It's all an illusion.

Pain and loss, disease and war, none of these are laughing matters. None of these things are creations of our Lord, none of them exist in creation as He intended.

So, today, as I see the headlines of America going crazy on "black Friday", my heart may be sad for the brokenness, but it is not afraid. To fear something means there is uncertainty in our outcome. But these are but birth pains, and all things are under the power of our Lord Jesus Christ. The mess is not a creation of our Lord Jesus, but all of creation is subject to Him, thanks be to God. So, there is no fear, because we are His.

Therefore, sometimes it helps to just turn off the news, put down the phones, and go build legos with the boys, or put your hands to something beautiful. He is coming soon. Amen, come Lord Jesus.

Conclusion: The Birth and Why I Jumped Ship on Home Birth

I have to admit, I've been avoiding this place the past couple days. The story was easy to tell. There's something about a story that makes it easy to separate yourself from and feel like a reporter instead. I love simply restating the events in order to remember how it all went down later.

But in the quiet moments that have happened since arriving home: when the baby is asleep, the kids are all down, and my husband is snoring next to me, then I have sat staring at my baby's perfect tiny face and my thoughts have surfaced. I cheated.

I can hear the collective moan across cyber space and I can imagine the comments now. No one wants to hear they cheated. Imagine telling a woman with hyperemesis that she "cheated" to take medication to control her vomiting. Imagine telling a woman who has her baby at home that it's cheating to give birth in the water. Imagine telling a man plowing the field that it's cheating to use modern farm equipment or that it's cheating to ride to work in a vehicle. Cheating the curse.

I cheated the curse.

But....what curse?

"For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith." (Galatians 3:10-14 ESV)

Cursed be anyone who relies on the works of the law! Shall I bear my own curse? Shall I convince myself that if I birth alone in pain at home that my birth is somehow more pious and more worthy than a woman who has every pain medication the world can provide? Lord have mercy on those of us who are so trapped in the works of the law in our own mind. 

"Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us."!!! Christ has come, Christ has risen! Christ will come again!

I have to admit, I have walked around the past two weeks so free from post birth emotional trauma that I have actually FORGOTTEN that I gave birth and caught myself still mentally coaching myself on my upcoming birth! Several times in the past two weeks I have gone to take a hot bath to relieve some of the post birth aches and while relaxing deeply in the tub have begun to think on my upcoming birth! I have to laugh each time, out loud, that I could actually forget I have given birth. But I have been trying so very hard to prepare for the birth knowing I was going to have to get through a natural childbirth at home again that it's hard to just turn that off. My birth supplies are still here, untouched. It's weird! So, we finally packed them up and put them in the basement to await the future. 

So, will I ever go back?

I am so glad I do not have to answer that today. With my fourth child I was determined from about the half way point of pregnancy to rock childbirth. I needed it. I craved it. I was like a running addict looking at my next marathon. And one that was not only determined to run, but to win. Maybe that will happen again and I'll be crazy enough to have another home birth. (smile and wink) And I have to admit, the one regret I have is that my children were not with me. The only two home births I have had (my other two were born out of hospital but in other locations than my home) were my first and my third which ended with a near death experience for me and a hospital stay. So, nostalgically, I ached for a "beautiful" home birth in which my kids could gather around me to see their sibling born and we could all revel in the peace and warmth of our home afterwards. 

I shared this with my eldest son when I returned home from the hospital. He is the one we label as being gifted in the area of "human care and compassion". Extremely gifted. So I shared this with him and he gave me a half smile that was also mixed with a measure of little boy grossed-outedness, and he said, "Um, that's OK mom, I didn't really want to hear you yell anyways." I had to laugh out loud. And he's right. For all that mama tries to romanticize it, birth is loud, it's messy, and mama doesn't really want her other kids around her once the baby is out anyways. At least not for more than 5 minutes. 

I don't know what the future holds. I don't know if the Lord will bless us with anymore children or if He does, if they will be children that are given to live here or not. I am thankful that this birth resulted in an amazing relationship with my family practice Dr., who aided me in delivering my son, and that she is here to guide me and help me as we navigate what happened at the end of this pregnancy and how that could affect me and any pregnancy in the future. We don't know if the platelet thing is something I have always had, since I never had those drawn in any previous pregnancies, and if it might explain my bleeding troubles. We also don't know if it's something that will get worse with each pregnancy and if it's something that my levels will get lower faster each time. These are things we will know in time and they will help us make wise decisions. 

I do know that I have never felt so at peace post birth, that I have never felt quite this calm and happy. I have jokingly called the epidural I received my "Gospel epidural". 

And I think that's what it all boils down to...why are you making the choice you are making? Is it because it's really what works for you, what you like, and what is best for you or is it because it is earning you righteousness in your own made up laws? When it becomes a matter of pride, something you feel you HAVE to do, are we not joining the ranks of the pharisees? 

I had a hospital birth. I got an epidural. I had a catheter, IV antibiotics, continuous fetal monitoring, tons and tons of IV fluids, and I don't think I have ever laughed so much during labor ever. And that reminds me of one of the most beautiful quotes I have heard in a long time: 

“Whenever the devil harasses you, seek the company of men or drink more, or joke and talk nonsense, or do some other merry thing. Sometimes we must drink more, sport, recreate ourselves, and even sin a little to spite the devil, so that we leave him no place for troubling our consciences with trifles. We are conquered if we try too conscientiously not to sin at all. So when the devil says to you: do not drink, answer him: I will drink, and right freely, just because you tell me not to.”
― Martin Luther

We must cling to law where law really exists, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself." Though the Christian knows that this law really turns back around to Christ who is the One responsible for granting us the faith with which to accomplish this! And so when we feel burdened, harassed, and weighed down beyond our strength and ability, well, it's time for an epidural. God be praised. 

The whole world's going crazy...

...but not in here.  Soli Deo Gloria

Your Sorrow Will Turn into Joy

[16] “A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me.” [17] So some of his disciples said to one another, “What is this that he says to us, ‘A little while, and you will not see me, and again a little while, and you will see me’; and, ‘because I am going to the Father’?” [18] So they were saying, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We do not know what he is talking about.” [19] Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, “Is this what you are asking yourselves, what I meant by saying, ‘A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me’? [20] Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. [21] When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. [22] So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. (John 16:16-22 ESV)

Growing pains

I remember as a child when I would randomly get pains in my legs. They would be achy and crampy and feel just awful. My parents would tell me they were "growing pains" and that I should eat more bananas. I wonder how many bananas they got me to consume throughout the years from growing pains. *smile* Of course I know they were honestly hoping the potassium would help, but it still makes me chuckle to think of stuffing my face with bananas in hopes the pain would go away.

I wish there was a solution as simple as bananas for every parenting conundrum. This makes this post sound like I'm struggling with a particular child but I'm not. Instead, my children are growing, changing, and becoming complicated individuals with thoughts, ideas, and views on what they have been taught and what they see in the world/individuals around them and in some ways it's thrilling, in some ways it's terrifying.

This journey of home schooling has been the craziest ride of my life. Well, other than venturing off to a city unknown over a thousand miles away from home after my dad died for college. Well, and maybe having all my babies at home with no drugs. ;) I think those three tie.

But this journey is scary, humbling, never ending (it seems), exhausting...and yet the most rewarding journey I could ask for. It is rewarding because I am starting to see that by home schooling them I am not depriving them, I am opening up the entire world to them. I am also opening up the entire world to myself. And some days, I'm not sure I like what I find. And that makes me want to fold my children into the protective and controlled and scheduled environment of school. And yet, we all know that especially today there is no such environment in those institutions. Besides, though I may not like what I find and though I may feel challenged and stretched and confused and uneducated when I open up myself and my children to the vast world around us, how will I ever show them how to be courageous and strong and capable young men if we can't even be brave enough to step out?

I am reading some new books and new ideas that challenge me and scare me. They call into question things I was taught in school and ways I understood the world and our own country and government. I am thankful that at the end of the day, regardless of what the world really is and what our country really is, Christ is before and over and in all.

And when the day is done, my husband and I hear God's Word, pray, and I am so thankful that as long as our home is full of Christ and His love, there is nothing better in all the world that we could give our children.

Stuck where I don't want to be

This morning in church just a couple words into the Old Testament reading for the day I had tears streaming down my face. It was the beloved passage in Ezekiel of the valley of the dry bones. When I was pregnant with Anastasia's dead body I read that passage out loud every day in faith that if the Lord wanted to He could raise my baby back to life.

The New Testament reading was the raising of Lazarus. Enter more tears.

It's strange being in the season of Lent at a different time of the year because I will always associate Lent now with finding out our baby was dead right before Ash Wednesday and then going through the first week of Lent plus a little of the next waiting to birth her, and then giving birth and waiting the rest of Lent to be able to bury her body because the ground was frozen. Now I'm in the season again but of course past all the dates of those events. Instead of being so close to Easter and finally being able to put flowers on my baby's grave, I'm waiting for the week after Easter when we are hoping to hear a heart beat on doppler. It was that 12 week appointment with our Anastasia where the doppler gave us nothing but stark silence.

It's an agonizing wait. I'll be brutally honest and say that even though I know I will be OK either way, by the grace of God, this wait, this not knowing, is torture. Every day I look for blood. Every time I'm not nauseous I worry. Every time I'm too nauseous I worry. I can't think about November or birth or feeling baby kick or newborn diapers or bringing up the maternity clothes or asking my neighbor for my arm's reach cosleeper back, because I don't believe any of it will be necessary/will happen.

If it weren't for Anastasia's death, I might not feel this way, but when a pregnancy is going textbook and one day, at 12 weeks for no apparent reason your baby dies...well, life doesn't feel like black and white anymore. Life in the womb seems like this grey area that can just slip away at any given moment. I suppose this is plenty true of life on earth too, but at least on earth we can usually point to a cause.

Back when I had my ultrasound with Anastasia we thought we had evidence of something drastically wrong with her. If you look back at my post around Feb 6 of 2013 where I show the ultrasound picture there was what looked like a "bubble" coming off of her head. The ultrasound tech assumed it was a head malformation that had caused her death. But when she was born, there was no sign of it and her head and face were perfect. We think whatever we saw was probably remaining yolk sac instead of a malformation.

I don't know how long Genesis will be with us. I don't know if her earthly life will only exist in the womb. I know no matter what I love and adore this child and am blessed beyond words to be this child's mother and protector for now. But this waiting time in pregnancy reminds me of what it's like to be stuck in grief.

I don't want to be here, but sometimes in life we have no choice. We don't choose grief and loss and death, it is simply the reality of existence in a fallen world. We cannot lift ourselves out of grief. We cannot choose for it to end. Only God, only our Lord Jesus Christ can lift us up in due time. In His time. And that is good. So very good. These inner workings in my body are not mine to know for now. They are Christ's.

So here I am. I'm in this strange existence between joy and grief. On the one hand I still miss my babies in heaven dreadfully and cry for the children that have all been housed in my body the past year. On the other, I think about this child that might still be alive in my womb right now, maybe even starting to move those tiny hand and feet plates that should be forming, and I smile a private small smile and pray so fervently for this child. I read God's Word out loud and sing God's hymns and read the Catechism out loud and receive God's body and blood, but then I must wait. Even if I had an ultrasound every week that doesn't mean that a day later my baby wouldn't die. So, I must just wait. And wait. And pray the day will come that I can actually feel this baby kicking and squirming inside of me. But then there's always still waiting and praying. And even if this child is granted an earthly life, there is still waiting and praying as the child grows and changes and lives.

Whether or not I parent this child here, the reality is, these children belong to the Lord. This is the walk we are called to as parents, as humans. We are not our own, we are the Lord's, as are our children, and so we wait. We wait and pray and keep our eyes on the horizon. He IS coming back. So in the mean time we muddle through as best we can. Our lives may be full of weeping and mourning, laughter and play, feasting and fasting, rest and sleeplessness, illness and health, isolation and company. We, by the grace of God, take it as it comes, do our best to strengthen our weak knees for this walk, but know all along that Christ goes before us, behind us, and within us.

O Little Flock, fear not the foe,
Who madly seeks your overthrow,
Dread not his rage and power,
and though your courage sometimes faints,
his seeming triumph o'er God's saints,
lasts but a little hour.

As true as God's own Word is true,
Not earth nor hell's satanic crew,
against us shall prevail,
their might? A joke, a mere facade!
God is with us, and we with God,
our victory cannot fail. (LSB vs 1,3 #666)

Christ keep us.

Honesty

I've always striven to be very honest in blogging. I don't blog because I think I have anything more valuable to say than any other Christian out there. I don't blog because I think I am pious or because I think I am smart or because I think I have any importance whatsoever that should make me an authority on anything. I blog because I have experiences that may serve my sisters.

My thoughts are not authoritative in a spiritual sense. I strive to always speak the truth as I have learned it from my faithful pastors over the years simply because I cannot talk about my experiences without talking about Christ. But I am a sinner. I am weak. I am not pious. I am somewhat rough around the edges I think. I am not graceful or meek. I'm just muddling through as best I can.

I want to record this because I don't know what the next 8 months do or do not hold. I'm waiting right now by the phone for my OB to call and let me know if my latest labs show that my baby is indeed growing. But I want to share some of the raw and maybe even ugly thoughts that have been accosting me on this extremely emotional week.

Lately it does not even seem to be about the babies anymore. It's becoming extremely personal. I'm struggling with the ways I have and have not responded over the past year and the ways I may or may not have been a blessing to those around me. I'm struggling with the appropriateness of grief.

I'm struggling with the massive train that ran me over and now seems to have left just as quickly and I'm supposed to just get up and dust myself off.

I'm struggling with death, with grieving, and its place in the Christian's life.

As the week has gone on I've become more troubled about grief. When is grief appropriate and when is it narcissism? On the one hand I have sisters in Christ gently telling me grief is OK to experience and deserves attention and time but on the other I have my two sisters and this new baby telling me life moves on. Telling me I can't control anything. Telling me God is still God. Telling me grief is just grief. And just as I was beginning to feel the need to throw my hands up in defeat and maybe take a rest, now here's this new little one and it's time to get strong again.

When I received my first good news this week that my levels were looking great it was met with excited and joyful greetings from everyone I told. I, too, was overjoyed and cried tears of thankfulness. I spent the first two days of knowing about this baby sobbing because I was certain this baby too would go, and soon. Then I got the good news and began feeling sick and suddenly it occurred to me that this chain of losses might be gone...maybe for good.

And in that moment the train that crushed me so vehemently disappeared just as quick and I was supposed to get up and walk away as if nothing happened. I was supposed to say, "Huh, wow, that sucked." And then brush off and keep moving.

I was 18 years old when I went to church the first Easter Sunday after he died. My Dad was my sole guardian and my mom had lived 5 hours away for the past 7 years before that. On top of that life-altering loss, the rest of my family was changing in many ways and breaking away into paths that we had not been raised in and I was facing graduation and realized  childhood and family were a mere facade.

I sat in my church's red upholstered chairs that all clipped together down the rows and looked up at the cross hanging over the window. I tried to hear the sound of my dad's voice coming from the choir that was warming up somewhere behind me and sounded so dead without him. I squeezed my eyes shut and pretended the voices were actually coming from heaven. I sunk so deep into my thoughts that it felt like I was removed from the room and dreaming. I imagined my Dad at the Lord's side.

But back to the train. That train that mauls us over in life, sometimes so quickly you look around to see what it was, and sometimes its relentless chain of cars beats you down for a year or more over and over.

But regardless in the end I suppose pain, death, and the effects of sin...it's all just pain, death, and sin. For those in Christ it is conquered. And like childhood, it makes you think it's real and eternal, and then in the blink of an eye it's all destroyed right in front of your eyes, except this time instead of that happening by a plane slamming into the ground at 400 miles per hour, or your body forcing you to double over in pain every few minutes until the dead body is expelled, well, this time it will happen with trumpets, the sky splitting, and Jesus coming back. And when He comes, we'll all be sitting at that final Easter, the illusion of this fallen world will crumble and be destroyed, and that blasted train will be gone forever.

Jesus

Lately the hardest part of, what?, not infertility, as obviously I am not infertile, but, I don't know, being a house of death, is being an eye witness of my own flesh.

I can see the symptoms, feel them, but despite what I see and feel, there are no positive results. There are no answers that any test can see. I may as well be a lunatic because no amount of seeing or feeling provides answers or healing but instead leaves my Doctor eyeing me wearily.

This leaves me, yet again, completely alone. It leaves me trapped inside a body of death. It leaves me watching helplessly, knowing something isn't right, and begging God fiercely to overcome the failure of my flesh for the sake of my children.

The awful thing about my symptoms is that they aren't symptoms that are causing me trouble or illness, symptoms that must be addressed for the sake of my own health, instead they are symptoms that seem to mock me, giant billboards that only I can see that serve to constantly remind me that my body is broken and will NOT protect my children, but will instead certainly discard them. The only purpose the symptoms seem to serve is to be a thorn in my flesh, a reminder that I am indeed handed over to this fate.

What is more, if it is not medicine that is failing me, it would then be finances.

I do not feel despair in this. I continue to do things I have been told to do, shots in the dark if you will. Instead, it is the reality of life.

Today, in Bible class, my husband spoke of when Uzza reached out to touch the ark of God and was immediately killed. It was not a punishment, it was reality. Just as it would not be a punishment handed out by the electric company if someone was killed by messing with a power line, so when Uzza piously reached out his hand to save the ark from falling, so it killed him simply because of what it was. Man is sinful, God is not, a sacrifice had not yet been given for the sins of the world that would allow man to preside in God's presence and God in man's. Therefore, when Uzza touched God, it killed him. Instantly. David turned it into an emotional affair, as humans often do, and was angry at God. But God cannot cease to be God simply to pamper human emotions.

My flesh will always fail. It is reality. If not here, then somewhere else. This does not express God's sentiments or affections towards me, it simply is the reality of being fallen.

Sometimes this causes me great grief, but other times it simply causes me to rush to God's Word and His sacraments. Those sacraments and that Word speak truth to all of my parts and remind me that the fight is not about me or my flesh, it is about Christ and His free salvation. It is about life that is mine. Children are indeed blessings, but they are not mandatory. If everything I own and all that are dear to me were swept away, Jesus is still Jesus.

My body is broken. What of it? My children are dead. What of it? A greater reality exists and is indeed the actual reality. Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.

And when He does, all of these things that seem so real (that is, the things that seem eternal because of the nature of our current existence) will not be real anymore. They are not real now, in that they are not eternal. Jesus, He is real. He makes us real. And He comforts, consumes, and takes away all of the things that are not real, but instead are a product of being fallen, and behold, we are a new creation. Forever.

photo credit

Solomon

Tonight, while enjoying some new bath salts, I read the book of Ecclesiastes. It's been a while since I've had a good read through this book and, as usual, it did not disappoint. One of the verses that struck me the most tonight and actually made me laugh out loud was this one:

Enjoy Life with the One You Love

7.Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do.

8.Let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head.

9.Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. 10.Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going. (Ecclesiastes 9:7-10)

Look at verse 9 in particular. I had to laugh because the first two verses just drip with Gospel, and it seems to be continuing until that word "vain" slips in and you are brought back to reality. Oh yea, this is all just stupid sinful life and we're all, righteous by Christ and unrighteous alike, on our march to death. 

I laughed to my husband that in one word it's like Solomon went from this sweet Gospel speaking man to him: 

Look into my eyes!!!

And yet, all joking aside, in a way this photo is very appropriate. None of us can escape death or the lairs and traps of this evil life. It is awful, it is wretched, and evil happens to those made righteous by Christ and evil alike...as do blessings.

I thought more about Solomon when I had finished the book. Here you have the richest and wisest of all men of all time. And yet over and over he laments his wisdom...earthly human wisdom, even the greatest of all wisdom, is nothing, NOTHING in comparison with the wisdom of God that only He possesses. For none of us can comprehend the ways of God.

So what is left? To eat, drink, be merry, and to set about our work that we have been given to do.

And I am sure in time this will be added to me but there is also a time to weep. A time to mourn. A time to fast.

It is better to go to the house of mourning

than to go to the house of feasting,

for this is the end of all mankind,

and the living will lay it to heart.

Sorrow is better than laughter,

for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.

The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,

but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. (Ecclesiastes 7: 2-4)

Brokenness, trials, suffering...they strip us naked of all false hopes, of all conceit, of all idols, it leaves us face to face with our ultimate fear: ultimate failure and utter ruin...damnation. But when we open our eyes to come face to face with the enemy, instead, those who have been baptized into Christ see this instead:

photo credit

He is already there, He has already conquered. You are saved.

For a time we fast. We fast to acknowledge the brokenness, to tell our flesh that it is not our Lord, and to pray, Lord come. But after awhile we lift our heads up and are fed by our Lord and then we must keep on in the work He has given us to do. For it is all there is until He comes for us. May we be merry in our doing.

Her

Sometimes I wish I could go back to being her. That young mom with 4 kids ages 5 and under who was exhausted and yet bursting with joy that I had 4 small adorable little men. And counting. I see her smiling face that looked like she had a joke behind her eyes because they seemed to be laughing.

Oh sure she was tired, and sometimes she worried about having more kids (though really because she was worried she wouldn't be enough for the kids she had), but always she could not believe God had given HER kids. She certainly didn't deserve them, nor was she even good at being a mom, but still He gave.

But I will never go back to being her. I can't.

"And Elkanah, her husband, said to her, “Hannah, why do you weep? And why do you not eat? And why is your heart sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?” (1 Samuel 1:8, ESV)

Today I found myself thinking on Elkanah's response to Hannah as I questioned myself and my grief.

But it's not about what we already have. Do we not all, barren women, husbandless women, do we not ALL have reasons to rejoice? Christ has risen! But that doesn't make death and sin and earthly life any less a cause for grief sometimes...or sometimes all the time.

I will never go back to being her. I have been taken off the course of married and being fruitful and multiplying and instead my body has turned into a death machine.

It reminds me of the parts in the Divergent trilogy where Tris and Tobias have to go through their "fear landscapes" in which they are forced to either watch the death of loved ones or even kill loved ones over and over again. It's not real, but in the simulation, it feels very real. 

I'm trapped in this sick reality where I am handed a precious life and then cannot sustain it. I can do nothing to protect it, to nurture it, to save it. Something that is supposed to just happen, won't. And time after time I have to watch my body grotesquely expel what it was supposed to house, to protect, to bring safely to the waters of Holy Baptism.

It's not real because this life is not our ultimate reality, heaven is. This nightmare will end and that is why it is worth fighting through until our Savior comes for us. Those 6 children of mine are indeed safe. But while I'm here it's very real. And I can't choose to leave this reality when I want to, nor would I, because I have children to care for and a husband to love: a vocation to perform. 

We all have vocations, whether or not they are the vocations we want, whether or not they include children or husbands. 

But the hard reality is that regardless of whether the Lord does allow another child to be sustained and brought into this life, I have had to watch my body become the enemy of life and I will never be the same again. Until Jesus comes for us I will always have to look back at that girl with the laugh behind her eyes and instead see the woman that has replaced her. A part of me has died with my 6 stillborn children, and when I look at our family pictures I will always see the empty spaces. 

I must say I never realized back in my newly married naivety and joy that perpetual parturition could be turned into perpetual death. But what's a girl to do? 

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming.

There's something strangely comforting about having it all come crashing down around you, to be left helpless and defeated and to become a hostage of death....because someone else became death's hostage before me...and well, he conquered it. 

So while this feels real, and it will be real for quite some time, it WILL end. sigh. Sometime.