Feb. 8th: Here I go again...

(cue the soundtrack from Whitesnake*, lol)

I have been so focused on getting through the baby shower on Feb. 7th that I've kind of blocked out another big date that's coming up, the very next day. (Maybe it's just too damned hard to think about the two things, cruelly juxtaposed, at the same time.)

Every time I flip over the page of my "week at a glance" datebook & see Feb. 8th circled in red with "LMP date" written beside it, it's kind of like a mild shock to the system all over again. "Here we go again," I think, "another 'anniversary' cycle begins anew."

LMP, of course, stands for "the first day of your Last Menstrual Period," pre-pregnancy. It's the date I found myself quoting ad nauseum throughout my pregnancy in 1998, 12 years ago now. First day of the menstrual cycle, first day of the "anniversary" cycle of my pregnancy -- which continues through March 22nd (the day I took a hpt, never believing I would get anything but a negative, after 2 & 1/2 years ttc), on to August, when our daughter was stillborn, through October, when I returned to work (only to leave again three days later when my grandfather died) & wrapping up in November with my unfulfilled due date.

I suppose some people's solution would be to not circle these "anniversary" dates (& I hate how that word, "anniversary," gets used to describe any sort of yearly marker, happy or sad) & try to forget they exist. I'm getting better: for about the first 10 years after Katie's stillbirth, I had the 7th of each & every month circled in my datebook, with a little note saying, "6 years, 3 months," etc. I did stop doing that a few years back. Long before I did, though, the 7th had lost much of its power to hurt me, & I hardly gave it much thought anymore. Except August 7th every year, of course, which remains circled in red, sacred, and taken off work whenever possible.

I still think I would think about Feb. 8th, though, even if I didn't have the date marked on my calendar. There are some dates that are just burned in your memory (even though you may not have realized their significance at the time). Feb. 3rd, to take one recent example, rarely passes without me thinking about my childhood friend Shelly, whose birthday was that day -- even though we moved away when I was 8 & the last time I saw her was when we were both about 14.

Of course, 12 years later, life has most certainly gone on, & the pain is not anywhere near as raw as it was on that first "anniversary." 12 years certainly doesn't carry the emotional significance that one of those years divisible by 5 does -- or maybe certain other numbers. (I'm expecting next year, when Katie would have become -- big GULP! -- a TEENAGER!! -- to be a difficult one all round.) But it can still rise up & bite me when I least expect it.

Another year. Another "anniversary" cycle begins. Sigh.

*** *** ***

* I wrote that as a joke -- & then, of course, I had to Google the lyrics. And of course, they fit the situation amazingly well:

I don't know where I'm goin
but I sure know where I've been
hanging on the promises in songs of yesterday.
An' I've made up my mind, I ain't wasting no more time
but here I go again, here I go again.

Tho' I keep searching for an answer
I never seem to find what I'm looking for.
Oh Lord, I pray you give me strength to carry on
'cos I know what it means to walk along the lonely street of dreams.

Here I go again on my own
goin' down the only road I've ever known.
Like a drifter I was born to walk alone.
An' I've made up my mind,
I ain't wasting no more time.

Just another heart in need of rescue
waiting on love's sweet charity
an' I'm gonna hold on for the rest of my days
'cos I know what it means to walk along the lonely street of dreams.

Here I go again on my own
goin' down the only road I've ever known.
Like a hobo I was born to walk alone.
An' I've made up my mind,
I ain't wasting no more time...

but here I go again,
here I go again,
here I go again,
here I go, here I go again

Here's a link to the YouTube video, if you want a blast from the past. Nothing like '80s hair bands...!!

Past Feb. 8th posts:

February 8, 2009
February 8, 2008