We got into Seward a little after 4pm yesterday. We stopped by Walmart to pick up food to make supper and then headed over to Ethan and Laura’s apartment. Two of the boys had never been there. They played chess while Dad and I and Laura made food. After supper we went to the campus to play frisbee where the boys could run around more. I kept thinking that Zorro would’ve loved to be here for this. We dropped the boys back off at the apartment and then retired for the night.

We met everyone at church in the morning. They had a pretty full service and I’ve always thought this church was busy and large, which it is. Somewhere around the prayers, which is where I always start to feel this, I was thinking how do people do this every Sunday with hardly any variation or chance to talk about anything that is going on in your life. I had this feeling like why am I Lutheran and how have I been Lutheran so long? Josh must have sensed my distress because I looked over at him and he put his arm around me until the prayers ended.

Ethan had his meet and we left from here around 4. We’re so used to these track meets that they really don’t seem boring at all to me anymore. You can just kind of zone out and enjoy the weather while watching the events. It was a great day for running with comfortable temperatures and low wind. Elianna wanted to Facetime so I did that with her. Ethan was in a heat with the fast guys so his first lap strategy was to stay with them. By the last 100 he said it was just to keep a pulse.

I don’t know how I’ve not learned this lesson but this afternoon I was sitting on the couch and said I should probably make a reservation. He said that would probably be good. So I looked up the motel we like and they didn’t have any vacancies for the dates I put in. I looked up another one and they didn’t either. I called the lady at the bed and breakfast and she also was booked. So I called the first place just to see if by any off chance they had something that was available but not listed online.

Praise the Lord Almighty she did. They have this king suite that’s not attached to the other building and I said I would take it. So we reserved that for two nights. I told Laura we’d stop by the store and pick up some food to make supper. There was originally supposed to be a meet on Saturday but it was changed due to weather. So the meet was spread out to Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday.

The boys are coming with and we were discussing what to do in the car. We didn’t come up with many suggestions. One of them mentioned listening to all of the Mumford and Sons albums and then deciding which one is best. So then we just talked about that without listening to them. I like Mumford and Sons but something about their music now feels hollow to me like it’s missing something. I had all day at home so that was nice for odds and ends like walking, laundry, and naps.

The boys had a meet in Petersburg this evening. They were very efficient with the meet and kept the events moving. The field events started at 4 and while they were doing those they ran the 3200. They also combined the boys and girls for the mile which probably could’ve used their own separate race. We were done around 7:30 and then packed up to come home. We had supper in the crockpot and Grandma stayed to eat with us before heading back to her house. Elianna stayed overnight.

I stayed up for a while to hang out in the living room with the four kids. Dad was exhausted and had gone to bed 9:30. The boys had good races and one of the teammates ran 49 second 400 which was a PR for him by 2 seconds. So everyone was excited about that. Their 4×4 team shaved off 6 seconds from their time which also made them excited. John was excited that he was beating his brother’s freshman year times. I still was Facetiming with Ethan for all the races which still cracks me up.

So it really is a family thing that goes on here. The Hope clients were a little more stuck in my head again this time. I really do have a lot of compassion for what they go through. I tell them all in the beginning that I will do my best to tie things up and send them out in an okay place where they aren’t wounded and then have to deal with it for however long. Sometimes though it happens where they leave with the couple upset and I feel like you just have to trust God that he still is working.

Today was a good day at Hope. I love them all, but I really like working with the couples and having those different experiences. I started the day telling people I was in a very affirming mood and so I was thanking them for taking time out of their days to make time for each other and for doing this work. One of the wives was very emotional (crying) throughout most of the session and it did not occur to me until later to have them move closer together on the couch and give/receive comfort.

If each of them were willing. I have noticed that part of my style is to zero in on the emotional experience of each person, like we’re taking a magnifying glass at looking closer at what’s happening. That and slowing the entire process down. A theme of the past week in the education has been giving your partner feedback in bite-sized amounts. This way you aren’t overwhelming the hearer. And then having the hearer knowing the importance of staying present even when it is hard.

But you don’t want it to be too hard which is why I am regularly checking in. At least in the beginning when all this is new and your nervous systems are adjusting to having a different experience. I have to remember all of this myself when I am talking about bite-sized and want to keep giving information and skills. And also some hope and encouragement that even when progress feels clunky and slow the slowness is also working to help instill permanence.

The boys had a meet in Pawnee this evening. They both did well in their events. Judah did triple jump, 800, and 4×400 and John did the 800, 1600, and B team 4×400. The boys are trying to figure out if there is any way that they can mathematically win conference. The other evening coach told Judah that if Ethan had any ideas she was open to hearing them. He texted her a picture and said they were already working on it which they were in that moment.

I’d been texting Ethan letting him know our plans for our trip to come visit. I didn’t want Laura to worry about food for the weekend and that we’d somehow take care of it. It was taking him a while to respond and then I said I was just rambling and was this making any sense? He said it was. I went out in the living room and he was talking to John on discord about Jordan Walker hitting another home run. Then I went into the office and he and Judah were working on conference.

Laura texted in the morning to ask if I knew what our plans were for the weekend, so I told her. I had to be at Thrive in the morning so Dad took the littlest to chapel with him at the high school. They’ve all been getting over a cold again which somehow I still did not get this time. They don’t really get man colds when they get them. Their way of processing is giving updates of where they’re at with their various symptoms. They have memorized all of the cold phases.

Today was a good and busy day. This morning I got together with a girl from our church who had invited me over before Holy Week and we set this date. She also used to be a camper but it doesn’t seem like that now because we’re both married and have kids. We chatted on her porch and then later in her living room while her two small boys played and needed her. It brought back many happy memories of when my own boys and kids were small and we’d have play dates.

Her husband has a government job and so they have an enormous lake house. She says she tries to use it to have people over including larger groups from church. One of the things she does is host a C.S. Lewis book club every other Thursday. They used to have 30 plus people who would come and then they all started having kids or more kids to where that wasn’t really doable for most people anymore. They still do it, it’s just smaller. That sounds like something that would be fun.

She was so cute and I commented on how her vocabulary was advanced. She was using words that I can’t even remember what they were now. She said she was a nerd which I could tell already since she has a PhD from Harvard and talked about how she hires a sitter so she can work on academic writing. She’s teaching a course this fall for UIS and had to write a syllabus and also uses the time to read. She was telling me how much she loves school and I told her that I love school too.

I talked with two classmates from UIS today. Arya was wondering about a job offer she’s had from another private practice she’s been hoping to join after graduation. Another one asked if I was going to the commencement next month and I told her I was not. I can’t remember if I said or not that they don’t have December commencement ceremonies and I so if I wanted to officially walk I’d have to do it in May. I asked her if she knew where she was working and she said she did not.

I told her about Hope but that she had to be a professing Christian to work there. She said she was born again. So I gave her more information since she is wanting to do marriage, couples, and family counseling and we could use some more help. So I don’t know if that’ll happen. The rest of the day I rested and caught up on notes. We had leftover banquet food for supper which was nice. After that Dad and I went to Auburn for a planning meeting. I’m still tired but am starting to feel better.

This morning we went to church. It was getting to the point where there’d been too many social events with not enough people who you truly look forward to seeing. That did not come out more until the afternoon in the hours before the camp banquet. I wrote something in my journal about always feeling so lonely and asked God to help me make friends. I resolved inside to try to at least talk to others and help them at least to have a better time because they weren’t alone.

So I talked to the visiting pastor and his wife and the kids they brought for quite a while. It was actually pretty fun and we had a chance to hear the brief update on people’s lives since the last time we saw them ten years ago when we moved here. She is still homeschooling and has done so all throughout high school. The pastor was one of these guys who I kind of had judged for being uppity and condemning in things he had written but he was a happy and pleasant to talk to person.

So that went well and was an enjoyable time. The pastor’s talk was about patience and at the end of it Josh got up and thanked me for being his CPO, his chief patience officer. Sometimes the wife jokes don’t land with me but in this case I don’t think he was joking and it made me smile. He told everybody we were going to be grandparents and that it gives him extra incentive to keep camp going for his granddaughter. Afterwards the kids and I walked home along the camp road.

Besides a few walks and eating, I spent the day in bed. It’s been five years since I was at the worst of my health breakdown and it still seems like something that recently happened, partly because I still daily feel the effects from it. Some things I have never forgotten. Other things have faded, like the appreciation that your health is something fluid that you should never take for granted.

I was never really good about writing up lists of my takeaways and life lessons. It’s more something I’ve chosen instead to quietly carry with me. There is nothing like a deep affliction to drive you to prayer, and that is what the health issues did for me. For myself. For other people. For so many others with the cycle on repeat. That’s close to all you can do when you’re confined to your bed.

I have been in a funk since the previous weekend. The Katrina thing affected me in ways I did not expect it to. There were other things going on, but that kind of tipped things over the edge so to speak. It opened up a grief window that has made me sensitive to old losses and my dreams have been more vivid since she left. Last night (from when I write) I had a dream that he was next door in the CGC for a retreat. I wondered if he would be thinking of me knowing I was so close.

So I walked over to find him. I saw him at the end of the hallway and he also saw me. I thought dear God, finally. We embraced a long time and that was all that needed to happen. After that I woke up. The night before (Friday) was the Lutheran High dinner auction. Camp had sponsored a table so we had seats to fill. Lauren and her Dad were there. Miles’ parents were there. Josh and I were there and then Laura’s Dad also came and sat with us. Her mom was away for a bridal shower.

The boys had a meet in Mt. Zion but we did not go to this one. I ended up going for a 20 minute walk in the hallway to ease the soreness in my back. Somehow the live auction went very quickly and before I knew it people were standing up to leave. Miles mom was telling me about her teaching job at the high school and how difficult it can be on hard days but so rewarding on good days. Overall I was to have pushed through and went. We didn’t buy anything and that was perfectly okay.

Today was a good day at Hope. It was my first Thursday working so I was in a different office this time. I really like it, I think better than the other one, and there is nothing wrong with the other one. This one is smaller and has a couch by the window. On my break I opened the window and sat on the couch and worked on catching up with my notes. I got behind and it feels like I’m continuously trying to catch up. It’s mostly when I save the intake notes and they begin to pile up.

With the exception of a new couple, today was all men. One of the men is a patient from Thrive who I’ve been seeing through telehealth for our past two sessions. I had a gap so I schedule him in that space. Before that I had also taken a small nap on the couch, not falling asleep, but crying for some reason over something that was bothering me. I was having a dream about my Thrive supervisor and telling him–I don’t even remember. It was something like saying I was over him now.

Then he sent me an email, which I didn’t have time to read until after the session. It was something about working with people with addictions and responding to what I had sent him. I was definitely worked up after the last time I had been in there with another patient. A woman had been waiting in the waiting area for over a half hour before I saw her leave through the window. He passed by her two different times not realizing it was her. They were supposed to meet for an interview.

She came back and I didn’t have a chance to say it all. I promise I do think about other things besides this. But overall it was a good day and after work I came home to walk Zorro. Dad, the boys, and Elianna were at a track meet in Lincoln. The coach for some reason scheduled four meets the first week. By the time I would’ve gotten there I would’ve missed two thirds of my son’s events. One of them sat this meet out since he was sick. I see so much how kids were meant to have dads.

Today I didn’t have to go in until 10 so that was nice. It’s part of my strategy to keep things contained so I am not overdoing it. My legs are still buzzing so I just need to keep resting. It’s the kind of rest that comes with margin and no activity in the public. The boys won their relays and everyone was home by 7:30. There was a roast with potatoes and carrots in the crock pot. Down by the dam Zorro saw Casper toward the end of the lake. I call him Dippers now and Zorro just watched him.