Relationships & Boundaries

12.29.22

(Featuring lyrics from Dang! By Mac Miller feat. Anderson.Paak) - this song is centered around a dating relationship, however the chorus felt particularly relevant to use in the case of all relational heartbreak

I know that I am not alone in the experience of evaluating relationships throughout 2022. This gruesome process causes us to experience deep frustration, muddle through uncomfortable conversations, and decide to be active or inactive in confronting the challenges in our relationships. 

Heartbreak is terribly uncomfortable. Especially after you’re head over heels. 

To think and feel that all of your expectations, hopes, and trust could be flipped upside down in a matter of minutes after all of the time you’ve invested. 

What’s the general consensus on heartbreak? Fuck that noise. Avoid avoid avoid. Drown your sorrows in anything. Anything else is better than this. 

The unfortunate truth is that the heartbreak stays stuck within us until we face that storm directly. Like many, I’ve been there and held previous heartbreaks longer than they needed to stay. 

“I can't keep on losing you

Over complications

Gone too soon

Wait, we was just hangin'

I can't seem to hold onto

Dang”

As we rang in 2022, Fitz and I just knew that we were a few weeks away from meeting our first child. We knew that our life was on the verge of shifting dramatically. We were imagining the days snuggled up in our home throughout the winter months as we held our baby skin to skin. We dreamt of the tired eyes we would develop and the chaotic state of our home. 

We thought through scenarios of how to help family members understand that we wanted some time alone with our baby in the first few days instead of hosting visitors, among other practices that are atypical in the American postpartum traditions. As we prepared our sign for the front door and curated the text about wanting to make sure our baby stayed healthy through another COVID surge, we felt confident about how to have balanced social boundaries for any of our loved ones.

By the time January was over, our boundaries and expectations were quite literally shattered. This created a whole new way of navigating relationships and the ways we took care of ourselves along with others. How could we possibly understand and execute anything through our devastation? 

“I can't keep on losing you

Over complications

Gone too soon

Wait, we was just hangin'

I can't seem to hold onto

Dang”

In less than an hour after finding out about our baby’s heart stopping, Fitz looked at me and said, “We are going to make it through this.” We know that the stigma is that marriages crumble after child loss, however I knew that he meant exactly what he said. (It might have been his Catholic Guilt speaking though, too ha) Not only did I trust his words, but I knew myself that we could and would continue forward together after this heartbreak. 

This commitment was a huge support as we took an even closer look at our relationship with ourselves. This commitment led the way that we had to put our life back together.

Thankfully so, we were so overwhelmed to learn how many others were committed to that same agreement. So quickly, we were surrounded by our “Crisis Response Team” who were dedicated to having systems in place that ensured we were holistically cared for. They sat with us as we determined the boundaries that we needed to uphold to feel mildly sane and ensured that they were successfully enforced. Without this support, the progress we made emotionally and mentally as individuals and together would not be what it has become.

We are endlessly grateful that in our story of heartbreak, we were shown such a great outpouring of love and support by so many.

As the winter turned into spring and parts of ourselves began to show up with the budding trees, we were shown great respect from many as we re-entered parts of the social world. Along with the respect, we were also in shock weekly from the question,  “How’s the baby?!” from those who know us, but not quite well enough to have heard our news. 

We continued forward balancing the experience of loving conversations and the unknowing shocking us over and over again. As spring turned into summer, we gave ourselves a break from the work life that was waiting at full speed for our return. At this point, we are several months out from this heartbreak. Those in our closest circle became closer. Some relationships faded from close to acquaintance, while other relationships developed from thin air in this time. 

“I can't keep on losing you

Over complications

Gone too soon

Wait, we was just hangin'

I can't seem to hold onto

Dang”

We survived our movement through summer, embracing the autumn season of preparing & changing with much more clarity in our relationships. We have grown into the acceptance of how the relationships in our lives have changed even since the beginning of the pregnancy with Malcolm. This has given us a solid path forward as the seasons changed once more and we welcomed winter with the return of the sun. 

Like many heartbreak experiences, we have passed milestones that we had expected to spend differently. We have had to plan ways of honoring Malcolm in our lives as a child who died rather than making a Christmas list for him this holiday season, as just one example. With the wrap up this calendar year, we have gone from flipped-upside-down-devastation  to learning to exist with this new view. 

“I can't keep on losing you

Over complications

Gone too soon

Wait, we was just hangin'

I can't seem to hold onto

Dang”

The new view of our heartbreak includes honoring the first anniversary of the day that we met our first child with an invitation to light candles in his honor and learning what it is like to be pregnant again after your child dies. As we experience joy for the pregnancy of our second child, we are on a whole new path of fears & sadness as we mourn the loss of our first.

We have many days ahead of us, but we choose to focus our gaze to the present. We remember that no one can guarantee us anything for our future with a second child, not even their own hopes and dreams. So we continue on, searching for clarity in our relationships and security in our boundaries.