of my favourite places, so it's a safe place for that sort of reflection.
I read back just last week. It honestly shocked me how much has happened in the last year and I wonder how I'm still here.
I look back at old posts, but I have only been blogging for two months. It is hard to read some of my first posts, but I am amazed at how much I have healed in this short period. I still feel like a wreck, but I can palpably see how much better I am doing.
I have looked back periodically at milestones - one year, two years - at the blog (now offline) i kept after my first son's stillbirth, and I've found it empowering to see what I've overcome, mental healthwise, but the bigger thing is that it gave me a chance to mourn for myself. Early in my writing, I was mourning my son; I needed some perspective to mourn for the part of me that was lost.
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