You Can't Go Home Again

I had always thought that after having a baby it would be difficult to return back to work. I never in a million years imagined that my baby would die, nor did I ever think it would be so incredibly difficult to go back to work after my son's death. I found today that having to leave home to return back to work on a show in Charlotte was one of the hardest things I have had to do since Nolan's death. I procrastinated all day, having no urgency in returning to work. I had a slow morning of coffee with my Dad, followed up by a couple of hours of beach time and lunch with my Mom. Finally though I had to finish what I had started last night - packing. I finished rather quickly, showered and loaded everything in the car. 5:30pm. Great. Marshall will be working until at least 9:30 so that gives me plenty of time to get down to Charleston before he gets off. I will even have time to stop and drop something off to my friend Shea on the way. But then I went in to the nursery one last time.

It was there that it hit me. I sat down in the glider and started sobbing uncontrollably. I can't do this. I can't leave. It felt as though by me leaving I was leaving Nolan again. I texted Marshall and told him I didn't know if I could leave, that I was having a hard time. I didn't know how long I sat rocking and crying. But eventually I knew I had to just do it. I had to leave. Rip the bandaid off. That's the easiest way. Eventually, I have to leave and it might as well be now. I took one last look around the nursery, making a mental picture to take with me. I looked at all the toys, all the clothes in the dresser, and the bedding in the crib. When I was pregnant, Marshall and I had bought one toy for Nolan ourselves - a Kangaroo. We thought we would be different and not get our kid a teddy bear. No, he would be the cool kid with a kangaroo he totes around. I decided to take the Kangaroo with me. I couldn't take Nolan like I had originally planned, but I could take this small reminder of him while he was still alive and in me. For me, the Kangaroo represented all the hopes and plans we had had for Nolan.

As I started to leave the nursery, I saw behind the recliner curled up in the corner Buster. He must have snuck in there while I was in the middle of my melt down for I hadn't even noticed him before now. But there he was, complacently sleeping up against the recliner under the palm tree. Buster has always been a dog that was sensitive to my feelings. If I was sick or sad he always came and would lay close to me. Any other time and he would be off doing his own thing. It was as if he was just as sad to leave as I was and I had to coerce him to come with me and leave the room.

Thomas Wolfe once said, "you can't go home again." That's how I felt today. I was leaving to go to work on a show for five months and I had no idea when I would ever be able to come back here again until November. Just as George Webber in Wolfe's novel You Can't Go Home Again realizes, so did I that "you can't go back home to your family....back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time - back home to the escapes of Time and Memory." My "home" is forever changed and by leaving this realization became ever more real today.

As I drove away from Wilmington, I cried some more. I've left town for work countless times, but this time it was different. My Mom had said so when she left my house after lunch. She cried as she sad it. It was true. Nolan's death made everything different. Tifni had told me weeks ago that I will always remember my firsts after Nolan's death - the first day home, the first day back to work, the first baby shower. I knew she was right again today. Now all those things are harder to do. My whole perspective on things has changed. What once seemed everlasting (my home and life) are now changing rapidly. While I had been at home it was as if Time was standing still. The world around me was moving and changing, but I wasn't. I was just focusing on self-preservation and putting one foot in front of the other. Now it was time for me to go out into the revolving world and move with it. And by doing so meant leaving Nolan behind and moving forward. I know this is a necessary part in the healing process, but it also was one of the hardest parts.

To help cheer me up I popped in a Zumba mix CD that I had made thanks to my instructor's Facebook posting of her playlist. I turned the music up loud and focused my mind on trying to mentally dance the steps to each song. For the next three hours this is how I occupied my mind to keep it from convincing my hands to turn the car back around and go home. I can't go home. I can't go home. I repeated this mantra over and over to myself while I continued my mental dance. For a second, I remembered the contest my instructor Karson was holding and thought to myself, I should win today. Nobody needs something good to happen to themselves more than me. I never win anything though. I'm actually probably the most unlucky person. I don't think I ever have won any contest my whole life. Oh well, it was a nice thought anyway.

I eventually made it to Charleston and breathed a sigh of relief. I had done it. I had left home. Now at least I would see my husband in an hour or so. After I had unpacked the dogs and my weekend bag, I sat down to talk to my father-in-law. Just then my phone dinged. I had been tagged in a Facebook post. To my amazement, I had won the Zumba contest! Are you kidding me? Really? Did someone hear my mental dialogue a few hours earlier? I was now the proud owner of some Zumba jingle bracelets and socks! Haha. It made me smile. It really did. If people knew how little things like that could bring such joy in my life, they would surely understand how grief stricken I really was. Who gets so excited to win a contest? Today, me. I could hardly wait for Marshall to get home so I could tell him the "good news." Three months ago, I probably wouldn't have even thought to tell him such a thing but now I had to tell him everything that made me smile.

As we drove to a late night movie, Marshall gave me some advice as he knew today had been a hard and emotionally exhausting day. He told me to remember to just take every day as one day at a time. Today I hadn't "left home," I had simply just come down to Charleston for the weekend to visit him. He told me to worry about going to work on Sunday when I actually left Charleston to do that. While I appreciated what he said, I told him it didn't change the fact that I had to leave without knowing when I would return. I can only trick my mind into so many things. My mind knows that the home that I had previously created and thought was impermeable had now been penetrated. The beautiful bubble I lived blissfully in had been popped and sadness was allowed to filter in. My life back home will never be the same. It is painfully true, but you really can't ever go home again after losing your child.