October 4, 2009

This certain feeling has been lingering for about a month now…a certain loneliness or something.  Hard to find words for it.  Something more like displacement maybe…although when I think about the word displacement I immediately am reminded about the Internally Displaced Person camps in Kenya and what I’m going through does not even resemble the displacement of those people.  Hmmm what am I saying.  Nothing in my life feels familiar anymore.  Almost everything is new, or changing.  Right down to where I buy my groceries, which seems like a very teeny tiny little thing, but when put together with all of the changes it’s frustrating.  I’m assuming this feeling will eventually go away.  I’m tired of it.  I’m trying to ignore it.  But it’s not working.  And more and more things keep changing.  Even if they’re changing for the good (i.e. my new job starts tomorrow!) it’s still change and it still seems to be stressful.  The other day someone told me that I shouldn’t feel stressed about the new job because it’s a good change.  Ah, how validating.  grr.  Anyway, I’m desperately looking for something that is familiar right now and I’ve got nothin.  I guess this is where I’m supposed to rest in the arms of the unchanging God who loves me.  Yet I find that my ideas about God are ever-changing.  Yes, God remains the same, but I’m always at a different point in my discovery of God’s character.  But somehow I can rest in the hand of God, knowing that there is safety there that I don’t have to understand and can just trust. 

So tomorrow, I turn the page and start a new chapter with the new job.  It will be interesting to see where it all leads!

September 30, 2009

Busy busy busy busy days.  Which I like.  But ’tis also exhausting when you’re fighting the H1N1 (ok I don’t actually know that I have that but I call it that mmmk).

So nothing in brain.

July 28, 2009

This is one of those weeks where I frequently leave the house and then panic 5 minutes later because I feel like I forgot to put pants on.  I’m not making this stuff up…it really happens.  And when life is chaotic or the neurons in my brain aren’t firing properly, the oh-no-I-forgot-my-pants feeling occurs quite often.  I’m sure you know what I’m talking about <nervous laugh> 

Well, the house is almost 100% empty.  All that’s left is a few random things to go to the basement where we’re staying, the dryer (which is surprisingly hard to give away…I think we’ll have to take it to the metal place to get crushed), and our bed.  Oh, and our poor old dog, who doesn’t know what the heck is going on in her life.  That reminds me – I have learned something about anxiety from my dog this week.  I’m pretty sure I’ve learned this before, but obviously forgot and had to learn it again.  I keep saying to her “Don’t worry, everything is ok” but she keeps anxiously pacing around, walking about an inch behind me at all times, crying a lot…there is really no consoling her.  But I know her life will be ok and that there’s nothing for her to worry about.  She’s taken care of.  Period.  Maybe this is what Jesus kind of meant when he said be anxious for nothing.  Most days that statement just doesn’t make sense to me.  How can I possibly be anxious about nothing?  But maybe Jesus meant something more like what I mean when I tell my dog to not worry.  As in, seriously, all this worrying you’re doing is only making your life worse, it’s completely unnecessary, and I’m telling you – I’ve got you covered.  It’s going to be ok.  <deep breath>  So I’m trying to not be so anxious.  I’m trying to take it down a notch.  That’s what my brain is doing, but my body isn’t on the same page.  It still thinks it needs to act anxious.  Shallow breaths, not much sleep, heart racing, tense muscles, sensitive ears.  How do I make the body follow the mind?  I guess it will happen eventually… … …  Anyway, feeling a bit off, shall we say.  But trying to stop panicking about no pants…

July 16, 2009

Well, isn’t this interesting.  It’s almost the end of the day and I’m feeling a bit more normal.  I never feel normal at the end of a workday.  Ever.  WHAT A RELIEF.  I don’t know what is going on, nothing is different, but I’ll take it.  Even if it only lasts 5 minutes I’ll take it.  I don’t even feel like biting anyone’s head off!  Just thought I’d mention it just in case anyone threw a prayer up for me earlier today…it may have worked.  If it wasn’t that, I don’t know what it was.  Maybe the dill pickle chips I ate? 

Ok, in the near future I hope to post something more interesting than how miserable I feel!

More of the same July 16, 2009

Nothing new to say people.  More of the same.  Feeling miserable.  Just don’t feel like myself and can’t figure out why.  I keep thinking, ok, just get through today and tomorrow maybe you’ll feel “normal.”  And tomorrow comes and I still don’t feel normal.  So what if this is me now?  <gulp>  What if somehow along the way in the last year I’ve just ended up being this miserable person?  Again, I say to God, is this really all I have to work with?  I don’t even really remember what I was like before and what I’m waiting for to return.  Hmmmmm.  Maybe we just make it impossible for ourselves to be content by thinking we need to be something other than what we are and constantly waiting to be what we’re not.  So, how do you people convince yourself into being in a good mood when you’re totally not?  Or how do you not choke a bunch of people when that’s all you feel like doing over and over during a day?  Need patience…anyone have some to spare?

July 6, 2009

I have come to the conclusion that oddly enough, it seems that life can be easier when it is all falling apart.  It might be a lot more stressful that way, but at least it’s interesting.  And at least there’s adrenaline to keep you going.  And at least there’s something to blame for being a dark storm cloud.  It’s much easier to understand being miserable when there’s crappy stuff going on in life.  When life is just business as usual again, it is hard to figure out the stormy feelings.  It’s hard to just let them be, accept it for what it is, and stop trying to force myself into being a nice happy person, pleasant to be around.

Anyway, things on the house are progressing slowly, as expected.  We had our 5 hour inspection done on our current house last week, and it passed, so now we just have to wait for the buyer’s finances to come through.  And then we start packing and packing and packing.  Then begins the summer of homelessness!  It’s a good thing we had zero plans for the summer because these “plans” would have definitely been all screwed up.  What an illusion – that we can plan anything.

On the home front, my dad is doing good.  He can’t go back to work until August 28th, and he’s been told that he is not allowed to do anything more than shower and eat.  This is going to be very difficult for my dad, who has never been one to take a second of down time.  Well, at least he gets the summer off and it’s not the winter that he has to try and get through at home alone.  He’s busy reading about heart disease and having coffee with friends.  Sounds delightful to me, but it’s absolute torture for him.  I’ve now got one more reason to exercise – a healthy reason and not a screwed up reason – and that is to try and escape this thing called heart disease.  My grandma, grandpa, a couple uncles and now my dad…this will keep chasing me to the gym if nothing else will.  And somehow I need to get my brother to join the aerobic exercise wagon.  Hmmmm could be a challenge.  Why can’t exercise be fun?!

June 1, 2009

Well hello there.  It is nice to see that you’ve decided to stop by and check out the most boring blog EVER :)  UGH.  PEOPLE.  I’m telling you I’ve got nothin’ for you right now.  All that’s on my mind is house stuff, which – trust me – does not make for interesting posts.  I’ve decided that nothing is better than house stuff!  This weekend we worked our butts off and got our place in great shape.  So, worst case scenario is that it doesn’t sell and we’ve got a really really clean fixed up house!  I also finished painting Greg’s workplace this weekend, which is so sweet.  In 5 days I get a day off from working!  yessssss.  This week will not be nearly as hectic, and I welcome that with open arms.  Maybe my brain will recover soon from being all frazzly, and I’m sure all of the paint fumes that I’ve been breathing in have not helped the ol’ brain either…I’ll continue to deeply breathe in the fresh air in an effort to rid the paint toxins from my body.

How quickly I forget May 23, 2009

This weekend I have a to do list about as long as my arm. And the energy I have to do the to do list is minimal. This gets me in the same bind every time – no energy to do what I have to do, therefore I put it off…and put it off…and put it off. And then I get miserable because I’m avoiding the things that I need to do. And THEN if I’m not careful I can start getting a bit depressed, low, blah, whatever you want to call it. Even though I’ve learned MULTIPLE times before that the best remedy for these feelings is to just tackle the very things I’m avoiding whether or not I feel like it, today I avoided the things for a while. Painting. Yard work. Cleaning house. Cleaning car. All there for me to do. All being avoided. All resulting in misery. It’s not even like I just end up doing something I want to do instead…I mainly just stand around and stare and be miserable. So lame! Anyway, I finally forced myself to just get started and it has turned out ok. My point, I guess, is that it was not too long ago – just shy of 2 months – that I would’ve given ANYTHING to just have a terrible list of things to do, instead of having a terrible list of things to do PLUS school work.  At that point, having to clean my entire house and do all of the yard work at once all by myself was a welcome thought.  If I could have only remembered that this morning! That thought brings some relief. Aaahhhh…all I have to do again tomorrow is paint and do yard work. That’s IT. No school. Yessssss.

May 8, 2009

Hmmmmm. I’m having another one of those days where it feels like “everything” is “always” against me    Perhaps I’m feeling somewhat sorry for myself again. ARG. There is no reasoning with these feelings some days…must…not…give…in!  Also feeling very impatient. This is a problem. Must…not…give…in… I read somewhere some things that dying people wrote about life, and I remember that one of them said that all through life we are just waiting for things, and we might as well get used to it. When the thing that we are waiting for comes to us, there will only be something else that we then have to wait for and be impatient about. I recognize the truth in that…it’s just not translating into patience. I feel like choking some people right now. I feel like choking the systems that some people are a part of that makes them slow and that make me wait. I guess, if I force myself to see some positive thing in this, it is ok to be waiting impatiently for something, because that means that something good (or something that at this point I think is good) is ahead of me. That’s what I would say if I was held at gunpoint and forced to find something positive in it all. Otherwise, I’d rather just grumble about it.

May 4, 2009

Here we are at Monday again. Weekend was ok. Nothing spectacular, but ok. It’s never really a great idea for me to go into a weekend with no people plans, but it turned out that I was able to see some people anyway which saved the day. Did some yard work – yuck – but the nice weather kind of cancelled out some of the torture. Did some reading. Reading this book called unChristian that is pretty good. It’s written by a guy who works with George Barna (I think his name is David Kinnaman or something?) and does research on things like the religious beliefs of Americans, etc. The book is kind of about how “outsiders” see Christians (which is very similar to the way I see us), and gives some thoughts about what we need to do and who we need to be in order to advance the Kingdom instead of making it seem irrelevant. Pretty good so far. Worth a read. I got it from the library so I’d recommend that. I love buying books and having them on my shelf, having them surround me wherever I am…BUT I’m trying to reduce reuse recycle more, and for now, I’m making an attempt at just getting the books from the library if I can. <sigh>

Still feeling a bit blah bleh. Been thinking about that lately…You know what I think it is? I think it’s just one of these transition things. I think transitions can be hard no matter what it’s about – good/bad/ugly. It’s going from what you know to something new, and so it can be tricky. I was just thinking last night that in the last year I’ve had a lot going on. Overcame some crazy stuff in my personal life, ran a 1/2 marathon, went to Africa, graduated from seminary, have been going through this crazy adoption process (we still need to talk about that people! ‘Tis no secret, just not sure what to say. I guess, stay tuned for more)…etc etc. The last year has been really busy, but now I’m totally not busy. My schedule is open. I’m not pushing myself. It’s just really different. Not how it’s going to stay…but it is what it is for now. So, that being said, I’m on the lookout for new things to begin. New things to become involved in. We’ll see where it all goes!