Today would be 366 days since I last saw the Munchkin but the Leap Year decided to throw one more day without her in my face. Thanks, Leap Year! 367 days. 52 weeks, 3 days. A lot of “stuff” has happened in that time.

154 days into the abyss, my oldest son had his birthday party. Six days later, my younger son was born. (They’re exactly two years, one week apart.) On the 179th day, she celebrated her birthday while I was deep in the throes of exhaustion as I worked hard to establish a good breastfeeding relationship with the new baby. On day 190, I sang a solo at church and on Day 191, we celebrated our fifth Christmas apart.

At 313 days, I celebrated another birthday, only reminded of the first birthday after she was born and that first visit we shared. It was hard for me to remember but I cherished those memories all the same. And on the 329th day another Mother’s Day came and went. She told me Happy Mother’s Day. That felt nice.

On the 365th day, I was busy with the boys in the middle of 36 hours alone. On the 366th day, I was on the tail end of 36 hours alone and didn’t have much time to think.

And that brings us to today.

Life has changed so much. I won’t even speak for them. BigBrother is talking SO much and thinks he is so funny. A year ago, he was still content to ride in the front carrier when I took him places, despite the growing bump of his brother. Now he won’t think about being worn. He runs everywhere. And jumps everywhere. And kind of just bounces. And when LittleBrother joined our family, he was new and baby-like. And he’s not anymore. He’s sitting here, playing with his Daddy and laughing real laughs. He’s dropping things off of his high chair just so his Daddy will pick them up. He’s babbling in consonants and generally making us smile at all times.

I’ve grown and changed. In so many ways. I mean, I grew BIG with life in my womb. And I’ve slowly been shrinking back to something that resembles the old me. Slowly. I’ve somehow managed to keep my anxiety in check without resorting to medication. I’ve cut my hair short. And grown it back to mid-length. Also, my eyesight has changed though I haven’t made an appointment for a new set of glasses and contacts yet. I’ve really been learning a lot about healing in the past year as well. And perhaps that was the point… this is all a test to see if I’m putting what I’m learning into practice. I hate tests. I never was great at tests. Except the SAT. Rocked the SAT.

I miss her.

Today is being spent in normal hectic fashion. I got very little sleep last night thanks to weird dreams and two boys who thought 5:00am was a fine time to play. (It’s not, by the way.) Then I had a lot of work to do this morning. And I’ve been busy with some projects. And the laundry. And lunches. And supper later. And baths. And tonight is Bible Study (though I’m not quite in the mood for any spiritual challenges, thank you very much). And I’m reading an interesting novel.

But, just like any other day, she’s there, in my periphery. She’s part of me, part of who I am as a whole, but she’s out of my reach. It’s just a part of my reality. I never thought a duration of this time would be part of my reality but, well, it is. And I’ve got to learn how to better process that reality.

I think I need to take karate.

Or, I hope not.

I received a number of e-mails, instant messages, private messages on various forums, MySpace and Facebook messages and so on. These various people were all asking if I was okay, what happened, would I be back and so on. And I only responded to, oh, maybe five. If you got a reply, count yourself in the very select few.

I can’t really explain why I couldn’t make myself reply to the questions. It’s rare that I’m speechless. (I know. Understatement, right?) I simply didn’t have answers. Not having answers to anything, no matter how trivial, is somewhat immobilizing for me. I felt like I should have answers. And I didn’t. And it upset me on many levels.

I didn’t know if I was okay. It was a rough emotional week. Thankfully, therapy landed right in the middle of it. I have told my therapist unexpected things in the past as life has a way of throwing us curveballs. But I literally shocked her when I told her I deleted my blog. Whoops. It was through discussion(s) with her that I felt like, yes, the blog would (soon enough) be back. It just took me until this week to find the time and emotional fortitude to make the necessary changes to protect myself on emotional levels from nasty people.

What happened? The culmination of two years of public adoption blogging came to a head and everything exploded. If the Angry Canadian had been my first troll, it would have been fine. But the need to step away, fully, has been needed for a very long time. (Though, to be fair, I’m heading to camp next month without internet access or cell phones and that will be a nice reprieve but that’s next month. I needed a break last week. And I took it.) The truth remains that I am struggling to find my footing along this path to healing for various reasons. Let me tell you, postpartum depression isn’t lending a helping hand. However, I’m doing a bunch of work on my end and I feel pretty darn awesome that I did what I needed to last week in order to find peace again. I’d do it again (but perhaps just remove a file or two instead of deleting because, whoa, the import process is a heinous annoyance).

I was asked, repeatedly, if anyone could “do anything.” I smiled. I was touched. But the truth remains, no one could do anything for me. I had to do it by myself. I had to step away. I had to spend some time with myself and sort through some emotions. I had to talk things over with my Husband. I had to have room to get angry without condemnation for what the world perceives to be as something negative. I had to have room to cry. To feel. To question. To just be. And I came out on the other side with a clear head. Not an un-angry head. But a clear one.

And so, to everyone who took the time to message me and did not receive a reply, I apologize. I was simply not in a place to explain things that I did not quite understand. I hope you understand.

That said? Yesterday? Was the Best Day Ever on the blog. That said, my feed is half-busted, half-not. If you’re not receiving my feed in your trusted feed reader (as some have said), please feel free to re-subscribe. I am receiving my feed in Google Reader but its slow and isn’t keeping pages/archives. I don’t know what is wrong. Sorry about the confusion. Also: password protected posts in the future will show up in your feed reader but will say something about being password protected.

If you haven’t read the Comment Policy, please do. I am deleting people who I am either uncomfortable with having access to the blog and/or people who I don’t know who refuse to respond to my e-mail questions. Them’s the breaks, kids. My space. My money. My rules.
Thanks to all of you for making my relaunch successful and not stressful.