..I’m another year older.

I should be feeling happy, giddy, excited and yet instead I feel sadness and overwhelmed by the messages of love and birthday wishes I’m receiving from my friends and family.

I’ve been reluctant to acknowledge my birthday for a long time, scared of it coming around because this day a year ago reminds me of how happy I was, and how shortly afterwards my world fell apart in the blink of an eye.

And the truth is, I’m not that same person anymore.

I wish more than anything that I was, that I could feel that same bliss and happiness that I felt last year. A year ago, I was celebrating my 30^th in Tromsø with my husband, twelve weeks pregnant and planning for our future as a family of three.

I felt so incredibly lucky that I would be bringing my baby home the same year I turned 30. I’m not really sure why that was important to me, but it was. Maybe it was because I had longed for a baby for so long and being newly married, it felt like the stars were finally aligning. Maybe it was because my mum had me at 30 and I felt history would repeat itself. Or maybe it’s because I had been so lucky that everything else in my life had planned out the way I’d hoped, and so I didn’t stop to question whether or not the baby I was carrying in my tummy would stay around long enough for me to meet her.

I’ve been on standstill for the past year of my life, unable to fully live and let go. Unable to feel deeply happy and excited because the future I thought I would have, isn’t as visible to me now. It’s clouded, and there’s so many hurdles to get through. It’s long, it’s tiring and quite frankly, it’s sh*t.

I may be grateful for many things in my life, but this is the one thing that I can’t let go of. It’s the one pain that I carry with me every single day, and it cuts deep. It hurts my heart feeling this way.

I’ve come far in many ways since my miscarriage a year ago next week, yet not so far in other ways. I may be stronger than I was a year ago, I’m definitely more resilient and in many ways I’m both physically and mentally healthier. I’m tuned into my feelings, I acknowledge them, and I accept them for the most part. Yet I’m also more fragile, more sensitive to things, more vulnerable and exposed. I’m more open to those around me about the journey that I’m on, yet I’m also closed at the same time, scared to tell them how I really feel each and every day. On the surface I’m doing well, one would tell you. On the inside, I’m still hurting for how far away the future I’ve always dreamed off really is.

I find the need to protect my heart so much more than I ever did because I can’t face it breaking again and again.

Today, I miss the girl that I used to be.

Love, Sophie xx