Weekly? Twice a week? Craving some chocolate? Forgot eggs?
Something that is usually so mindless, so necessary, some an outlet, others organized chaos. The grocery store.
This has not been the case for me. The grocery store is such a hurdle in my grief. The grocery store is surrounded by others, moms, families, pregnant women, infant, toddlers, elderly. All going about their seemingly “normal” lives. I walk around in a blur, in a daze. No one sees inside, what I’m dealing with, my heartbreak, I hate them. I hate they are picking out their seasoning for the burgers they are making for their family, I hate that your infant dropped it’s binky in my path, I hate that bending down to grab the bread on the bottom row at 8 months pregnant is what I saw. The grocery store.
Losing your identity is such a struggle, who are you now that you don’t have a belly you’re carrying around or a newborn strapped to your chest? To everyone around you look like a childless woman, but you aren’t. Internally you are a women who just gave birth a mere month prior but didn’t take your baby home. No one knows that.
The cashier asks “how are you doing today.”
I’m awful, I haven’t slept in weeks, eating makes me sick so I choose to not, I’m still bleeding into a maxi pad, I hate my life, I’m unhappy, my boobs hurt from being full from a baby I’m not feeding, I just gave birth, a month ago my baby was moving around in this same store...... “fine, how are you?” Why is “how are you doing today such a sting on a wound. No one knows. What would happen if I answered honestly? If I let out the exact answer above.
Identity loss and not being seen for your internal identity is such a battle. I am a mom, but no one sees it, I have done the unthinkable but no one knows. Is it harder that no one knows and you wish they did or is it harder that no one knows and it’s hard they don’t?
I struggle with my outward identity not matching my inward. I’m so uncomfortable with who I walk around as, because I feel so differently than I look. I should be someone else, I should be seen as someone else. But her being gone changes that, it looks different to others. Home is where I stay.
Thank goodness for roadside grocery pick up.
Do you remember your first trip to the grocery store after you lost your baby?
What did you feel? Did you make it through your trip?