We all know that I'm a bad person. That's a given. I mean, I'm a nice bad person, but I'm basically a bad person. Anyway, a long time ago, I decided that I couldn't handle so many happy families and families-to-be on my Facebook, so after canning it all together for a while, I went through and hid basically every single person who has babies or wants babies or has ovaries or whatever. I still love them, but I'm not a good enough person to be happy for their working ovaries.
Anyway, I got one of those requests to "like" a page from a person that I hid, and I ignored it for a while. She is one of the happy-with-a-child people who make my heart hurt, so I didn't want to pay attention to it. Curiosity got the best of me, and eventually I clicked on the link and realized it was a page to support some disease research. "Aw, man. I hope she isn't sick," I thought to myself.
So I clicked over to her page.
She isn't sick. Her baby, who was under a year old, was sick. Her sweet baby, who I was totally and uncontrollably jealous of, died a few days ago of an incurable disease. It came quickly, and she left quickly.
I could not handle it. I could not, by any stretch of the imagination, handle it. I went into instant hysterics, and I hurt for her, and I missed a child I had never met.
The world is mean, and when you're in a crazy, self-pity spiral, it's easy to forget that it's mean to everyone at some point. I can't figure out how to deal with the abundance of emotions that have sprung up from a weekend of having this on my brain. I'd happily (sort of?) keep it on my mind for a while if it could relieve some of their hurt, but I know it doesn't work like that. I haven't lost a child that I've fallen instantly in love with, but I do know what it feels like to have your life feel different in an instant. I know the feeling of heartbreak when you feel like your future will never be what you pictured. I know what it feels like to have parenthood snatched out from under you. And I know that I don't want anyone to have to feel this way because I would do anything to never feel this way.
A sweet baby is gone, her parents are struggling, and I'm the innocent bystander who may be taking it all way too much to heart. I don't know how to feel all of this correctly. I don't know how to organize this in to a way that makes sense. I don't have these skills.
I had been banking on never needing these skills.
I'm out of skills.
Today, I'm not sure that it's hip to be square.
