In utter weariness he asked her once in different words, “Then where do you go from here—where do you turn?” “Toward life,” she said “Toward life,” and turned toward him. – F. Scott Fitzgerald
I’m trying. It’s not easy to choose joy. You would think it would be, right? It seems so easy. Given the choice between joy and sorrow, everyone would choose joy, right? It’s the obvious logical choice. But logic has no place in the world of human emotion. Sorrow sucks you in. It’s like a whirlpool, difficult to fight. You start off trying to be happy and making the best of things. Then a little voice whispers, “You can’t possibly think this will last, can you? It never does.”
Still, you have to try. Right? You have to keep fighting for happiness, right?
It might just be the antidepressants talking, but this weekend, I think I gave it a fair fight. I tried my best to stay positive and to say yes to things instead of locking myself in my house and not coming out. My husband wanted to go out Thursday night. Since I had Friday off, I agreed. We went to my favorite Mexican place and had a great night together. Friday, we stumbled up on reservations to an amazing restaurant in Philly that usually has a two month wait for weekend reservations. Someone must have canceled last minute. It ended up being a fabulous meal and a great night for my husband and me. It was expensive but fun to get a little dressed up and have a nice night out.
Saturday we rang in the New Year at a friend’s house. It’s been our yearly tradition to spend New Year’s Eve with them. We haven’t seen them since we lost the baby and it was great to see old friends and reconnect. We ate great food, had some drinks, played some fun games, and had a great time hanging out and chatting. Sunday, I slept in and we ran out to the food store to pick up dinner. We ended up deciding on making a nice steak dinner and somewhere along the way, my husband said should we invite my sister? I told him to call her and see (that whole saying yes thing) and they were free! It took some extra running around the store (all of a sudden we needed more of everything!) and then a ton of spur of the moment cleaning since my house looked like a bomb hit it. It was all worth it, though. We had a fun night and the dinner was delicious.
Monday, we ran a few errands and relaxed. I read my book and took a nap and it was so relaxing to be in my nice clean house (well the downstairs at least). We made dinner together and it was just the perfect end to the weekend. I really feel like we were really connected and I felt happy this weekend. Really happy. Not the kind of happy where I would feel happy and then feel guilty right afterwards for enjoying life without my baby. I’m not saying it was perfect. It wasn’t. There were moments of sadness. There were moments of grief. There moments where I missed him more than I ever have. But there was happiness there. I’m hoping there’s more of that in 2012.
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Note: I’m attributing that quote to F. Scott Fitzgerald but I’ve had a hard time finding out if it’s really his writing. I’m going with it for now unless someone proves otherwise.
