Reality

Today it's just me and Nat until we get Grace from school. Mom went home yesterday. It's the first day I'm on my own in almost eleven weeks. It feels good. But I'm scared as hell.

I'll still using one crutch to walk...if you can call my weird walk a "walk". I'm crazy sore. But, I guess ten weeks with no walking and not using one leg/foot at all, will do that to you. I knew this part would be the hardest, but I really had no concept. It's hard. Yesterday was the first day since I got the green light to be full weight-bearing that I wasn't more sore than the day before. Yesterday was better. Thank God.

I'm not a slow person. I do things quickly. But now, I'm freaking slow. I'm driving myself crazy I'm so damn slow.

I start physical therapy tomorrow. I'm excited about that. I'm giving myself this week to get my bearings and then next week I'm going to try and see if I can't get things as much back to "normal" as I can.

Normal is going to include a diet for Jim & I. We both need to drop at least 15 pounds and 20 would be nice. I think we're going to do something crazy like Jenn*y Cra*ig or something to get a jump start. I'd like to be down at least the 15 by the time we have a family thing to do in May. After that, maintenance we can handle. It's getting this last bit off that we are both struggling with.

We talked to the township about Rifle. The lady was just as nice as she could be. She basically said that the ordinance is very difficult to enforce, that she is a dog lover and hates to write those letters so she tries to be as nice as possible in them (she was) and that we have a grumpy neighbor so try not to sweat it too much. Cool. Can do.

Nonetheless...

Rifle is a great dog who has a fabulous personality, but he's got some puppy habits that we've never had the time to deal with. Basic obedience stuff. I had planned on taking him to school myself, but now, that ain't happening and Jim just doesn't have the time. The kennel where we leave the dogs when we go away has a great training program and one of the options is to leave the dog there for two weeks while they train him and then they spend several hours with you over a few weeks teaching you what they did.

So, Rifle is at doggie college. He comes home on Saturday. I miss him so much. I can't wait for him to come home. He's a kennel favorite though, they always give him special treatment there. Last time we went away, he didn't want to come home. I imagine that things will be that way Saturday, too. At the end of the day, he's a working dog and he is never happier than he is when he has a job. At the kennel, he has a job and he just loves it. As soon as I can (and since the weather seems to be improving) I'm going to get out of the house...with him...I swear. Someone please hold me accountable for saying that and ask if I have gotten my ass of the couch this year.

It's so weird. This is the first year in my married life (6th anniversary was yesterday) that we aren't pregnant or trying to have a baby. I feel like it's a new chapter. Like we have all this great stuff ahead of us, we just have to get past the part where I don't walk so good. I hope that gets handled soon. I don't really have time to be gimping along for days and weeks. I got shit to do people!

Having said all that, Jim and I have said on so many occasions..."If Audrey were here..." It's like now that we feel like we're done having babies, it lets us see more clearly how huge the hole is where she should be. We both know that if she were here, Nat wouldn't be, but how do you see that? How do you see as a parent, that one of your babies wouldn't be here if the other was? It's like our family wouldn't be our family if we hadn't walked the path we have. I know that seems like such a no shit statement, but, well, I think it's just finally hitting us.

There are so many times a day that I look at Nattie and wonder what Audrey would have looked like or what she would have been doing at this stage. Gracie and Nat look a lot a like, but not exactly, so I wonder where on that spectrum Audrey would be. Would she look more like me the way Grace does? or, would she look more like Jim the way Nat does? Did she have his eyes the way both the other girls do? I wish I knew.

Last week, I bumped into a blog of a woman who was only a few days out from losing her son at 36 weeks. As I have read it and felt her pain, all I can think about is how far we've come in 3 1/2 years. I remember that pain. I remember the sleepless nights and the tears. The fog that I walked in for what seemed like forever at the time. I still have that from time to time, but not the hurt that was so intense then.

Reading her words makes me hurt for her so very deeply. I know that in time she'll come to a place where things are just a little more bearable. A place where she'll sleep again and where she'll feel a little less broken. I just don't know how you tell someone that. How do you tell them that the pain does get better? That you find ways to deal with it? I don't think you can or that that there is a good way. I couldn't hear it when people told me.

There are still moments when the hurt is just like it was in those days. But they are moments. I still have nights when I wake up and have to put the years in order. When I first wake-up and wonder if it was all a bad dream. But, I look at Nat and know that it wasn't. That her sister is gone so she could be here.

I don't understand that. I don't even know if I like it. It just is. It is what it is. I'm grateful for what we have. I'm grateful for our experiences, they make us who we are. I'm so grateful for my family. For all of it.

I don't know how I got to this place, but I kind of like it here.