Sporadic

Yeah, as I was saying, obviously this would force me to do some journaling, which I badly need to do, yadda yadda. So here it is nearly July. I imagine it would be more effective and helpful if I did this more often than every three months.

The thing is, though, most blogs are about interesting books, incisive and witty commentary on current affairs, someone's very fascinating personal life. Mine isn't really about a damn thing -- unfortunately, unlike the show Seinfeld, my blog about nothing isn't funny or lucrative. However, keep in mind that I have actually viewed very few blogs, except for those of close friends, or a very few blogs that are funny/interesting enough to have become more generally known and linked to, so perhaps I'm overestimating the standards.

All that I have to talk about is myself, my loss, how I'm adjusting to this armpit of a town we've moved to... I am not working, I spend my days with a three-year-old, and I read utter and absolute crap most of the time, except what my good friend Sandy (who can be read at http://imponderabilia.blogspot.com/) is kind enough to pass along.

On that subject, she recently brought me two of Laurie Notaro's books (We Thought You Would Be Prettier and I Love Everybody (And Other Atrocious Lies) ). They were absolutely gut-bustingly hilarious -- especially I Love Everybody. I read most of it in bed one night and my husband was constantly being shaken awake as I guffawed and writhed and tried to smother my laughter and snorts in the pillow. My friend Gretchen, who does everything to its logical extreme, read them too and immediately ran out and bought her other two books, so now I have read them all. Thanks, Sandy -- I needed that.

Other than that, I recently turned 40, my younger daughter is now 3, and preschool beckons enticingly from across the vast empty gulf of summer, in whose forbidding depths lurk the twin demons of potty-training and weaning. I am dreading it. You'd think with everything I'd been through, particularly Hannah's death, that I'd merely chuckle at the pure terror of what lies ahead in the next two months, but for some reason it seems to have rendered me less able to cope with ordinary parenting stresses.

We are also trying to decide whether or not we want to have another child, assuming dh's vasectomy reversal was actually successful (we haven't bothered to check yet) and I am starting to realize that I really don't want to have another baby; what I want is to have my older daughter back, and that is not possible. However, a lot of why I think I don't want another child is simply that I hate the first three years, mostly (especially because I tend to spawn colicky non-sleeping round-the-clock-nursing newborns and very high-need, albeit engaging and lovely, babies and toddlers). Once the preschool year starts, I enjoy it so much more.

I was really having such a wonderful time with my older daughter right before she was killed. She was at a great age -- five; she was doing well in school, really growing into a wonderful person. I was so looking forward to her future.

My younger daughter is incredible too, but she is not my older daughter, and I think I've had a hard time adjusting to that fact and getting to a point where I can appreciate Emily for what and who she is, in her own right. There are so many similarities, and they look so much alike, but their personalities are fundamentally different. Hannah was a diplomatic and skilled negotiator; she wanted to work with people and get along and find solutions. Emily is charming and friendly but absolutely not negotiable; she either agrees with your agenda or she doesn't, and God help you if she doesn't. Not that she flings herself about or screams (at least most of the time she doesn't), but she's a formidable adversary. In point of fact, she's just like me, and it's harder than hell to try and live with the three-year-old version of myself.

I have a hard time too because I really don't have anyone I can talk to at length about Hannah's death. I mean, I can talk to dh, but he is grieving too, so he needs his share of support and sometimes I can't give it when I just want to feel MY grief. I can talk to my therapist, and he is truly wonderful, but it's only for an hour every week or so, and after all, he is getting paid. I can talk to a few of the people at our Compassionate Friends group, but mostof the circumstances of their children's deaths are very different (a lot of substance abuse/gun violence/suicides/horrible diseases, mostly older teens/young adults) and a lot of them seem to talk in aphorisms, which doesn't help. I can talk in a very limited way to close friends, those who knew and loved Hannah too, but I sense that there is only so much I can open up before they become uncomfortable and sad too.

With newer friends and those who never knew her personally, I really can't talk at all. I do refer to her off and on, especially since Emily is getting closer to the age Hannah was at her death, and I'm going through all the same hassles with Emily that I did with Hannah. But nobody ever picks up on it or asks me questions about her or even how I'm doing; or they just say something like, "Oh, I'm so sorry" or "I can't imagine how you do this, you're so strong" and then are practically foaming at the mouth to change the subject and move on. It's very isolating.

Youngstown, too, is just not a great place. Especially having just come from Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti, and having lived in Atlanta for some years before that. It's a wasteland. We are making some friends, and in particular my friend Gretchen has literally saved my sanity and my life since I've moved here, but for the most part there is nothing much to do, nowhere good to eat, nothing that interesting to see (exceptions include the Butler Museum of American Art, and Mill Creek Park), nobody that intelligent or interesting to talk to. It's hell I tell you, just plain hell.