A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes...

      I sit tonight thinking of you.   The radio in your sister's room is playing "A dream is a wish your heart makes".   You would be four now.  You are one of the three wishes my heart made.  I miss you every day, I will never go a day with out thinking about you.  You were a wish I only got to carry for far too short a time but you were mine all the same. 
     I'm not sure about the rules of a miscarriage.  It's a taboo subject.  It becomes a medical term and not a baby lost, but not to me.  I am torn between missing you and rejoicing in your sister who was born only two months after you should have been.  I feel like I shouldn't miss you because I got to have Tate, but I miss you. 
   I've always thought it odd that most OB/GYN's are male.  How can you care for an airplane and instruct a person on how to fly if you've never been in an airplane or flown one is my thinking?  But I give them credit.  They are about the only ones who recognize you.  Every new city brings a new OB/GYN.   A new set of forms, a new list of questions.  The one that trips me up is how many pregnancies have you had?  Not how many children have you had, how many pregnancies.  They count you. 
    I think there are different parts to heaven.  I'm not sure where I'll reside.  I know you and all other like you- untouched and untarnished by the world will be nearest Him.  I will find you.  I will hold you and know you were mine.
    I often get asked where I get all my energy.  I say I have a lot of frustration to work off.  I still haven't figured out if I am running my way toward you trying to catch something that long ago left or if I'm trying to out run the memories of you I never got to have.  You are in the shadow between my son and daughter.  You would have the brown eyes to match mine.   You will always be the late April shower that made way for the flower that is my Tater.   As the song says "In dreams you will loose your heart ache".  You are in my dreams still.  My hear doesn't ache for you in my dreams, it holds you there. 
     

My Chemical Romance

       I love my family, no big shocker.  But I really enjoy them when all the chemicals in my head are balanced just right.  I have an across the board policy that I can't be friends with you unless you are currently on, or have ever been on what I lovingly call "crazy pills".  What are these wondrous crazy pills?  They are anti-depressants. 
     The negative stigma associated with anti-depressants isn't nearly as bad as it used to be, although I know quite a few people who would rather cut off there own foot rather than take them.   I love my feet and I am keeping both of them, so I happily take my crazy pill every day.  Am I crazy?  I don't think I am truly insane but I function much better and I am much nicer to be around while on my blessed crazy pills. 
     Depression runs in my family.  The life of uprooting my family every two years, feeling alone in new cities, mourning for the loss of friends and watching my children be forced to adapt is apparently enough to trigger mine.  I have been off and on crazy pills since I was eighteen.  After  my children were born I went through crippling post partum depression.  Now I just stay on them.  To me it is no different than being genetically predisposed to high blood pressure and relying on medication to keep it in check. 
     Some people may say "But you are so happy.  You don't need antidepressants."  Those people don't get that I am able to express my happiness because of my Wellbutrin, not in spite of it.  I am a generally happy person, nothing about my personality is changed, just my ability to appreciate my life.  Mood is not just a state, it is a chemical equation.  I still get mad, angry, upset, fed up, and frustrated.  That never changes, but I am able to be happy, appreciative, and loving thanks to my CP.
      My brain runs low on serotonin.  Serotonin seems to be the key to happiness.  I am not able to make up my mind and just "be happy".   I take my Wellbutrin every  morning just like my other vitamins.  It's just replacing a chemical that my brain is having trouble making. 
      I worried a little about singing the praises of my crazy pills.  Many will judge, some will put their hand to their chest and say "I would never..." .  Well good for you, I would never take them either but I have to so I choose to not make it a bitter pill to swallow.  Why feel bad over what is similar to a vitamin deficiency.  My calling them Crazy Pills probably doesn't help the negative stigma.  But it is my loving nick name for them.  Much like I joke and call Turner my watermelon head. 
     I'm very lucky that most of my friends don't seem to care that I take Crazy Pills.  I've even found others who swim in my end of the pool and I think we'd all tell you come on in the water's fine.  Sweetness used to be very bothered that I took an anti-depressant.  Back in those days I wasn't calling him Sweetness either.  He couldn't understand why he wasn't enough for me to be happy.  He thought is was a mind-set or a decision to be made by me, not something you take a medicine for.   So I asked him why wasn't I enough to be healthy for?  Why couldn't he make up his mind to just get off of his blood pressure pills?   He finally got it.  He finally listened.  Sweetness and my kids are very much enough to be happy for.  I am just able to  be happy about them when I have the right amount of serotonin. 
     So this morning I'll take my crazy pill and smile.  My beautiful children will be up in a little bit.  My Sweetness is hard at work for us.  I am one lucky girl to be able to see all of that and enjoy it.
        

Not enough room?

     I had to hold myself back today.  I about told a four year old girl where she could step off, real Christian right?  I managed to keep myself from unleashing on a bratty four year old, but just barely.  What did this girl do to make a grown woman get so mad?  She hurt my baby girl's feelings. 
     Tate and I got home from our gym/couponing morning errands and saw our sweet neighbors playing outside.  No sooner than I turned the car off  was Mary Ella poking her head into the carport asking if Tate could come play.  I love Mary Ella, she is beautiful inside and out and has a generous heart just like her mother.   Tate and I walked over to talk with Amy and the little girl she was baby sitting.  This little girl ran off, mad because Mary Ella had another friend.  While Amy and I were talking this little girl fell to the ground sobbing like she had been stung by something.  What was wrong with the little angel?  She was screaming that she wanted to go inside with Mary Ella, but not her other friend, my Tater.
    It was clear to me that this child gets just about what ever she wants with this crying/screaming routine.  Tate and I went back to our house and I could tell her feelings were really hurt.  Tate has thick skin, not much gets to her but this did.  After seeing my baby girl shunned by another child who made her feel unwanted it  really raised my hackles.  What is wrong with children?  For that matter what is wrong with women who are unable to be friends with more than one person?  I think part of the reason this ticked me off so much is that is has happened to me, and I know how much it stings.  I've run across a few women who are unable to be friends with new people.  I don't get it.  I have more space in my heart for friends than I have time to make new ones. 
    Because of the moving around Brad and I do I have become really good at reaching out to make friends.  It doesn't mean it's easy, I jut put on my big girl panties and do it.  Being the new girl stinks.  Feeling like an outsider stinks.  Watching those feelings manifest in my tough as nails Tater and watching it knock the wind out of her sails really stinks.  I wish little girls and grown ones alike would realize that there is no cap on the number of friends you can have.  There is room to be friends with as many people as you want.  My daughter nor I are looking to steal your friends or replace any  old ones.  Thankfully most of the women I have met are wonderfully welcoming.  The more places I live and the more people I meet I'm learning to find the people with room enough for more friends in their lives. 
     Tate is now napping, after a little special attention from Mommy.  I'm going to have my afternoon cup of coffee and be thankful for each of my friends who had enough room for me and my family in their lives.