Some of you may recognize it as the background on my Twitter profile page.
This past summer a lot of things were not going well in my life. I had lost Peanut earlier that year, and the loss of our baby sent my relationship with my then boyfriend into a rapid downward spiral. Within a couple of months of the miscarriage, we had broken up and he had moved out.
I was alone. And overwhelmed with the emotions and sadness that followed losing Peanut. Sometimes I would cry uncontrollably. Sometimes I blamed myself. Mostly I asked why and only heard silence.
This was my first realization that just because you are pregnant doesn't mean that you will stay pregnant. My faith in my body's ability to nurture and sustain a baby was shattered. I felt betrayed, tricked by my own body. How could it easily carry my son for 9 months with no complications and now it couldn't keep a baby safe longer than 6 or 7 weeks?
While struggling with these feelings of self-doubt and pain, I lost my job teaching. The school I was working at closed it's doors. Now I didn't have financial security, or a baby, or a stable relationship... I couldn't even continue what I had already been doing successfully for years at this point- provide a stable home environment for my son. I felt myself falling into a deep crevice. What was I going to do?
During this time when everything seemed to be going completely wrong, I decided to load up Charlie (my papillon) and his leash into the car and head to the local park. After all it was a beautiful day, and I was tired of sitting in the house that I could no longer afford to live in.
We walked for a while and then I sat on top of a picnic table and let Charlie run around a bit off of his leash.
I turned and looked up towards the trees above me and the photo you see above is exactly what I saw. A feeling of peace, of warmth came over me and I started to cry. Right there on that wooden picnic table in the middle of a park. I knew that eventually things would get better. And I started the process of learning to forgive myself, of finding out how I could let go, to pick up the pieces, and eventually move forward in my life...
