3rd Birthday

 

Tomorrow is Evelyn’s 3^rd birthday.

I can’t get my head round it to be honest. How has it been 3 years? It feels, in some way, like yesterday, but equally like a lifetime ago. I suppose, when you think about it, its more like 10 lifetimes ago; the lifetime we had together. The time around Evelyn’s birth was filled with fear and confusion, trying to get our heads around what had happened and what was going the happen next, not actually knowing how poorly she was until she was a few days old. I barely have any memory of those 5 days between being admitted to hospital and Evelyn’s operation. I say that, I have just considered it, and really its more like the first 2 weeks of her life. I can probably remember about half a days’ worth of time across those days. I had disassociated, my brain trying to protect me from the trauma I was experiencing. I know certain events happened, people tell me about them, I have tiny fragments of memory here and there that confuse me more than anything as I can’t piece together a full timeline. Those moments that I truly remember, however, are few and far between.

A few weeks ago I was sat in bed, having woken up late, and annoyed at myself for sleeping in again. I have always slept in, since way before I hit my teens, I was always lying in over the weekend. I have never been a morning person. Nowadays, it annoys me. I want to get up, crack on, but I am exhausted. I am constantly battling and working on my mental health, and the irony of that is its completely draining. Particularly, it is in sleep when I truly face my demons. During the day you can distract yourself, fake a smile. It is when I sleep that my brain reminds me that I have trauma, my dreams are vivid, not always frightening but always disturbing. I wake up in pain, my body clearly tense all night, my muscles are fatigued.

This particular morning, however, it hit me that really I should have a toddler waking me up. I shouldn’t be able to lie in, I should be up early, seeing to my beautiful little girl. Oversleeping caused me to be angry at myself, but, also, caused my heart to break. This time of year is hard.  

I know I need to be kinder, gentler to myself. Its just so raw.