Long time gone

So it has been a while, huh?

I still don't have a computer, and I have found it both
freeing and isolating at the same time. In theory there
is a check on it's way from the insurance today and soon I will
be back to my old habits, but for now I will fill you in on the new
year so far.

I have been sad. A lot. Partly I think it is the weather, partly my
own ineffective efforts at being more social. Partly, and it is a big
part, I miss Karl terribly. And in addition to losing him, I lost two
imagined children - babies I had vivid dreams of even before Elliot,
and who still haunt the landscape of my sleep.

Of course, that is a bleak landscape of late, and poorly tended. I've
tried establishing better sleep routines, sound machines, herbal
teas; nothing is gettinge past the insomnia. I lay in bed sometimes
for hours, my mind buzzing with heartaches, anxieties, sometimes
desperation, sometimes fatigue so bone deep the feel of it pulling my
eyes down makes something inside me fight to stay awake.

In my once-upon-a-time fairytale life, I was supposed to have a daughter
now. She was going to come when Elliot was 3, and her name is Emily.

She has Karl's red hair, and she's beautiful. I dress her up girly till she
won't let me anymore. She follows her big brother everywhere, and he
adores her.

The reality would be different, of course. In the world of what if, she might
be blond. Elliot might hate her. She might love frilly dresses her whole life.

I only know her in dreams, and if I let those dreams come, I am doomed to
wake up and lose her again.

So I am considering ways to bring her into the real world, if she
Isn't here already. But I worry.

In the meantime Elliot is growing and talking and making the waking
moments of my life delightful. He is infectiously joyful, and I am so
grateful that he is mine.

Otherwise, life goes on. We eat. We drink. We work and play. I try to
keep the sadness at bay and often succeed. I am working on
sketches for new glass work, finishing knitting projects left and right,
and slowly recovering the house from it's long neglected holiday disrepair.

We wait for spring, and hope it brings warmer weather and warmer feelings
to chilly winter hearts.