Recently as I've been writing about my miscarriages again, it's gotten me to thinking about loss of innocence. Not in the dirty sense (geeze, what do you take me for?!), but in the sense of a specific event that was a turning point--a point at which you changed, and could never go back to who you had been before. An event that made you older in a way that the simple passage of time cannot.
For my mother it was losing her baby to SIDS. It's easy to pinpoint if you look at photographs--in that year her face aged. She began to get wrinkles. Her eyes showed that she knew something more. Her body lost it's youthful resilience. She looked more tired.
One might credit those changes to the fact that she had 4 other small children, or that she turned 30 that year, or that after a 5th pregnancy the body just doesn't bounce back so well anymore... but I can attest that it was not those things; it was the loss of innocence. I know, because my loss of innocence occurred when I was only 22; it was my first miscarriage.
What was yours?
Or are you still innocent?
6 comments:
Oh, wow I have had many turning points. First I want to say what a beautiful post. Mine came when I realized I should not have married the man I was married to. Then when I realized divorce was my only way to get out of that situation. I've had many more since then. I'm afraid that is part of our life experience.
I think for now I still am innocent... It makes me a little sad to think one day I won't be anymore.
But I think you are still innocent. Just because you've been through a lot doesn't mean you aren't as sweet as you were when you were a little girl :)
So very far from innocent. It started with my first miscarriage. But it wasn't until I lost Indigo that I thought it showed in my face, my eyes, they way I am.
After my first miscarriages and the miscarriages that followed things changed. I lost my innocence in pregnancy, I realized bad things happen, and to me. I was no longer invincible. I realized the devastating.
I realized that most people don't understand. They aren't supportive. And people closest to you who should be the most supportive aren't.
But it was Indigo that changed me. I look at pictures of me before her and I don't recognize the person looking back. And I look at pictures of me since I lost Indigo and I don't recognize that person either. That person holds so much hurt, secret, and a strength that I don't recognize.
My loss of innocence happened much like yours- after my first miscarriage. I was so angry that I wasn't able to "believe" in pregnancy and birth any more. All of a sudden, I knew that just because I got pregnant, I wasn't guranteed a baby at the end of it. After my second miscarriage, I became even more jaded, and I still cringe when someone announces a pregnancy at 6, 9, or even 12 weeks, and the first thought that pops into my head is always "I hope they don't miscarry and have to un-tell everyone." And then I feel angry and sad, and realize that the likelyhood is that they won't miscarry, that they will have a healthy baby at the end of it. And sometimes, I feel resentful, and wonder why I have had two miscarriages and struglles with fertility when it seems to come so freely to others.
So yes, Jenni, I understand. And I'm so sorry about the loss of your precious little one.
I can remember many times that I lost my innocence, like the first time a friend betrayed me so deeply that I was left all alone, and every time thereafter. Then being used by someone and being told "I don't love you." Perhaps being told that my husband and I wouldn't be able to have children. Watching people you love suffer.
I guess there are many times that we experience loss, but perhaps that is what wisdom really is? From the loss we learn what is really important.
Mine occurred when I was only 20, after making an ill-thought-out marriage to the man I thought I should love and miscarrying my first angel within days of the wedding. An omen, you would say? perhaps. But it happened again, this time while engaged to the right man...I was a few months away from my 27th birthday, and somehow, it almost seems as if Seonig's M/C hurts me more...Maybe because I was further along when I lost her?
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