I....

I tried to come back. I was hurt that someone commented that I should never have had children. I believe him on a bad day, I know he's crazy when I look into my beautiful children's eyes and when they smile, oblivious to nothing but happiness in the moment, something I'm working on. I cleaned up my yard. I bought ferns and pink jasmine and put them in planters around the porch. Put two chairs and a little table on the porch with a welcome mat I turn outward so I can imagine the world welcomes me as I step into it. I needlefelt and paint but also work hard to free up stretches of hours to do nothing, Aidyn's naptime. I chase happiness and feel it on a good day, far removed from it on a bad day. I feel like happiness is a choice but why does it feel like work to choose it? I still miss Zoe. She doesn't feel like she was ever here sometimes. I see her picture and it feels like I was born missing her, like her loss was always in my life. I knew since I was little something bad was coming later in life for me. My anxiety started at 11. I painted a picture of a strong crying flower cradling a wilted smaller flower with bloody roots, two years before it happened. Before I ever had children, I knew losing one was the worst thing that could happen. I want to believe the next thirty years will be much happier than the first. I have no instinct about my future now, so maybe the worst is over, maybe, maybe.