Strange Sadness

I'm up at Teachers College today, desperately trying to work on my dissertation revisions that have been hiding in my closet (no lie) since the school year started. I'm sitting in the library, a place I never visit since having two kids, and pretending that I'm an academic when my brain just keeps traipsing into thoughtful digressions wondering what my kids are doing right now with the babysitter we hired for the day because their daycare is closed.

Caffeinated as usual, a trip to the bathroom just hit me and when I walked into the ladies restroom I got this overwhelming sense of sadness like I do every time I have walked into this bathroom since May of 2006. It was in that bathroom that I noticed the blood that had started the day I turned 12 weeks pregnant with our first pregnancy. As I stared at the reddish/brown on my underwear in the middle bathroom stall (I still remember which one it was) that evening, I tried to convince myself that it was okay, but I knew inside that something was very, very wrong.

For some strange reason, that bathroom still makes me super sad. I now have two healthy, beautiful children after two uncomplicated pregnancies and wonderful births, but there is something about walking through that bathroom door that brings back the emotions of fear, loss, and disappointment that that miscarriage brought into my life. It seems silly to feel that sense of longing and loss still, four years later, especially after having had two babies, but for some reason it's still there. And palpable. I don't know why.

My days at Teachers College are hopefully limited. I was told this morning that I'm using my last semester of personal exemption this Fall and that if I don't defend this Spring then I'll have to start paying the ongoing fee to be matriculated but not graduated. That's not going to happen. My days revisiting this bathroom that remind me of my miscarriage are limited, then, too. In some ways it's a sacred space to me, but it's one I'll be happy never to visit again.