Remembering

I’ve been having flashes of memories lately.

I remember the antics we had to go through to get Gabe to feed when he was brand new.

I remember how terrified I felt when we ran tests on carcinogens in 8th grade science class.

I remember driving away from my grandparents’ house when we were moving to Ontario from Nova Scotia.

I remember taking a deep breath and swimming to the bottom of the deep end of the pool at the Shirks Aquatic Center so we could touch the grate in the floor of the pool.

Sometime over the last several weeks, I fell into the pit.  I don’t like the pit.  It is not my favorite place to be.  And the funny thing? I didn’t know what pushed me in.  Usually I can point to an event or a series of events, things that were too much for me to handle.    Yes, I was sick as winter began.  Yes, I had surgery.  Yes, it was a lot to undertake.  But I thought I was starting to rebound.  I thought I was on the upswing.  Clearly I was not.  And I didn’t know why. But then I remembered.

In mid-2o07 I had a miscarriage.  The elation of being (briefly) pregnant was almost unfathomable.  I trembled with excitement, and then with grief when I knew it wasn’t to be.  And then – eight months later – I fell into the pit.  A deep, dark, lonely pit that felt bottomless and seemed unending.  I couldn’t be sure, but after spending some time in the abyss I wondered if the timing wasn’t coincidental.  Did my body remember that had the pregnancy worked I would have been delivering a baby at that point?  Was the pit so deep because my body was grieving?  Was it my body’s way of acknowledging the loss and processing it physiologically?

I recently remembered this, these wonderings.  Although I had to calculate it out to be sure, it occurred to me that I am now eight months past our ivf, a time when I was technically pregnant for at least a brief period of time.  Again I’m left wondering – does my body remember?  Does it remember what was and what could have been?  Does it remember the energy and love we poured into those embryos?  Does it remember what we prepared to attempt to accomplish?  Did it take me to the pit to finish the grieving process?

One thing is sure.  The body and the mind are intertwined.  The body’s grief is the mind’s grief and the mind’s grief is the body’s grief.  I’m hoping the converse is also true – that the mind’s joy can become the body’s joy and that the body’s joy can become the mind’s joy.  For me, there’s a fine line between living in the moment and wallowing in the moment, but I think I’m due for a foray into the “fake it ’til you make it” realm.  We need a little joy around these parts, and if it’s not coming naturally I think I might try fabricating it.

How’s this for a little joy?

There.  Much better!