If,

 If, I put my kids to bed each night happy and healthy and maybe put brush to canvas as much as I can, is it enough to make my life worth something? Can a life consist of raising babies and art? I'm tempted to say it is, but as ungrateful as I am going to sound, something feels missing. Something is just off and I'm helpless to find the balance.

4 years...

 My Zoe-Beth,
  I can't believe it's been four years since I've held you in my arms, or seen your sweet face. So much has happened, and so many things have changed. What never changes is how much I miss you or love you. I will always feel a little guilty that I'm here, typing this, and you're gone, you died.
 Life was getting pretty rough there for a while, but it's getting slowly easier. My heart was broken again and I had almost forgot how bad it hurt. Two broken hearts in my life, how do people live with five, six, twelve?
I'm learning to live for right now and to let go of control. Somehow, deciding to live with questions and doubts and just focus on your brother and sister is helping.
 I'm sorry I haven't been to your grave. I hate it there and now that Moah is there too, it's so depressing. I know you are not there.
 I'm sorry you'll never play with your brother or sister. I'm sorry you never got to feel the sun on your face or see a rainbow. I'm sorry you'll never open a birthday present or wait for Santa to come. I'm sorry for a lifetime, of things you'll never do.
                                          Mommy

Zoe-Beth

Happy Birthday baby. I miss you so much. I wish you were here, running around with your family. Things are sad and crazy for your momma right now. My heart hurts. I love you, forever, xoxoxoxoxoxo
                                          Mommy

Darkness

I don't sleep well, I don't eat much. I see Jeff, I don't see him much. I take care of the kids well. I walk along lost when not doing that. My mom thought I was on drugs because I'm so skinny. I cried and told her it wasn't drugs, it is loss, it is pain, it is Jeff, slowly breaking my heart with his doubts. She cried, to see me hurt so badly. Losing Zoe broke my heart and I pieced it together with thin fabric and found strings and declared it suitable for going on. Jeff found a ragged edge and pulled hard, too hard. He didn't mean to rip it, after all I insisted it was made of tougher stuff. I guess he had to pull it open, I just wasn't ready for what I would feel once my heart was re-opened. I've thought about hospitals, I've thought about escape. I think more of my kids and how they need a mom, here, regardless.
 I've never had a live person break my heart, and we're still together in a small sad way. In limbo. Now I feel that limbo is closer to hell, the hope to rise out of it will consume your mind.
Zoe's birthday is tomorrow and my heart has taken however many giant steps backwards. Light bulbs are busting all over the house immersing me in darkness.

Limbo

Some days are better than others, with the mornings being unbearable. Jeff and I are still 'together' but in a limbo that is convenient for him and painful for me. He isn't living here and I miss him. We talk and I go see him. Every now and again, I get insecure and fight with him. I don't mean for it to happen, but I am so confused by all this. I don't know how to just let go and let the chips fall as they may. I feel like I'm grieving the loss of something not quite lost yet. I am having a really hard time. At times I feel like surely love will prevail and this will be ok. I spent Aidyn's infancy with this guy and we both agree that we love and miss each other. Other days I feel like I'm just enduring the slow death of a realtionship that meant so very much to me. I get messages where he assures me he cares about me and is thinking about and working on this, other days I feel like an afterthought for him, while he's always on my mind. This will have to end soon. I can't wait around forever wondering if I'm going to get the life I loved back. It either needs to happen or I need to start building a new life as much as I don't feel ready to. I have (ish) the person I want. I don't want to start over again. I know I can but it hurts. I had the life I wanted, the one I was told to believe in and then Jeff floated away from me on a cloud of doubt and guilt. I can't figure this out for him, but I can't live in limbo forever.

Empty

Helping me raise my children, made him feel guilty about the situation with his son.
I can't have another child...
 Two of these are reasons Jeff decided he didn't know if he could be with me. He said his feelings changed after seeing his little boy so excited about his ex wife's new baby. We stuck it out a week after he decided he had these feelings. I thought everything was going to be ok. He got drunk last night and showed his true colors. The fact that I stood beside him didn't matter. He said I was selfish and never made his problems a bigger priority than my own. I took him to his mother's in the middle of the night. All he took with him was the rest of his beer.....and a part of my heart.

There is no 'maybe' we'll get back together, it's the real thing, it's over.

(Feel free to comment however you like, just please don't bash Jeff. I am so, so angry by how blind he is and how bad I am hurting but I don't want ugly things said as I do, unfortunately, love him.)

Damnit

I realized it the other day. I don't think anyone else knows or that I even knew until the last week or so. I am still grieving. I still miss my little girl. I still look at a boy and imagine him being dragged around and loved on and chased by, two sisters. It hurts me that my current boyfriend didn't know me before. I was so much more confident, and needed no reassurance. The very things he resents me for, my weakness.
Or maybe he doesn't but then there's another reminder, I don't trust people. Since Zoe died, I don't trust people to stick around because in my experience they don't. I don't expect him to stick around forever. I don't trust anyone to do that. How do you have a relationship, if you don't learn to trust someone to stay?
I really want to participate in the Where I am Now Project of Angie's. Today though, this is where I am. Remembering that I'm still grieving and I don't trust anyone and it's hurting my relationships....

Mean

I will try and never speak another harsh word, in the sincere hope that no other  hateful outbursts find their way to my ears. Sticks and stones leave scars you can see but words strike the soul if you let them,

What I've been doing in here...

2x4ft.....

In my room....

I listen to music no one else here wants to hear. It's a sanctuary in a sad way; a buffer, so to speak. Reading is the only sure fire way to drown out thoughts, emotions pushing to the surface but it's only a diversion. The art, a controlled echo of feelings past. The music sweeps up the thoughts, gives them form and a melody and I don't have to work for it. When the kids are at dads I've been painting, alot, alone in my room.
 I hate feeling like I must censor myself here but if you look at my comments, irl people want their say here and this is my place, and I don't want to argue. There are also people who come here only to steal a glance into my life (when I've managed to write here at all) and satisfy themselves that I'm fine and never call or leave a comment. This blog isn't an accurate way to judge my well being. It's like the weather here unfortunately, it can change any minute.
 I've been meaning to do Angie's Where I Am Now project, I just feel so exposed here. I don't want to go private, so I just have to get over it. I'll give it a shot next week maybe.
 I've felt very lonely lately (expect this when you've been isolating yourself) . I don't know what to say here, or in any other area of my life. I've never felt quite this apathetic without at least knowing why. Rufus Wainwright and Jeff Buckley are saying it all for me this morning, but I have to leave my room and outside of here, no one likes my music....

Aidyn was hurt bad...

While Aidyn was at his dad's Saturday, he put his hands down on a heated oven door and got serious 2nd and 3rd degree burns on both of his hands and one arm. He spent most of Saturday in the hospital and Sunday morning in the burn center. He is agitated. He cries when you tell him no, he cries when he can't pick up things. He tries his best not to fall because he lands on his hands and it hurts. He is afraid to touch things now. He can't hold a bottle and wants to chew on his supposed to remain sterile bandages. He will have scars. I am a mess. I've had a knot in my stomach since I got the call and even though he's home and being taken care of by his mommy, I am so anxious and just sick that this happened.

I'm such a punk

I put the little pill under my tongue and hope for the best
It can't fix everything
Loneliness and anger will always have their say
Why did he do this
Why do I make myself into a martyr
Why do I still bother
I'm the one alone
I'm the one hurt
Listening to Miller's Angels

" I want you to leave me, leave me, leave me, leave me alone"


I HATE that I think like I do and in such circles and so fast

Lil man

Oh,

I'm simmering blackberry sauce for a storebought angel food cake. Why am I bothering? I'm reading about Nazi Germany and Ivy is waiting for me to come watch Big (remember that one?) and I am stalling for an unknown reason.
 Aidyn is asleep and Jeff is at a party. He got a job. I went to the store. I came back to a mohawk that quickly changed to a shaved head. We lost a hippy-headed member of the household today. I hate it.
If I don't go stir the sauce, it will gel.....

Old Poetry...

I think clearer,
In the muggy breeze,
The fading of blue in sky.
Do I call on the rain?
For truly it follows closely,
Behind my discontent.
I've concealed qualities,
Which I'll give no power,
By assigning names.
Names too often,
Repeated in brain,
But dare not speak
directly of.
If I am to become,
A trinket,
I'll be the brightest,
The most adored.
But, the melancholy...
How to end it?
These clouds, so near,
so often.
She calls the wind,
To see if it will remember her.
When she fails to thank it,
For soft embraces,
Will it still love her,
And blow her hair?

The Hand Up, Spring Fever, The Adventure and Thank You's...

Sorry about my last post. It wasn't written with the intentions of causing anyone to worry. I was overwhelmed and angry. For a few months, at times it seemed as though there was a monster inside of me that kept oozing out. I was taking it out on my sweet family. I was also (and still am a little) having nightmares of just raw chaos and crowds. There were dreams about being put back into the boarding school I was put into as a teenager, but being forced back as an adult and seperated from my children and Jeff and unable to convince anyone they couldn't hold me there as I was way over legal age. Anyway, I talked to my dr. and he prescribed a new medicine that is actually helping me alot. The need to paint again is always a sign that I am feeling like my normal, well I guess for me, self. My head is swimming even now about new pieces I would like to work on  and new mediums I want to play in. I may even have a touch of spring fever. I seem to want to clean and sort and organize everything around me and that never happens...ever. All I know is that this seems to be really working for me but I'm a bit afraid of feeling this normal and goal oriented as it is always so much more difficult to fall again after a stretch of feeling so great. Also, no medication is a wonder pill. I realize that of course. I think I just needed help to get out of the hole I was in.  I just couldn't this time, nor could anyone else. ( By 'anyone else' I mean Jeff as he is the only person that offered a hand up)
 Thank you guys so much for your well wishes. I wish I would have read them before today. I drop in and out of here so infrequently lately that I ponder the status of some of my online relationships, but here are all of my ladies (minus just a couple) again giving me love and encouragement because of one sentence I wrote while I was hurting and angry. How awesome is that? Thanks for loving me in my abscence. I don't deserve it but am grateful nonetheless.
 Oh, and one more thing, Jeff and I just got back from another court thing in Virginia. This time we didn't let his ex wife determine our attitude and we sort of got adventurous about our trip a few hours into the ride home after leaving court. We left late Sunday night and drove through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, and finally Virginia. We got there late afternoon Monday and did the family court thing Tuesday morning and then decided we would go to Georgia and see some of his family. We, well actually I, drove through the Smoky Mountains, which I had never seen. We drove from Virginia to Tennessee and through a little bit of North Carolina, then finally into Georgia. It was a very neat drive and I wish we would have had more time to stop at some of the little shops coming out of N.C. and into Georgia. There were shops selling gems and minerals of all colors and textures. There were chain saw art statues for sale and on display, which would have been fun to look at. We stayed with his family that night and it was fun to meet them and drink a few beers and chat. His oldest stepsister is a lit. professer, who was twelve when Jeff's stepmom lost a full term baby. She now has an interst in special needs kids and has written a few books about their educational needs, She talked with me a lot about the death of a child from a sibling's perspective. I liked them alot and I'm glad we took that side trip to meet them.
 So yeah, Jeff and I drove through seven states in less than four days and smiled and laughed and bought matching aviator gas station sun glasses and sang to the radio and took goofy pictures.( Penny, we stopped at a Love's gas station near or in Vidalia and Jeff and I waved at your exit and said, "Hey Penny!!", and we started talking about some of the things you had mentioned and how we hoped that his son would know one day that Jeff loved him enough to have spent the money and made the trips to fight for his right for a childhood and a great relationship with his dad.)
 Now we are back and Aidyn is in his new play octogon which is huge and he loves because he can go all around the living room which I love because my art supplies and breakables are no longer in danger. Jeff loves it because it looks like Aidyn is in a U.F.C. octagon. Ivy woun't be home until Monday. I miss her little butt, but she's having fun playing in the country with her dad's girlfriend's kids.
 I'm about to go buy more plastic drawer towers to organize my art stuff that has again overflowed the last plastic drawers I bought and are spilling out all over the house. Gotta scratch that Sping Fever itch....
xo

Sometimes...

People fall into a hole so deep, they don't know what to hang on to.....

Time for me to get real, for real...

If you read this blog:
 First of all, things are pretty good right now. No one's life is without it's kinks here and there, but there isn't much that Jeff and I can't handle it seems. I had a good Christmas. Aidyn really loves bows and has become addicted to Despicable Me. (seriously) My kid will give you the most pathetic face and give his most dramatic cry upon the changing of his new, umm only... movie. It's a phase, I'm sure, but I still get a laugh when I'm doing some mundane task and hear, " It's so fluffy, I'm gonna die!!!" or "Curse you tiny toilet!!" We have to go to Virginia (yes, 1,000 away from me) on Wednesday. Anybody want to do lunch?! I'll be stuffed in a cold, I'm guessing, hotel room all by my lonesome Thursday while Jeff fights to keep visitation with his adorable, spitting image of himself son thanks to an evil bitter ex-wife. YAY! Like I said, we just roll with the punches and take turns holding each other up and making each other laugh.
 The point of this post was to first let you know that I'm still here just very busy. I took some time to think about why I didn't feel like writing here anymore, and I realized that I needed a more open space to write about my life. I need a place to write about live children, dead children, my relationships, my struggles, my joys, my poetry...anything I want.
 So, I've given myself permission to do so. From now on this blog I will be all me, all the time. I may curse. I may write random poetry or streams of consciencness. I will post pictures of whatever I want.
 I love quite a few of you that read here, like sisters and I have faith that you guys already know the 'real me' enough to stick around. Those I will inevitably lose, I'm sorry. Thank you so much for your kind words and well wishes throughout the last almost three years I've had this blog.
 I named this blog La La Land, because my nephew calls me La La and I live in my head so much of the time and have used the term to explain where I disappear to. It was never meant to be a blog that only focused on the loss of my precious Zoe though that is how I found Blogger in the first place.
  Enough with all that now...ahem..abrupt subject change following:
Catherine, I miss you, I really do. I never finished my bird mobile to my liking, so I'm going to hang them on the stems of some vellum paper flowers in a vase that I made. I'll show you pictures..promise.
 Angie, I haven't forgotten you, and you still should expect a little something from me. It's past Christmas but what the hell, Christmas was crazy and I still want you to know how much you mean to me. I love seeing Thor and Bea on fb...It's precious watching them grow.
 Birni, I'm SO glad you've reached the 'age of viabilty' and things are mostly ok. I told you that you weren't cursed....sweet lady. Oh and as soon as you send me some wool, I'm making you a Mr. Mitchell..remember..
 Petra, you can expect to be receiving a little something as well. We'll call it a New Year present. I've had your tea for a while and a few knick knacks put together, I've just been so busy. Oh, I finally got my hands on some more kinder hippos, but nothing is cooler than the eggs. I still have every one. I love them.....
 Margaret, I'm sorry I haven't kept in touch. E-mail me and let me know how things are going. I hope you are still loving life a little more. You seemed to have been finally pulled from the pit last time I heard from you and it made me happy.


  I made a resolution this year (a few actually, but anyway) to paint and create every day. Angie inspired me and a lecture from my dad about wasting my time and talent gave me the push that I needed. I actually finished a great one today and I've already drawn out a new one. I've been painting alot and I feel extremely good about it. It's something I was born to do, and I know it. When I don't create, I suffer. Call me crazy, but you can ask my momma, I was creating things as soon as I was coordinated enough to hold a pencil or a brush. Where it will all take me, I have no idea, but I have faith that it will change my life and the lives of those around me one day, somehow. My instincts and my soul know that this is/has always been my path. I'm excited to learn where it leads, I just need the gentle push Jeff gives me to keep a brush in my hand and creativity flowing.
 I gotta go now. Jeff needs some of my voodoo to help the Saints defeat the Seahawks and I need to go hang out with my crazy, sexy boyfriend. Kids are with dads. (Sorry Seattle fans, I LOVE your city but I gotta support my New Orleans boys....lol)



 I'm back, for real this time. Thanks for not forgetting about me.
   

xo Lindsay