I haven’t written much in a while. Yes, I guess I posted only a week ago, but I haven’t said much. And, that’s mostly because, well, I just don’t have that much to say.

Perhaps I’m just… getting older, growing up, changing.

When it comes to my miscarriage, I have whined, I have complained, I have cried and ached and pined. I have questioned my beliefs, questioned life and everything in it. I have missed them. I have missed them. But, perhaps more important than anything else, I have changed.

My miscarriage has changed my life. It has changed me. It has forced me to cross an invisible threshold that once crossed cannot be uncrossed. I am a woman with the memories of a girl. I think at first, I thought that it was temporary, that somehow I would come out of this loss and be the same person. But, no. There are parts of me that are just … gone.

I realize that this was inevitable, that it happens to every one of us. My sweet, sweet friend just lost her mother. An acquaintance of mine just lost her father. Another acquaintance is watching her young son battle an aggressive brain tumor. A family member is losing his marriage.

These are the experiences that take us across life’s thresholds. It isn’t just me. The very fact that I sometimes feel so desperately alone is merely my human failing telling me that surely no one on this wide and wild planet can feel as I do? But I am wrong. Of course I’m wrong. As Maya Angelou says, we are more alike than we are unalike. And, that’s probably never more true than in the fact that we all suffer the loss of our innocence. We lose what we thought would be in favor of what is.

In many ways, this is just as well. I have become more aware of my priorities not just in my own meager life, but in life in general. Having a place to live: important. Having everything I want to fill it with: not important. Talking endlessly about how much some little stupid thing annoys me? Not important. Finding the right words when someone says “I miss my mother so much?” Important.

And, this extends too to my online life. There was a time when it just seemed so important that I stay engaged, that I stay plugged in, that I stay relevant. It would be the way I’d become the writer I’d always wanted to be, how I’d launch this career that would gain me both a living and a life. But, now… I find myself coming back again and again to that quote by Sri Sathya Sai Baba.

I’m sure you’ve heard it. It goes:

Before you speak, think. Is it necessary? Is it true? Is it kind? Will it hurt anyone? Will it improve on the silence?

Sitting here in my studio, I am watching the clouds pass behind a grove of very tall Douglas firs. The sun is that hot-golden hue that it becomes just before it gives up its place to the moon. And, I’m wondering if this post I’m writing satisfies these questions. Most likely it doesn’t.

Most likely, I’m doing what we so often do now. We don’t even consider how we might improve on the silence, because there is no silence. Instead, we are competing to make the best noise.

And, I guess what I’m saying is that my particular life-changing thing has made me question if I want to do that. Most of the time anymore, I don’t want to.

Instead, I want to kiss my husband because it is the sweetest thing in my world. I want to workout because it is the right thing for my body. I want to talk to a friend because I actually have something to say. I want to open a Word document and work on a story I’ve been writing because it is something worth writing.

Because in my world, these things are necessary. They are true; they are kind. They certainly do not hurt anyone, and while I do not entirely know yet if my life is improving on the silence, I believe that a little more time spent in the silence will at least allow me to learn how I might contribute in a significant way.

All this is to say, I realize I am not the same person I used to be. My natural inclination is to mourn that, which is … strange. Why do we human beings mourn the loss of who we used to be so much? We grow, we change, we evolve. This is the way of things. This is the supposed to be. This is what happens after the happily ever afters we see in the movies. We go on, and we change, and we fall apart. And, then, we go on again.