Unfamiliar

I came across an old post today at an old blog friend’s place. The first commenter was me, 4 days before Baby Man was born. I blogged a lot then, and was probably the first commenter on most posts as I was often refreshing pages, looking for comfort, camaraderie and distraction. Although it was a beautiful post, my comment was anything but significant. And yet, looking at it today, I was struck by a deep sense of…nothing.

I’ve been ridiculously tearful and on edge for the past 24 hours. Partly out of annoyance at my students, too many of whom wrote final papers consisting of filler and crap. Partly because my period arrived this morning. Partly because we’re awaiting a very stressful piece of professional news tomorrow. And maybe, maybe because we’re entering the period of anniversaries.

Honestly the first year of anniversaries was fairly dull in terms of pain, confusing because it intersected with Baby Man’s arrival and all of that exhaustion. Rough to commemorate because JJ was out of town and I was alone with a newborn. Natan’s birth/death comes at a bad time for remembering. Ha. I suppose it would always suck to have your birthday come just three days after the New Year, two weeks after Christmas, and threeish weeks after your younger siblings. Add to that two parents who seem to be perpetually on the job market and your birthday comes in the middle of the annual conference where they have to go salivate and beg at the feet of search committees at schools they never heard of before sending out their letters. I’m sure our potential colleagues, however, likely also had at least that part in common with us at some point. I doubt many of them were also thinking…oh…January 3rd.  Hmm. What was going on on January 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th just 3 short years ago?

But back to the present. What was going on on December 10th, 2006? I have no idea. I had no idea then this time of year would be any different than any other. Obviously I didn’t expect any kind of birth/death/dooms day anniversaries.

Is my grumpiness really about Natan? Or when I’m sad about other things, do I like to think it’s because of not having him because that seems like a more sensible reason? And is that because I don’t really feel his “presence” otherwise?

Yes.