Today I talked to a new friend, I think she will be, who is six weeks out... six little, lonely weeks away from her little girl. I could have set the phone down and bawled. My body ached for her. Hurt like there was battery acid being poured down my throat, to imagine that echoing, ricocheting silence that bounces through her life and thoughts. I could feel that hot void in my arms where my baby should have been, I could imagine her in the car driving and knowing that there was nobody else there, and knowing that this was not right. I could remember that stultifying mystery of every moment of the day, my body crying out for my child, my life empty of meaning.
I remember thinking, how can this go on? How can I go on like this, when this is never going to go away?

This is where I begin to think, think hard, because I don't know how it was that things changed, and when they did, but somehow over the course of years on end, that knife that twisted in my chest, that salt that drizzled the wound every single day began to lighten. There was warm sunshine on my back, and I was able to bathe my wounds in warm water and sing softly to myself while I did it. I live in a new place.

I told this woman today about how part of what is different for me now is that I trust Charlotte, because she is more and more real to me as time goes on. She is changing me now, as she has changed me since she was born. I have never loved a single person the same since she came into my life, and I never will. Knowing with such extreme clarity that she will always, always be with me eases some of what felt so terrifying.

Even though, as I write this, the other side of me shouts in a tinny, sarcastic voice: I want the real girl, and I don't want any of this spiritual, wisdom crap of her always being with me. I want the real girl. This other side of me bangs her fists on the table and feels utterly unsatisfied with the course of events in every single aspect of their existence. And I respect this half of me, too, because she is also right.