The Beauty is in the Mix

Earlier this week, Patrick's headstone arrived and was placed at his burial site.  Because we had opted to purchase a set of four plots for the family, we went ahead and got a family headstone, so our information sits on the side opposite Patrick's.  When we went to see it for the first time, Mira became very upset because she wasn't on it.  We tried to explain that we had not put her name on it because when she grew up, she might get married and want to be buried with her spouse.  She was adamant that she be included.  We told her we'd talk about it.

We talked and decided that we would get some matching frogs--one to leave at the cemetery, and one for her memory box.

In addition, we laminated a copy of our favorite picture of the two of them together and found a way to attach it to the stone so that she was part of the "family stone."

Today, when we were on our way to get the frogs, she asked again why we weren't putting her name on it.  I said we were waiting for her to make the final decision when she's older.  "I've decided.  I want to be on the family stone," she told me firmly.  I reiterated the plan, and she was momentarily placated by getting to shop.

This evening, on our way to the cemetery, Mira began to cry.  What she told us next broke our hearts:

I'm sad because I miss Bubba.  I was just about to get to start teaching him cool stuff like letters and counting when he died.  My heart is broken.  Bubba's heart was broken, too.  His heart had a piece of my, and my heart had a piece of his, and now they are both broken.  *points to picture*  That's a picture of when our hearts were together.

What a beautiful description of both the picture and her heartache.  She may not have as many words as an adult, but she has an amazing ability to use the words she does have to get right at the truth.

Even more beautiful--the flowers she placed on the headstone.  Together.  Like their hearts.  

Mira reminded me that every day is full of joy, grief, memory, love, pain, and sadness.  When I saw the final product--flowers, frog, sunshine, flowers, and monument, I was reminded that, if we look, the good and bad mix together to make a beautiful life.  We just have to remember to look.  

This is my beautiful reminder:

I (Still) Choose You

Today is my 16th wedding anniversary.  It's been lovely, fun, silly, beautiful, crazy, scary, hellish, exhausting, and awesome.  We have gone on three cruises and been to Disney World, New York City (me), San Francisco (Phil), Mexico, Canada, and Alaska.  We have attended family events in Indiana, Georgia, Tennessee, and West Virginia.  We travel well together.

We suffered the loss of five grandparents and Phil's mentor.  We became an aunt and uncle to five wonderful nieces and nephews.  We survived three moves; law school; infertility and four rounds of IVF; difficult pregnancies; miscarriage; having children; discovering our children have CHDs; seven surgeries and five heart caths in just three-and-a-half years for said children; the death of one child; and the chronic disease and ever-present specter of death with the other; all while living in a fishbowl as a pastor's family.

Looking back at just the last eight years, it's no wonder we're suffering depression and anxiety.  We have been living in survival mode.  Even if we have a moment to discover what our needs and whether they are being met, we keep our mouth shut so as not to disturb the delicate balance that gets us through the day.  There have been times recently when we weren't sure we were going to make it.  Even now, there are no guarantees.  We just keep taking things one day at a time and checking in with each other.  But, it's been worth it.

We share a love of stories--books, televisions shows, movies.  We are movie buddies.  We've seen Avengers, Sherlock Holmes, Star Wars I-III, Love Actually, Despicable Me, and countless other movies together in the theater.  We have begun taking Mira to the movies and get to share those experiences.  We have attended GenCon and share our love of board, video, computer, and roleplaying games.  We have our own language.  We will hear something that will trigger the same wrongity-wrong answers in our head at the same time.  We can say a single word and the other person knows exactly what we are talking about.  We have invested lots of time and energy and love in each other and, honestly, neither of us wants to break another person in.

We get to go out for our anniversary this year.  It's quite an exciting prospect given how other anniversaries have been spent.  Our first anniversary, Phil let me fly home by myself to attend my grandfather's funeral.  Our second anniversary, Phil was in the hospital with a dear friend and church member who was having surgery.  Last year, I was in the PICU with Patrick as they readied him for his G-tube surgery.  Four years ago, we were in the process of discovering Mira's CHD.  That's not to say we never get to go out.  Two years ago, when I was pregnant with Patrick, we got to see Carol Burnett live.  Five years ago, Phil officiated a wedding on our anniversary.  This year, we're eating at our favorite restaurant and get to spend the night in a hotel and SLEEP IN!  Chalk another one up in the good pile!

What I'm trying to say is that marriage is hard.  For everyone.  Even if the hardest thing you deal with is figuring out how to share because you were both only children, the adjustment and commitment to a single person for the rest of your life will always be hard.  There will always be moments when you want to throw in the towel.  Literally.  I was angrily tossing laundry in the dryer the other evening and the voice in my head was shouting at me to just go upstairs and call it off.  But you can't unring that bell.  Once it's out there, it colors just about everything going forward.  Take a breath.  Take a walk.  Lock yourself in the bathroom for a five-minute breather.  Go to counseling--alone, together, or both.  But don't assume that just because it's hard you're doing it wrong, or that there isn't enough love in your marriage to make it work.

My marriage, my family, my life, is worth keeping.  It's worth fighting for.  We've been through Hell, but we have stayed true to our vows.  We've seen better and worse; affluence and scraping by; Melting Pot and ramen noodles; sickness and health.  Every day we get the same choice--whether to keep choosing this life together.  And today, although in many ways it is just another day to make the same choice, it's the anniversary of our public proclamation of that choice.  And looking back at all we survived, all we've built together, all we've experienced, I'm reaffirming my choice.

Heart of my heart.  We're in this together.  I've got your back.  Madly, magically, always.

On Brokenness and Healing--Without and Within

I have been thinking a lot about the new RFRA laws, or "licenses to discriminate" as they are being called.  Here's the thing.  Religious beliefs, no matter how sincere or firmly held, no matter how ingrained in one's life, cannot justify actions that violate someone else's Constitutional rights.  If they could, religious human sacrifice would be a protected action even though it violates the victim's Constitutional right to live.

I realize that's sort of a worst-case scenario, but how about the pharmacist who could refuse to fill a Viagra prescription because the patient is unmarried, and the pharmacist adheres to the belief that there should be no sex without marriage?  Could that pharmacist refuse to fill my daughter's heart medication because it's the exact same drug?  Or perhaps the pharmacist could refuse to dispense any drug created using stem cell research.  Are you willing to accept that risk?

What if I, a married heterosexual, ordered a wedding cake for my friends' wedding without disclosing whether the parties are a same-sex couple.  Should the business be able to refuse my order?  Even if it turns out it was a straight couple?  Should the bakery be able to demand to know that information?  If I don't disclose it, or lie about it, can they sue me?

I hear people throwing around the idea that these types of laws reduce government involvement, but they don't.  Instead, our courts become bogged down in litigation as every nuance and boundary of the law is tested, resulting in numerous new rules/laws.  

I am saddened and ashamed that so much progress has been lost; that so much animosity and fear exists in the hearts of many who label themselves Christians; that so many people have fled the church community because all they see is hypocrisy.

I cannot be silent.  I stand for the equal treatment of, and equal rights and opportunities for, all people, regardless of race, gender, religion, sexual preference, gender identity, age, citizenship, political party, marital status, affluence, manner of dress, employment, or physical limitation.  We are all human.  We should all be in this together, having each other's backs.   Each of us is a child of God; an expression of God's self here on earth.  Any mistreatment of you by me is a mistreatment of God by me.  I do not have to like your behavior.  I do not have to like you, or agree with you, or engage in the same behaviors as you.  But I am called to love you and forgive you; to do no harm. 

Please, stop worrying about labels.  Stop worrying about what consenting adults are doing in their bedrooms.  Stop inserting yourself between patients and their doctors.  Instead, worry about what we are doing to ourselves, to our world.  Worry about all of the hate and venom we are spewing at each other from every side.  Worry that we are all so anxious, we have become isolated and stopped caring about the least of us.  We have become so focused on the small goal of winning at all costs that we can't see that we are all losing.  Compromise is not a dirty word.  It is not losing.  It is about flexibility, survival.  It is the flexible tree that withstands the hurricane winds, while the inflexible tree is broken.  Compassion and empathy are not horrible traits to be excised.  The Golden Rule is NOT do unto others as was done to me.  It's do unto others as I would have them do to me.  Regardless of whether I have been cheated, if I do not want to be cheated, I will not cheat.

I am sad; anxious; broken from the loss of my son.  But I am heartened; lifted; loved by the acts of friends and strangers who have given of themselves in my time of need.  None of them has asked whether we have the same political party, religion, beliefs, what have you.  They simply saw that I was in need and gave of themselves to help me.  As I heal, I am called to do likewise.  Please, join me.  I promise you, it will be worth it.

My Body, My Fitness

Today, I had a pre-assessment at the local wellness center.  I was kind of terrified of what it was going to show, but there was actually a lot of good news.  It reaffirmed that, yes, I am overweight, but it suggests a fat loss of 84 pounds, which puts me around 177.  I think that's pretty doable considering I was aiming for 180.

My flexibility is in the 35th percentile for my age and gender.  Not great, but not awful.  My VO2 max is 29.75--around the 45th percentile for weight/age.

My lean muscle is over 100% (I.e. I have more than the "normal" range, but that's actually good), and pretty much equally-balanced left and right.  My legs are right at 100, my trunk just above, and arms are 140(!).  My muscles are appropriately hydrated, and I am not retaining too much water.  As the assessor told me, "You have a great base to work from."  They will do another assessment in three months to see how I'm doing.

So, it reaffirmed what I knew--I could stand to lose weight, be more flexible, and increase my cardiorespiratory fitness--but all of those things will happen if I just keep doing my yoga and elliptical.  Knowing that I have a healthy body, it's just hiding under some fat, was very heartening to hear.  Now, I just have to get to it.

Better Safe...

Sometime last year, I started having heart palpitations--often skipped beats with an extra heavy "catch-up" beat.  I went to the doctor, he did an EKG which looked normal, and I got bloodwork done.  We discovered my vitamin D was low, so we increased it with mega supplements.  My D levels are still lower than they should be, but the incidence of the palpitations has decreased significantly, so I considered the issue behind me.  All good.

Then, sometime last month, I started noticing that I was having chest pain when I lay down at night to go to bed.  Since it didn't happen every night or last too terribly long, I assumed it was heartburn--even though it didn't feel like the heartburn I had when I was pregnant.

With my 40th birthday on the horizon, wanting to lose some weight, and knowing that physical activity can help release pent-up emotions, I got a membership to our local wellness center and began working out.  I began to feel nauseous during one of the classes I was taking, so I stopped doing those and went to just doing the elliptical.  Well, last week, I began having chest pain during my workout that didn't go away until I was done working out.  It's not horrible pain, but it's sharp and nagging.  Still, I convinced myself it was nothing.

Then I got emails, Facebook posts, radio and television commercials, all over the course of two days, discussing how the signs of heart attacks in women are different than for men and include things like back pain, nausea, and what not.  My mind began to wander and wonder--was this a message for me?  I thought about the fact that both of my kids had CHD and that there appeared to be a genetic component.  That would mean there's at least a 50% chance that the issue is from my genes, in which case there could be something going on with me.  I've had high cholesterol forever--even in college when I was 18 and weighed 150, my cholesterol was 206.  I'm certainly overweight, and I've had my ovaries removed.  All of these things increase the chance of heart attack.

I also have a family history of heart disease.  My grandmother was convinced something was wrong even though all her tests came back okay.  They finally took her in for a heart cath and couldn't even get the angioplasty balloon in, so she had quadruple bypass surgery; but she never had a heart attack thanks to her persistence.  I began to worry.  Still not enough to go to the doctor, but it was in the back of my mind.

Not until I woke up today with a sinus headache, mucus for days, and a general blah feeling, did I decide I needed to go to the doctor about this.  After antibiotic and steroid shots for the bronchitis, I had an EKG.  The good news is, it was completely normal.  The bad news is that all of my symptoms sounded very cardiac to the doctor.  And, given my grandmother's history, I was not reassured by the EKG.  So, the doctor sent an ASAP referral to a cardiologist, and I am waiting to hear back about when I can get in.

It is unlikely that anything is wrong.  It is highly likely that it's stress, on top of stress, on top of grief, on top of stress.  But, my family has already been through enough, so I'm getting it checked out.  I don't want to find myself in the hospital, or the great beyond, thinking "woulda, coulda, shoulda."  It's time to step-up the taking care of myself stuff.  Better safe, than sorry.

On Grief, Metamorphosis, and Self-Excavation

What with my own personal grief; seeing friends in pain with various losses and grief of their own; feeling like things in the world are getting worse rather than better; not to mention the whole snow/winter/cold yuckiness that is January in Michigan, I am overwhelmed with sadness and despair.  I am done.  Empty.  Spent.  Broken.  I have nothing left.  It's not that I don't care.  Rather, I care so much that I have no energy left to care at all.  I am tired of being a responsible adult.  I want permission to be weak, but then rage against any perceived weakness as a failure of the strength label I pridefully own.  I want to run away for a while.  Explore the world.  Excavate me.  But I can't.  Not yet, anyway.  I have made too many commitments.  Obligations.  Maybe later.

I am tired of worrying all the time.  Tired of being afraid.  What is this weird new bump on my finger?  Is my extra weight killing me?  Are Mira's pressures getting worse?  Am I a failure for having a messy home?  Have I failed my family?  My spouse?  My children?  Do I worry too much?  Is it depression, or grief, or both, or neither?  All this worry sucks was what little energy I manage to acquire.  Ain't nobody got time for this.  Where is my joy?  What happened to the woman who could do anything she set her mind to?  Who achieved so much educationally, professionally, personally?  I miss her.  I need more smiles.  More hugs.  More laughter.  More beauty.  More stillness.  More free time.

As an introvert, I need time away.  But I am already so isolated; so alone.  Being out in busy places with people I don't know just makes it worse.  I need one-on-one time in quiet, familiar places with just a few people who can help fill my energetic bucket.  Who won't judge me.  Who don't care how I look.  Who don't have a vision of me that will shatter if I name my truth.  Who can take me away for a while.  Who can bring me back to to myself.

I need help.  I don't know what kind.  I just know I don't want to hurt.  I don't want to cry when I see babies.  I don't want to envy someone else's life.  I don't want to be alone.  I don't want to feel overwhelmed.  I don't want to feel different, or unworthy.  I want to feel connected.  Loved.  Valued.  Valuable.  Worth the space I take up.  But not because other people tell me so--that can be taken away.  No.  I want to know it to be true, deep in my bones.  Know it with every breath.  Feel it.  Remember it.  I want to be so caught up in the joy and love of my life that I am not threatened by what others have; what I don't have.  I want what I am and what I already have to be enough.

How do I get there?  What must I do?  Excavate me?  By making time?  By making me a priority?  By making me an obligation?  Oh.  I guess that makes sense.  How can I feel worthy and valuable if I refuse to value myself enough to make time for what I need?

This is where I am going.  Do you want to come with me?  It's okay if you don't.  I just can't stay stuck in this hole anymore, trying to find happiness in food, stuff, and other people's validation.  I can't stay the same, even though I don't know what I will be when I come out the other side.  Change is scary and difficult.  It hurts.  But, quite honestly, it hurts to stay where I am, too.

I can't promise that you'll still like me.  In fact, ultimately, that's up to you.  I can promise that I intend to like myself--to enjoy my own company--and that I will work to embody kindness, joy, patience, acceptance, strength, and love.  I have no idea where I'll end up, but I will share my journey with you.  You can find me here.

#Truth2015

Picking My Battles

Making new habits is simple.  Simple because you only have to do something for 14 days until it becomes a habit.  Unfortunately, making new habits is not easy; if it were easy, we would all eat healthy food, exercise, and have tidy homes.  I have been making great strides in the exercising more area.  I have also been doing a better job of self-care (daily showers!), getting more work done, only letting laundry go two weeks before getting done, doing at least one load of dishes a week, and keeping up with bills.  Given that I am forever fighting the urge to want to do anything besides hang out under the covers all day, I think I've been VERY productive.

I admit that there is a LOT more that needs to be done, and many more areas for improvement.  However, there's only so much energy to go around, and fighting myself all day every day uses most of that up.  The result is that some things have to slide.  My main area of failure--healthy eating.  It's never been much of a priority for me to begin with and--let's face it--I'm still grieving and food is one of my main comforts.  Moreover, having added exercise to the mix, my bad eating will not be *as* problematic, and it sure as heck beats out-of-control-spending.  So, I'm not working on the food stuff.  Not yet, anyway.  Instead, I'm picking my battles.  I know me.  If I try to take on too many things at once, they will all fail.  Each one will receive less of my attention than it needs to be successful, and I will quit them all.  I have chosen to focus my energy on self-care, exercise, and work.  These three things are my top priorities.  Once I have managed to get these things to the point that they are automatic, I will attempt adjustments in my other bad habits.  It's not ideal, but I would rather succeed at adding exercise than fail at changing both food and exercise.

And, at least on the exercise front, I am proud to say that I am making progress.  I have completed seven workouts since the first of the year; my scale told me I am 9 pounds closer to my goal weight; and I am able to exercise for longer before feeling tired (although the whole back pain thing has been putting a cramp in my efforts).  It's not a perfect plan, but I am not perfect--in fact, I'm actually working on remembering that perfection is unattainable.

This is my truth.  Your mileage may vary.