II’m sitting up in bed with knots in my stomach. My bags are packed and double checked. Extra outfits in my carry on and all idevices are charged and ready to go. But I still have that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach like I’m forgetting something.

I’m not a nervous traveller by any stretch. I’m not stranger to airports and long flights, nor is Darcy, but this feels so different. All I’ve wanted is for this vacation (I still hate that word) to be is an escape for me and Darcy to be able to start to put our lives back together. All I want is to be able to walk into a room, for just a little while, and not have people look at me and think “there’s the girl with the dead baby”. I want for us to have time for ourselves to rediscover what life is all about for us now.

But then there’s the pressure. That nagging voice in the back of my head. I’m starting to feel like people are expecting it to be a magic potion to fix everything. Maybe that’s an expectation that my mind has fabricated (as it tends to do), but it’s one I feel, none the less. I’m not going to come back and be “fixed”. This is who I am now. I am a childless mother. And for the rest of my life I will think of Everlee every single day and miss her, and grieve for her. I just need to learn how to live with that, and I hope this will be the beginning of this process.

The anger is starting to slowly seep in. Not in the way I expected it. In glancing through my Facebook feed tonight I was sorely reminded of how some people simply don’t appreciate all that has come to them so easily. A lot of people take for granted what I so desperately wanted and lost. Everlee was everything I ever wanted and never thought I would ever get to have, and I only got to keep her for an instant. Please, cherish every moment with your children while you can, don’t take for granted the gift you’ve been given. I’d gladly and without a hesitation give every day of this trip for just one second with my little girl again.

I know what I feel l Ike I’m forgetting. I’ve known for weeks in preparing for this trip. It breaks my heart that I’m leaving my little baby girl behind. Even if she isn’t still here, the mother in me, the mother that I am, feels like I am leaving my baby for the first time. The knot in my stomach is a mother’s anguish. A mother’s guilt. But I guess that will never go away.

Bon voyage for now. I don’t know if I’ll update this blog from my travels. Part of me wants to completely disconnect for awhile. The other part of me knows that this blog has become my release and my only true outlet to rawly articulate myself in the most honest way I know how. I guess, like everything in my life, I’ll just take it one day at a time.