I am going to try something new this month. I’m only going to use cash. The only exception is gas. I’ll use my debit card for gas. That is just too much trouble. Everything else though is going to be payed for in cash. I’ve seen this idea many times. I know for a fact, I didn’t think of it. In fact, someone else posted about it this week as well. One of my best friends does this too. I’ve just never been brave enough to try it. What I know though? Is I’m getting behind. I’m using my credit cards for stupid things at the end of each month, just because I flat out run out of money.

I’ve thought about this before. I’ve just never been willing to try it. Truth is, in previous years, it wasn’t an issue. You know, pre-getting divorced. Ahem.

To save time and energy, while on vacations, I only use cash. I’ve always done that. Most likely because it gets tiring writing down receipts while on vacation. While in NYC last month, I didn’t use my debit card for anything, except on cab fare on the way back to the airport. I came home with money. If I’d used my card all weekend, I’d of come home to an empty bank account. I know this about myself. If I have cash, I consciously think, is this a need. I actually did that while on vacation in NYC. I saw a purse that I loved. Such a pretty blue purse. Ahem. Yet, I didn’t buy it. Kari probably thought I was nuts. I kept picking it up and putting it down. Ha.

If I can do this on a vacation, I can do this in regular life.

My girls don’t need anymore Silly Bandz, just because they are conveniently located right next to the check out. I don’t need to eat out for lunch each day, when I have perfectly good food right here. I don’t need to go to Target when I’m bored. I can walk the dog instead. My son doesn’t need any more Cars paraphernalia. He has too much of it, as is.

I still live like there are two incomes coming into this house. And there just isn’t.

So yesterday I took the plunge. When my paycheck was deposited, I paid all my bills. I wrote out my checks for my share of daycare/after school care. I then went to the bank and took out cash. Cash for groceries. For Costco. For Target. For the eating out, although I’m attempting to curb that as well. Cash for my therapy. For mine and Bailey’s prescriptions. I will still do certain things. I will still do some fun things with the kids. I got a pedicure last night. This evening, I will go and pay for September dance classes for Morgan. But I’m doing it all with cash.

It’s a bit scary. A bit daunting. I think I can do it though. Any money left over at the end of the month, will go towards paying off credit. My goal? To stop using the dam things.

My great-grandpa only used cash. I remember hearing that my uncle made him get a checking account for all the cash he had hidden in his house, when he was 80 freaking years old. The man paid cash for his home. For his car. If he didn’t have the cash, he just flat out didn’t need it.

I think I’d like that to be my goal. If I don’t have cash for it, I don’t need it. Might take me awhile to get there, but it’s a goal.

I have all these things in my head. Things I can’t talk about here. Not yet at least. It is hard to know what to say, what not to say. I keep hearing my mother’s voice telling me, don’t write anything on your blog that could come back to haunt you in a court of law. Which sounds silly I’m sure. However, in the midst of a divorce, it makes complete sense.

My problem is, I blog what is in my head. It’s my process. It’s how I grieve, deal, learn, heal. I’ve always said what I wanted. I’ve always posted what I needed too. This has always been my place, for just me. I’ve been able to say things I wouldn’t because most of my family doesn’t know about this blog. Yet, he does. He knows it’s here.

It’s not even that the things I want to say are bad. It’s just, there comes a point where a line was drawn. The line between him and me. What can be said, what can’t be said. The line seems fuzzy to me in the moment. I’m unsure what to do.

So what does one talk about, when everything you want to say, seems off limits?

Look mom, Bailey said this morning. There see, those ladies are giving away free coffee N donuts. You should go there. I wonder if they have sprinkle donuts?

(As an aside, I love how literal six year olds read. The N, was just an N in her mind.)

Nah love, that’s a church, I won’t be going there, I said to her. I waited for the next question, but then she saw a dead raccoon and I got to hear a five minute story about the dead raccoon. Thank god for six year olds with short attention spans.

I’d of been honest with her if she asked. I am just not completely sure I could have made my point in the five minutes it took us to drive the rest of the way to school. I’m not sure I could have even touched the subject matter in five minutes. YAY dead raccoons. Ahem.

I don’t have an issue with free coffee and donuts. I don’t even have a problem with churches. Not in general. I do take issue with a church having women stand outside for a couple hours each morning, waving their hands around, holding signs for free coffee and donuts.

Those coffee and donuts aren’t free. They come with a price. I know what that church is. It’s false advertising, that sign outside. Their regular sign is generally filled with some weird saying that takes me days to figure out each week. Once I finally figure out it’s a sneaky way to call everyone who doesn’t attend evil, I tend to get angry. That church is more a fire and brimstone, you are evil if you don’t believe what we believe, type church. They beileve a woman’s only place is cooking, cleaning and raising children. They have a small school attached to the church, because they believe pubic school is evil. Mark my words. You will never see a man outside that church holding a sign.

I promise you, those donuts come with a price. One I’m not willing to pay.

How do you explain that to a six year old though? How do you explain to an inquisitive six year old, that some people believe their way is the only way? How do I explain religion to her, when I don’t understand it myself?

Every fight, every war, every major argument it seems, somehow goes back to religion. After how ever many thousand years, we still haven’t figure out as a species, to let people believe in the god of their choosing. You’d think we’d of gotten it by now, but we just haven’t. All those articles, blog posts, tweets about the mosque being built near the World Trade Center, all go back to the simple fact that we can’t just allow each other the right to choose. You choose your god, I’ll choose mine…most likely they are all some form of the same. Who knows? Do you know? I surely don’t.

I also know I don’t have the answers for my children. I am the child of a very lapsed baptist and an atheist Jew. I was not raised in religion. Any religion. Were their pieces of the traditions from both in my childhood? Yes. Mostly it was just holiday traditions though.

I don’t know what I believe. Honestly, I don’t. I love that many of you do. I just don’t. I almost wish I could be an atheist. It seems too final for me though. Too easy. Maybe too hard. Like I said, I have no clue what I believe. Makes it hard as a parent to explain things to your kids.

I do know though, that church isn’t giving out free donuts.

I can’t write to the science of Postpartum Depression. I am not a scientist. I can’t write about the chemicals in your brain when you have it. I am not a chemist. I can’t tell you what a shrink would say. I am not a shrink. I can not tell you about anyone else’s PPD or how they should deal with it.

What I can tell you, is about me. My story. How postpartum depression changed my life. That I can tell you.

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We named her the night we had the ultrasound. Saw her little butter bean self swimming along all cute and peanut looking. It’s a girl I said, we obviously don’t make boys. Yeah, but been there done that, was his response, we need a boy name and a girl name. Piper Isabelle. Tristan Gabriel. We came up with those names in an hour. It was simple. It was easy. No name decision, prior or since has been easy.

We’d just moved to Colorado. We’d been here literally a week. 12 week ultrasound. Three little peanut pictures to take home.

Few weeks later, I was hanging a picture. I was up on a ladder. I was being impatient. Logan had said he’d do it when he got home. I hadn’t felt that great in the morning. I did it anyway. I HATE walls with no pictures up on them. I was also afraid of the girls running into them and breaking glass and yeah. Anyway.

I woke up in the ER. I have no idea why. I have no idea why I didn’t have to feel it. But it may have been easier if I’d…I don’t even know. I woke up and it was already done. D&C. She was gone and they removed her parts I guess. Whatever else. I try not to think about it. I was in some form of shock and they don’t know why. They don’t know why I passed out. My blood pressure was through the roof. But still it was all a guess. All I knew, was I woke up and Logan was there and he had to tell me she was gone. (They did generic test her. Gotta love doctors. Trying to find an answer for everything. Guess they thought it would be easier on me, if something had been wrong with her. Sadly, there was no answer. Just that I was right. She’d been a girl.) I knew it though, that she was gone. I felt so empty. When I looked at him, I knew it. I know he told me then, but I don’t think I heard anything. She’s gone, I said. Yes, he answered. That was it. That’s all I remember. I couldn’t even tell you how much longer I was there.

Went home with a prescription for pain killers, a shattered heart and no hope in the world.

I couldn’t understand. I don’t know that I do now. No one I knew at the time had ever had a miscarriage…or that was what I thought then. People tend to come out of the wood works later with their own stories.

I couldn’t understand how the world could keep moving. I could barely breath, yet the world kept moving. Logan asked me on the way home if I wanted to stop and get dinner for the girls. I couldn’t even answer him. The world moved on. People kept breathing. My cell phone rang. My children had to eat. The dog wanted to go for a walk. None of it mattered. Nothing mattered.  Nothing ever would again. She was gone. I was dead inside. That was all I knew.

One of my first regrets…I destroyed the ultrasound photos. I walked in the door and went to the fridge to get water to take more pills. I hurt. Physically I hurt. It’s painful, a D&C. Not as painful as having a miscarriage and having pieces pass, but still it hurts. Anyway, I went to the fridge and saw her photo and I remember screaming. I put it in the drain and hit the button on the disposal. I went to bed after that. I didn’t even say a word to the girls. I just walked away and went to bed.

I stayed in bed for three months. I tried to will myself to die. To stop breathing. To just die. I didn’t want anything except her. The first month my mom came to stay, she took care of me. She took care of the girls and Logan. She tried. Oh man did she try. At first she  made the girls come in and try talking to me. After about a week she stopped, because I couldn’t handle it. Because they couldn’t handle it. I ignored my own daughters. All i did was cry. I cried for three weeks straight. Then I just stopped. The girls would come and go. If they got in bed with me, I’d cuddle with them. Couldn’t make myself talk though. Logan would come and go. I barely ate. I only showered maybe once a week and only then because my mom threatened me.

I shut down. I completely shut down. I basically stopped living. Ii was there but I wasn’t there.

At some point, my husband and mother made me see a doctor. I thought it was after two months, my mom says it was only about three weeks. The meds didn’t help. Not at first.

After a month, my MIL came to switch places with my mom. She babied me a bit more. Made me every sweet she could think of. Force fed me cake. I started eating again.

The third month my mom came back. At that point, she made me get on new meds. She told me if I didn’t, she’d have me committed. That she had the power to put me on a psych hold and don’t think she wouldn’t do it.  tTruth is, a lot of it I don’t remember. I shut down. I folded into myself.

So I took the new meds. Not because I wanted too, or cared really, but because they forced me too. She made me get up. Made me at least do some of the day to day stuff with the kids. After a while I got used to it. A while after that, I started enjoy my girls again. I remember the day I found myself laughing again. I laughed until I cried. A bit more time passed and my mom went home.

I regret a lot of things about that time. So much so. It pains me to write this out. It physically exhausts me. I feel so broken. So damaged.

The things I thought are bad. I will be completely honest with you guys, I wanted to die. They suspected it. I wasn’t left alone for months. Logan took my meds with him to work every day. For months and months. Heck, there probably wasn’t anything stronger than baby Advil in my home for months.

Would I have done something. Nah. I don’t think so. I was too something for that. Numb maybe.  I just didn’t think I could ever be happy again. I didn’t think I could ever breath again.  I didn’t know that I wanted too.

I know how this sounds. Trust me I do. Is why I haven’t talked about it. I think it’s time though. Time to say it. Time to deal with it.

I abandoned my kids for nearly three months. Someone else made their meals, changed their clothes, bathed them, sang them to sleep. Someone else read to them, kissed their boo boos, bought them school clothes, took them to school, took them to the doctor for three months. I was there. But I wasn’t there.

This? Is my reality of PPD. This is what it did to me. To my family. To my babies.

When I am sad and Bailey makes jokes I know this is why. She remembers that only she could make me laugh for months. When I’m stressed and Morgan steps in and takes over small things with the little kids. I know this is why. I forced her to grow up too much without even wanting too. I can’t undo these things. I would if I could. They worry if I stay in bed or don’t shower. So unless I am sick I always shower. I always get out of bed. For them. But I hate that they remember it.

Truth? Harrison was not planned. It was too soon. I’d only lost Piper six months earlier, when I got pregnant.

I didn’t believe he’d make it. That I was being punished. That I’d loose him. Until I was seven months pregnant I tried to ignore the fact that I was pregnant. I talked to him. I took care of him. I even talked normally about him to everyone else. But I felt like I was carrying an alien. I felt none of the joy that I had with the girls. I wanted him more than anything but I didn’t believe in him. I’m sure that it did him harm. To not feel wanted in utero. I love him more than life itself but I can’t undo any damage I caused him.

I blamed me for the loss of Piper. If I just not done this, if I’d done this, if I’d been better, been more something. I blamed Logan. For moving us across the country. For telling me it would be okay. For stressing me out so much that I lost her. Do I know neither of us are to blame? Yes. Now.  But I hated him. I hated him and he stopped loving me. I am to blame for that. I am the reason my marriage failed. That whole time I pushed Logan away. I didn’t let him near me. I didn’t let him sleep in our bed. I wouldn’t talk to him. I wouldn’t look at him. Afterwords when I got better a bit, I knew he didn’t trust me fully. He didn’t. Not for months. Maybe never. I don’t blame him for that. I can’t blame him for that. That is on me. That is on my disease. Not him.

I lost my friends. For awhile I lost my sanity. I lost my husband. I lost a piece of myself. My innocence. My heart maybe.

Some called it a nervous breakdown due to PPD. Due to stress. Due to PTSD of loosing the baby. Some say, I’m just crazy. There has been a lot of talk this week, that PPD isn’t really a chemical thing. That it’s not real. That it’s just new mom’s not liking their new role in life. That the act of creating a child, is just plain too much for some women. Mine came from losing a child. That doesn’t make it any less real. Postpartum Depression is real. I had it while pregnant with Harrison as well, and after. However I was under constant watch and on continuous meds. The words being tossed around this week, feel judgmental. But reality is no one can judge me as much as I judge myself.

Postpartum Depression wasn’t a figment of my imagination. I’d never had any depression issues prior to it. I’d already had two children. I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t want this. I also, had no control over it. It was real. My PPD was real.

***This post was written, because of an article on AOL. If you want more specifics on that, Her Bad Mother wrote a great post on PPD as well.

This online world is strange. You meet people, you become friends with some of them and then the day comes where you realize that these are your people. That the names on a screen, the words on blog posts, the 140 character tweets have become real people to you.

The people who live in California, Oregon, Florida, Wisconsin, Washington State, Texas, Washington DC, New York, New Jersey…I could continue. These are your people. The women you count on. The women who listen, who make you feel heard. They support you. No matter what you tell them. They still support you, because somewhere in them, they understand; the emotion, if not the words. They make you laugh. They let you cry. Sometimes they make you cry. They accept you as you. Your people.

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We sit at lunch at a small sidewalk table. The city that never sleeps carries on around us. One on one, during a weekend filled with people. Honest. Real. Raw. It’s the moment that sticks in my head most from that weekend.

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I watch my cell phone. I wait for a text. This happens to me sometimes. When someone is hurting, I wait for texts like farmers wait for rain. It’s a need. Nothing is okay in that moment, until my phone chirps.

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I realize I’m cupping my hand. Have been doing it for over twenty minutes. It’s my attempt to hold her hand. 1300 miles away. I hope she feels it in some small way. Me here, holding onto her.

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Curled up in bed, two people in the bed next to me. We talk and laugh for over an hour after we all should have been asleep. Maybe two hours. Even though we feel like we are still on west coast time, our bodies aren’t used to this hour. The conversation is always worth the lack of sleep.

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I call her for the first time. Her voice sounds just how I thought it would. Because I know her. I’ve known her for months. We pick up our conversation like we’d been talking forever.

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I waited for her to get off the plane. We’d texted each other the night before, okay, I’m scared. It was almost funny, because how can you be nervous to meet someone who you talk to every single day? The second she got off the plane, I knew, this is all okay.

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Not a day has gone by. Not a day. In a year at least. Without at least one text or email or DM.

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I look at my desk calendar and smile. They both have one too. I purchased them at Christmas. Silly little desk calendar. I’ve never loved one more in my entire life.

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There was a day that I thought I’d just lay down and cease to exist. One of the harder days of this year. Doorbell. Flowers. For me. Just because. I still have the card. To brighten my day it said.

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I cry into the phone. Late at night. I cry into the phone to her. She lets me. Always. No matter what. She sits there and lets me cry in her ear until I’m done. Then? She changes the subject. Asks a question. Tells me about something silly her kids did. Tells me about her dessert. Something. Anything. Because she knows me. She knows I need that, almost as much as I needed to cry.

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An Italian restaurant. I was on vacation with my kids, but I made a point to take time to go meet her. Two hours of non stop talking. I felt like I’d known her forever. Even though it can go weeks between a tweet, I still consider her one of my people. It’s easy to pick up right where we left off, no matter how long it goes.

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One of us starts an email each morning. Generally just during the week. Four names. It pings back and forth all day. California. Colorado. Florida. Oregon.

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You realize that as hard as it can be to have none of them live near you, it’s still worth it every day, to have them in your life. No one said your people had to live on the same street as you. There doesn’t need to be a definition for it. It just is.

These are my people. This is why I do this. Because of my people.