Survival

 We survived the ICE STORM 2023. We stocked up on food and hunkered down for almost a week and it was glorious!!! No busted pipes! Everything on the Island was closed. Quiet. Gray. Shiny! Crazy cold but I was bundled up in all the warm and fuzzy things. 

People trying to drive was fun though. Hundreds of clips from people stuck on the freeway.  Semi’s backed up for 60 miles having to be towed up tiny hills by a local off road Jeep club. Good times! I need me to have some winter weather to lift away any depression and blow it away. My spirit feels good.

So a few blogs ago I wrote that the amnesia medicine was helping my brain to release memories long ago locked away in the box. For the most part it’s just dipping my toes into tiny little things that don’t hurt so much. Testing the waters I guess. Start small and see how things go?

I was talking to Robb and for whatever reason we were talking about being pregnant and feeling the baby move ( I did not enjoy that. Maybe the only woman in the world that didn’t.) but as I was telling him that detail a light came on. Memories. Suddenly I knew WHY I didn’t like it. I always thought that it must be because of feeling cramped in my own body but instantly it was clear to me….

When I was pregnant with the oldest boy I was never, ever touched. Not even one person felt my tummy when the baby moved. Never. I hated that I didn’t have anyone to share that with. That it shouldn’t have been happening in the first place. That I resented feeling like I couldn’t draw any attention to my expanding belly. In fact I NEVER looked at myself in a mirror. I have no memories of seeing myself showing. The only memory I have was when I was about five months pregnant, my brother and I were going to a river to swim. I put my swim suit on and looked in a mirror to see if it looked ok and saw it…. A small bump. Almost imperceptible if one didn’t know that I was pregnant. I was a tiny thing. 5ft 6in and 106 pounds. My stomach muscles resisting the spread they eventually have to do to make room for the uterus as it strains to allow a human being to grow inside its mother. I placed my hand on that tiny bump, hardly comprehending the changes coming. Then I put it in the box, wrapped a towel around my waist and walked into the role I was playing in my brain… you must ignore this just like everyone else is. 

It wasn’t until Christmas when I’d outgrown my maternity clothes and had to wear this tent dress thing that someone took a photo of me and I saw just how BIG I was. Tiny wisp of a thing due in two weeks and a belly that entered a room first! 

Nothing that I can do about that lost pregnancy experience. It just shined some light on how I viewed the feeling of a baby moving. Especially strange considering that being pregnant subsequently were the times in my life when I felt beautiful and powerful and magical. 

Gotta run.

Me