Can't...

Throughout Sonzee's entire life I felt like we were walking a tightrope, and not one that you see in the circus, the ones that set world records for people being able to successfully navigate to the other side.  I suppose it would be up to individual opinion as to whether her death was the other side or if I missed a step and fell off the rope.  I guess it also depends if the rope was hers or mine? Either way, like we are all engrained to do,  I have to pick myself up and keep on moving.  If her death was me falling off, then I have to get back up and continue on the same rope.  If her death was me making it to the other side, I have to keep moving forward, so the journey continues on an extension of that rope.  Except...I can't.

 

I can't isn't exactly honest, nor is it really fair to say, it is more of an "I can't" blended with an "I don't want to".  My new journey means it won't ever be what it was.  I get that, I do.  I understand there is no going back and there is no physical her that will be in my present or future.  Whether I walk along the rope or stay where I am at, that fact is never changing, I understand that.  But, if I take a step, even a small one, even one that she would've taken in her gait trainer, then it means it's a step further away from her, further away from the life we once lived, further away from life with Sonzee.

I talk to friends, I scroll through Facebook, I see varying opinions on COVID19 and remaining at home vs going back to normal.  I am stuck.  Our life was a quarantine for the 4 years 11 months and 23 days she spent with us.  That is our normal.  That is what I know to be life.  That is where I have always felt safe.  It's how and where we were able to keep her relatively safe.  Since 2015 we have followed Phoenix Children's Hospital restrictions in our house, and no one comes in or out from late fall to close to summer.  A medically complex sign hung on our front door, shoe coverings (and at times masks) were given to those coming inside, and hand sanitizer pumps attached to the walls are front and center. The life of quarantine is a familiar one.  It was all because of her, and the thought of leaving that because theoretically, we now can, makes this rope even more of a challenge than the one I once thought to be the most delicately woven thin impossible rope to maneuver.