Day 22 - a website that has been meaningful since your loss.
Bejeebus, Meebus. Yeah. Have you got fifteen hours?
I would say the first and most meaningful was Glow in the Woods. It was the first time there was language about babyloss, mothering and grief that resonated with me.
When I lost my child, I felt like I had this new identity as a grieving mother, and with it came all this baggage. Mother. Sad Mother. Grieving Mother. If Stay At Home Mother was a moniker I had to get used to, Grieving Stay At Home Mother was a moniker I really really had to get used to. There was this swirling, tentative feeling I had of being vaguely uncomfortable with the language of loss and mothering and grief, especially as I had first gotten on-line and intersected with certain pregnancy-type forums. There was a lot of God talk, angel talk and bashing women who make other choices in their life. Criticisms of how to grieve and how to parent. I just didn't fit there. It is how I felt when I became a SAHM. I have a whole post brewing about what it was like for a caffeine-addled workaholic feminist to become caffeine-addled workaholic stay at home mother.When I found Glow in the Woods, it was like I found this tribe of women that were mothers without talking specifically about their kids and their choices all the time. Or their grief without focusing on getting better and healing all the time. Here everyone sat with each other's grief and demons and anger and sadness.
So, that is why Glow became meaningful to me. I followed every regular contributor's blogs and bookmarked them, and then the ones I felt particularly drawn to, I bookmarked their bookmarks. And the trail exploded until I found Mel, and she really changed my life. I became a clicker (though I don't do that regularly anymore with all my other blogs and projects), and read a ton of other women's blogs with other different types of experiences and losses. I believe in everything Lost and Found Connections Abound (LFCA) stands for and what Mel does.
I really don't know what would have become of me without Glow - or indeed StillLife, which has got me creating and acknowledging a side of me I shut off with my previous loss.
ReplyDeleteI would love to be in a place where I had done these posts this month - but I really wasn't. I think it would be great if you gathered them together with some sort of Mr Linky that people could come to and do and share at time when they were ready for the project and commitment :)
Well that just made me weepy. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteI'm behind with my posts, but yeah Glow saved my sanity, it's a haven of warm enveloping acceptance.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more. My only regret is that it took me so very long to find "my people." I had to get to a very low and despairing place before I started looking for like-minded individuals.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, Mel saved my sanity. I love her. She's the greatest Mel ever.
ReplyDeleteYup. Glow. Word. It really was like finding a cozy cabin hidden in the woods. After a long, tiring, treacherous journey, there it was.
ReplyDeleteGotta check out LFCA.