Kitchen table

Thank you so much for all your lovely comments on my two previous grinch-esque posts. They are very, very much appreciated.

I am sorry to have turned all green, hairy and small-hearted on you.
But I have to say that I do feel better for airing my grudges. I've been nursing that first one for a long time.
So you probably haven't seen the last of grinchy old Catherine W. 
In fact, you've positively encouraged me to get rid of my small heartedness via my blog.

I think that Anna hit the nail on the head in her comment.
I've somehow lost the distinction between someone who is making me angry and someone who is only, in truth, annoying me. I think both of these incidents only actually annoyed me.
If I'd been feeling less vulnerable or had a lower 'base line' of anger at the time they occurred I wouldn't be so cross about them now. Still. Sigh.

Anyhow, thought I would join in with the Glow In The Woods gathering around the kitchen table.

1 | How would you describe your presence on the internet? Does your online voice differ from your real life voice? If so, how? And why?
I tend to hover around the edges. I do read, and comment on, quite a number of blogs but always with greater or lesser degrees of uncertainty as to whether I should be there or not.

In real life I am less earnest, better at dissembling and probably more reserved, certainly less likely to approach a stranger and start a conversation. In real life I am rather shy. But my lack of editing skill has resulted in an online voice that is not a million miles away from how I speak in real life.

My online voice tends to talk mainly about Georgina, who died, and less about Jessica, who did not. In real life the bias is the other way around, towards Jessica, because that is socially acceptable. People like to hear about a baby born prematurely who lived. Far less so about a baby born prematurely who died. But, in my thoughts, my daughters are represented fairly evenly. Or so I like to think.

Perhaps this blog is a way of mothering Georgina in the only way that I can, of forcing myself to even up the balance between my twins. One alive, one dead. 

2 | Why did you begin blogging, or reading blogs? Was this before or after your experience of babyloss?
I started reading blogs about six months or so after Georgina died. Prior to that, I’m not entirely sure that I even knew what a blog was.

I do remember that Carly’s ‘Love Reign Over Me’ and Michele’s ‘My Life After Loss’ were two of the first blogs that I ever read. From those I linked to Glow in the Woods and from there, outwards.

I’m still not entirely sure how I started blogging myself, about ten months after Georgina died.

I had been lurking around in babyloss blog land for quite some time before I did finally start writing myself.

I hesitated because . . (a)  I was aware of the fact that I still had a baby and a ‘miracle’ baby to boot, (b)  Georgina was born so very prematurely and had such a short life, I felt that others might find my grief over her death somehow peculiar, (c)  I’m not a writer. I hadn’t written anything other than science essays and mathematical equations for at least ten years prior to this little endeavour. Initially, I felt that I had nothing to add to what I had already read. And I don’t. But, I realise now, that isn’t the point.

I started blogging when . .  (a)  I wanted some control over what I was ‘putting out there.’ I sometimes felt embarrassed that I had expressed myself poorly or that I had said too much. Or worse, that I had misrepresented Georgina. Detracted from her somehow. (b)  My comments were getting too long so I obviously wanted or needed to write about what had happened. What’s that I hear you say? Still too long. Yup. I love writing comments. Tell me to move along if you feel I’m taking over your blog. (c)  I realised that I was still totally preoccupied with the birth of my daughters, the death of Georgina and the time that Jessica spent in intensive care. I’m somewhat surprised by how much I mull it all over to this day. Having bored those who were forced to listen to me because (1) they were being paid to or (2) they were blood relatives; I felt that this was a good way to release some of pressure of thinking and thinking and thinking about the events of those few months.

3 | Do you write anonymously? Does anonymity - or would anonymity - change your expression of grief?
Not particularly anonymously. Catherine is my real name and W is my real initial. Georgina Jane and Jessica Clair are the real names of my children. A lot of people who read here know my full name. With hindsight, perhaps I would rather have written anonymously but I don’t think it would change the way I write, or what I choose and do not choose to write about, a great deal.

4 | Do you have a responsibility in how you express yourself on the internet? To whom, and why?

I don’t want to hurt people. Especially people who have already been hurt enough. I suppose that is a responsibility. I try my best but I'm sure I slip up from time to time.

5 | Do authenticity and honesty matter to you, both as a reader and a writer? Or does unconditional support matter more? How do you think readers perceive your truth?
I strive to be honest. But there are some things that I don’t want to write about in relation to this experience. Or talk about. I suppose that is a kind of lying by omission.

I hope that people who read my blog know that I am aiming towards the truth. I hope that the writers of blogs I read know that I am, to the very best of my ability, sincere in my support. I guess that rules out unconditional?  

6 | Have you ever been in the crosshairs of a troll? How did you deal with it, and what did you learn from it?
I’ve never had a troll here. In some ways, I think a troll turning up here, at my blog, and writing horrible things directed at me would bother me less than it does when they attack someone whose writing I hold dear. I feel that responding to them directly would be adding fuel to the fire so I usually try to ignore them and just hope they’ll go away.

I’ve been ‘told off’ a couple of times by more experienced bloggers. Usually when writing about things outside my own realm of knowledge or experience. So deservedly reprimanded.

7 | How do you feel before going online - either to write on your own blog, or to absorb the writing of others? How do you feel when you shut down the computer and walk away?
When I go to write my own blog, I usually feel as though I am not coping. That the usual background hum of premature birth and NICU and death is beginning to overwhelm my thoughts in my everyday life.  I don’t really have anywhere else to discuss the issues that I write about on my blog.

I leave feeling that I can take a breath, that I don’t need to force the air in and out of my lungs quite so much.

When I read others I feel as though I have been walking alongside somebody else. We may not necessarily have been speaking directly to one another but . . I know that you are there. In the vicinity.

I cry. A lot. My husband looks at my red eyes in bewilderment and asks why I would deliberately seek out something that makes me so sad.

But I leave feeling peaceful. I don’t quite know how that works. All I know is that it does.

8 | Do family/friends know you write/commune online? If so, have they told you how they feel about it? How do you respond to their opinions?
My husband, mother and younger sister know. They haven’t really told me how they feel and, as far as I know, they don’t read here. I expect I must be hoping that they might, as I’ve told them that this blog exists?

9 | Have you ever met any other loss bloggers in real-life? How did it feel to share food and air and space, and how did it make you feel about your own storytelling and healing? If you haven't experienced this, would you want to, or not? Why?
Yes I have. I felt very privileged to have simply popped out of a computer screen and invaded this particularly lovely woman’s house. I just knocked on the door and said “Here I am. It’s Catherine W from the internetz.”

I would love to meet so many of the people I’ve ‘met’ here. It seems very strange, and almost sad, to me that I probably will never, ever meet many of you in person.

10 | How did you/will you know it's time to read fewer grief blogs, and write less of grief? How did you/will you redirect your energy, creativity, and persona online -- did you/will you go offline? Disappear and start again? Or transition in your current space, hoping to find a new voice? If you've done this, how did it feel?

I’m sure that, when I no longer feel the need to write here, I will say thank you and disappear. I hope I know when the time has come to do that. That I realise that saying goodbye to this blog doesn’t mean that I am letting go of Georgina. I think I might keep a paper copy of this blog to give to Jessica when she is much, much older.

I think I will always remain as a reader.