Forget Me Not

This was one of those days I felt compelled to tell someone that I had twins. Some days I’m quite happy to be a ‘normal’ mother with one child. Then, other days I am reminded how easily Amya is forgotten, just a story that once was told and left people speechless. Even now it does sometimes.

So today I met this mum at swimming with 3 children who was noticeably stressed getting them dressed. I said: How are you doing it with 3? The conversation went on to parents with multiples and there I was saying: I had twins.

I feel kind of awkward. It’s like a fabricated conversation that ends usually by the other person being stunned into silence. Why is it that this topic of the death of a child who affects 1 in 4 people is still so taboo?!?

I’m over the moon that a film is coming out that tells the true story about stillbirth: Return to Zero. I hope it gets people talking.

Because even I’m not doing a great job stunning people into silence…

Related articles

• Return to Zero Mission
• Synopsis of the film Return to Zero

Unrecognizable to Myself

The Essential Bruce Springsteen (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Recently I listened to Bruce Springsteen’s song ‘Streets of Philadelphia’ and the lyrics were all to familiar to me:

I was bruised and battered and
I couldn’t tell what I felt
I was unrecognizable to myself 
I saw my reflection in a window
I didn’t know my own face

This is how I sometimes meet the person I didn’t know before: Me. The other Me. The part of Me that must have been there all along but maybe dormant.

Yes, I have been angry in my life. Yes, I have been unsocial, tired, quiet… at times but more often I’ve experienced myself as a friendly person that enjoyed social interactions, had friends to meet up with and laughed and enjoyed life. Now I find myself alone in a cafe, having lived in my home country again after 15 years abroad and really haven’t had all that much social contact with my friends that I still have (or maybe no longer have) from when I still lived here.

How Are You? Part 2

There is always more than what meets the eye

I must have been asked many many times but this time I’m ready to truly answer.

“How are you?”

“Thanks for asking.”  I guess people are sort of afraid to ask…

I’m still in a kind of mess. In some way. Physically I’m showing signs of inflammation (especially in my elbows, hands, wrists and achilles), pain in my back, headaches… This does not help me to stay physically active, which I know would be good and is what I would recommend to my clients.

Emotionally I’m still experiencing bouts of anger, which also uses up a lot of my physical energy, so I’m tired a lot. Mentally, I’m regularly experiencing overwhelm with the most basic things.
I also haven’t been social for what seems like 18 months now.

How Are You?

How are you REALLY?

Yesterday my sister asked me: How are YOU?*

It took me some time to answer and yet, my answer wasn’t able to fully express my state.

This is a question with so many facets. Answering how I feel is like summarising the ups and downs as they change so often and so much and it’s almost impossible to find a simple answer. It is also a question that, at least for me, requires a climate of space, time, openness, ability to feel, hear and be heard, acceptance and especially the ability of the listener to just allow the answer to be there.

So often in the past I have been offered solutions to ‘apparent problems’ that I didn’t even have in the first place, and not just when expressing how I felt. Why not just change the way you feel, if it doesn’t feel good! Especially when taking the time and opening up to how I feel it is disappointing that I’m met with not just my own desire to change it but also the always good-intended ‘I just want to help you feel better/different’ vibe. I know there is always good intention but more so it’s the uncomfortable-ness of being in the company of someone that is less than happy and smiling.

If there was absolutely no point or benefit in feeling exactly the way we are feeling at each moment, whether that is comfortable, bad, uneasy or the opposite, why would we?