Things aren’t great. I sat in my living room on October 15, which is Infant Loss Remembrance Day, and I realized something. Not only did it hurt just as much fourteen months into the journey as it had two months in, but there I was: in exactly the same spot on the same couch in the same room, looking at the same candle flickering its memorial flame, on the same date at the same time… and NOTHING HAS CHANGED. Nothing has changed since losing Lucy over a year ago. I can’t let go, I can’t adapt.

More than 14 months in and here’s the REAL truth of it all…

It still hurts now as much as it did one year ago.

I can’t even remember most of the past year; so much of it is a blur.

There isn’t a morning that dawns when I actually want to get out of bed. Facing the day means facing the truth. And no matter how much time passes, it’s still just as hard today to face the fact that our child died.

I am irritated by everyone else’s happiness. It just makes my own misery so much more visible to me.

It’s hard to see little children, both in real life and in photos, because I can only wonder what our child should look like at that age.

My job is absolutely draining the life out of me. My patience for the rudeness and complaining of my students has dwindled, and I am weary of trying to parent other peoples’ children (when all I really want is to parent my own child). I feel as if I am failing with every action I take in my teaching role, and that I am letting down all of the students that truly want to be in my classroom. I am simply not the sweet Mrs. O. that I used to be. How could I be??

Sometimes, I simply have nothing positive to say.

I really don’t want to talk to anyone lately. I have become a hermit and a recluse, and that’s how I want to be. The idea of even picking up the phone to call family and friends causes me an unnatural amount of anxiety, and once again… I have nothing to say. What would me calling someone do other than depress them?

With every month that passes, I am losing more hope. Hope that things will ever be different or better than they are now. I can’t think of much to look forward to. With every month that passes and we see no rainbow, I lose more and more of my faith in the idea that it will ever be better.

I am having a hard time coping. I take sleep aids every night. I drink too much. I don’t know if it’s going to get better.

I feel like a freak most of the time, some grief monster that no one understands. How can it have been this long, and I’m still not “better”? There is no “better” in a grief like this.

The one thing we want is to give Lucy a sibling, and I’ve made such a mess of myself that I’d be surprised if it ever happens.

The truth is, life is hard right now. I can’t always see the light. I can’t always think positively.

Sometimes, I do wish I could just disappear.

I know I have let my baby daughter down so much by living like this. Grief has turned my life upside down… turned me into someone I don’t recognize or even like at all. I am lost, and I don’t know if I will ever find my way again.

It’s hideous, but here it is… the truth.