The boys had a meet in Bloomington which neither one of us could attend. Dad ended up having a sick child to stay home with after a sore throat and fever turned into sleeping all afternoon. I had my later work day then met a friend afterward for supper. I’d forgotten my purse so she paid for my meal. I filled her in on the prior day’s meeting and she caught me up on things in her life. A couple sat down behind us so we moved to a different table where we would have more freedom to talk.

While I was at work, I texted Elianna to see if she was cooking for the ladies retreat on Saturday. She said she was cooking all day Friday, but no one was scheduled to be cooking on Saturday. Long story short, the cook had gotten the wrong day so had planned for a Friday group instead of a Saturday group. My mother-in-law will be recovering from hip replacement surgery on Saturday, so Elianna was not going to be cooking, since my sister-in-law couldn’t be there. I’d forgotten about that part.

So that is still getting straightened out. I came home and thought it was funny that Josh knew nothing about it, and he wondered why no one had told him, but no too much. I was exhausted and sore after a long day of sitting and listening to many peoples’ stories. Starting in April I will be adding another day which thankfully will give me more money and hours. The boys had a good meet and made it back a little after 10:30. We heard about the races and miles and then headed to bed.

Before the district president had a change in situation, he laid out a plan for us to adhere to over the following year. Obviously he couldn’t make us do it, but these were suggestions. One of the things was to meet with a marriage counselor quarterly. We had not gone back to the people who’d done our intensive for several years, but they were the ones we wanted to go to. It’s too much to have to explain your story all over to someone new when there are people who already sufficiently know it.

Praise the Lord for these people. We met with them today, in the little counseling room in their home. They’d pulled our file from their archives and had the information right there. Even though it had been a fairly distant five years, neither one of them looked as if they’d aged a single day. I did wonder if the same could have been said about us. Eventually it does make a difference. I’ve realized from of my own clients that controlling the urge to speak is a helpful skill when time is limited.

So I spoke when I was spoken to, but I also kept it quiet when I was sensing the need to be listening. Something very cool happened during our meeting together: God showed up and answered their prayer to come into and guide the session. I’d been feeling somewhat stuck and even hopeless when it came to certain things that were not getting better enough fast enough. I didn’t know what else to do, what more I could do or learn or incorporate to be as secure and healed as I could be.

This was one of the major insights I had learned from them the last time. So in my mind it was completely up to the other person, and that was the person I could not change. Somewhere when we were talking about needs, desires, and acceptance, I asked if acceptance meant that there could still be a loss, like a validation that this was not what I wanted, and they said absolutely. The man described it to me further, however. He used the picture of a triangle and labeled the three sides.

The bottom part is the experience, whatever the painful reality is. The other sides of the triangle were grief and acceptance. He told how grief without acceptance leads to ongoing, prolonged sadness. He then said acceptance without grief leads to bitterness. It was as though he was showing me two sides of my soul, or at least something that I was relating to deeply. At the top of the triangle is where grief and acceptance come together to form Entrust. Here “we can hand it over to Father God”.

When I look up the word entrust, I find two definitions. The first is “assign the responsibility for doing something to (someone).” The second is “put something into someone’s care or protection”. When it’s put like this it makes sense, and even brings a surprising joy when I think of no longer having to carry it. And the message from the painful reality, in the hands of Christ, becomes different. Like that I really could be healed and have happiness. I can trust the Lord with what he wanted.

If I could ask God for just one wish I would ask him to let me live the rest of my life healing people. That no more time would be wasted on sadness. That I would no longer be debilitated by my sufferings. Other wishes I have had in my life have become this one. That I would be known as a caring and kind person, who no one thought anything of other than to notice her meek demeaner. That I would evaporate into steam and air.

And somewhere those particles and molecules are dancing.

That I would be the one to hold the babies, to reach out my arms and say, “Here. I can take her. Let me hold her while you eat.” That the urge to neglect and disown would be the place where love is furthered. That another’s joy would become my party instead of a day to dig in deeper. That this would be the last time I ever see this hole this side of heaven. That I would live in the radical faith that Christ has healed and is the healer.

Tonight I decided to get with the picture, finally embrace my destiny, hop onto Amazon and order myself a Track Mom bag. I found a cute one with pink letters that says, “I’m in my Track Mom Era”. It’s supposed to get here March 10th. It came to mind again while Josh and I were in Dick’s sporting goods this afternoon looking around for a birthday present. I saw what would’ve been a perfect Baseball Mom bag. I almost wanted it.

Yesterday the boys had an indoor track meet in Williamsville. Dad was helping with the woodcutters retreat, so that left me as the parent who could go. I told the boys I’d see what happens, that maybe I’d be there or maybe I wouldn’t. It wouldn’t have been an issue if I hadn’t had to go to work. When that is the case I want all my free time. I was sitting on the floor in my pajamas folding laundry when my son texted me the time.

Something inside me shifted and I was like, “What are you waiting for? Of course you want to be there. And it’s only 20 minutes away.” So I told him that I would be there and that I was on my way. I parked the van in a distant lot and paid my five dollars to get in. The track had a stairway to the upper level with many open spectator spots on the stairs. So I just stayed there and waited the allotted time until the race was to start.

The boys were in the 4×800. So that was fun to watch and I was proud to cheer them on. One of them said he could hear me. I was hoping so since I was the only one making noise toward the runners in that area. I was planning to film the race so the boys could watch it but I ended up caving and Facetimed Ethan so I wasn’t able to do that. I texted him to let them know it was starting and he hadn’t realized that I was going to be there.

While I was waiting I kept my coat on and crossed my arms to block my chest from the noise. It was the announcers and the gunshots which were loud enough to still get through. At the end of the race of I waved and left. As I was walking to the van he texted to ask if I was there still. I told him I was in the parking lot, but did he need something? He was just going to talk if I had time. I turned around and he met me, my heart happy.

I started going down the rabbit hole of wondering where my present issues are coming from. Was it mom’s this, my dad’s that, my husband’s x,y,z, and all the things. At this point they all seem like plausible reasons, but none of those things gives me hope for a better tomorrow. It sounds like a dramatic way to say it but what I mean by better tomorrow is the hope for a changed experience of living as myself, as this person I am.

I have thought about closing off parts of my mind. Like if your mind is a universe or like a land you see in video games, you basically would leave 90% of the world uninhabited and stick to this little10% of happy lands. There is no reason to explore the universe because earth is right here and was made for us to live on. Everything we need is right here. We wouldn’t even have to know there was anything else out there to encounter.

I (Ug, the I’s…) keep telling myself that’s all it would take. You forget about 90% of the universe because most of it is just open space anyway. To explore it takes too much time, too much money, too much risk of shuttles blowing up and burning upon reentry. We were made for earth’s atmosphere. The atmosphere was made for us so we could see the sky and breathe and live on earth without dying, without forgetting about God.

Camp had some interesting activity in the afternoon. We were inside the house when several fire trucks came into the camp lane and rushed down toward main camp. Long story short they’d been fighting a fire on another property and the fire had made it’s way into camp. By the time the trucks had gotten here the hayfield had burned up and there were underbrush fires in parts of the pine forest. They started working on those.

Four of us drove out there to see what was going on. It was me, Josh, our son, and a friend who is in town for the woodcutters men’s weekend. The three of them went into the woods with shovels and were helping put out fires for a while until one of the firefighters asked them to leave. I had started walking into the woods to get a closer look but then started hearing men yelling and shouting and decided not to do that.

So I sat in the car until they all came back. I never felt like things were out of control but it was scary to imagine what could have happened if no one had been there to put out the fires and to do it as quick as they had done it. Our area was on red alert for no fires because of how dry things have been for many months. Dad and our friend went to go check the other side of the hayfield before we drove back from out there to the house.

Today was a good day at Hope. Wonderful, actually. The sessions went well and I had that sense of deep fulfillment, like I was doing what I was meant to be doing but not even thinking about it. It’s the feeling I had with the homeschooling. You are caught up in the moment and I love the stimulation and the juggling of all the balls. Praise the Lord also, I had no pain from sitting and did not feel buzzy in my body or exhausted.

My niece has turned a corner with her chicken pox. Another niece from another family has also come down with them. She was staying with my sister and at the church at the same time with the other family. She thinks the exposure date was the 8th and not the day that she originally thought. Nothing here has happened yet but if it does it will be just about the time that Ethan and Laura are supposed to be visiting for spring break.

I wish there was a medicine or something I could take to get me through these more emotionally and psychologically challenging times. I am getting to the point where if I knew it would work, I would be willing to take something. People with addictions talk about numbing the pain and that is something I don’t relate to. I do not numb my pain. I just feel it and live with it and wonder why it continues to be with me and go on and on.

I know there is a hole that I can fall into. And when I am in it there is no light. There is no climbing out of it because when I am there I can’t move. The light just somehow happens upon me and when I am able to start to see it I find myself back in a better place, where I believe that I can be happy. I remember that I can. Last night we went to church and the parking was once again packed and full. I wondered what was going on.

There has to be a sporting event, I thought again. But all of those people were there to go to church. I wondered how many times one can hear a sermon about the Lamb of God, or why anyone one would think it was any more useful than the last one. We came home and had a birthday. I finished wrapping presents and set the bag out on the table. I thought about Facetiming Ethan or Elianna but in the end decided we were enough.

The mornings are quiet these days. Josh is usually up first, and then it is a toss up between me and the two boys going to school. Sometimes I am up before them drinking coffee and writing and reading. Other times I am in bed and get up when I realize I really want to say goodbye to them before they leave. They pack their lunches and fill their water bottles. We stand at the door and hug them goodbye every morning.

Ethan and Laura called this afternoon to say they are having a girl. I was on my way into town to do some shopping for the kids’ birthdays. He couldn’t talk long because he had to go to practice, but I was happy to hear their news. I called Elianna when I was in Sierra to tell her. She was happy too. They had a whole section of cat furniture and beds and climbing trees that I took a picture of and sent to her.

She said she used to want to fill a whole room with those. If we were rich I’d buy them all and make the garage a cat paradise. After finding a few gifts I met Dad and the boys along with Grandma and Elianna at Culvers for the junior class fundraiser. Grandma paid for our supper and then bought everyone ice cream for dessert.

The dining room is put back together. I went through all the mail and mopped the floor and pulled off most of the trim tape. This morning I went to Ross and found a fake plant for dining room table centerpiece. One time I asked for a cutting board and my mother in law bought me a solid wood board that is probably two inches thick. It’s so nice that I do not use it for cutting. Instead I use it as a table piece to go under the centerpiece.

I also shopped around for clothes. It’s just nice to have a new shirt or sweater or pair of sweater pants to wear around. I still have it in my head that I’m going to have an office at Thrive that I can turn into my personalized place to see clients. Alex is leaving at the end of the month which means one of the upstairs rooms will be open. That one has a lot more space. I just don’t know where else I would have that freedom to be weirder.

The other day when I was there I told him I still wanted to be there and that I still had ideas, I just wasn’t ready. I needed more experience and practice. One of the reasons I would sometimes start to think I shouldn’t stay there is because I didn’t like how being there affected my mind. Like surely this was a not a healthy way to be thinking.

I don’t know, I don’t feel like it’s as bad these days. The friend who we are going through the Unwanted book together ordered us the workbooks and delivered mine to me today. So I am looking forward to working through that with her, which I was doing to help her but probably I will get something out of it too. In Chapter one you’re supposed to be reflecting on your unwanted “sexual brokenness” and how it shows up for you.

I didn’t know what exactly to say except perhaps the limerent mind. That would be the unwanted behavior, the thing that is painful, stressful, and brings hardship. I’m not going to overthink it and everyone has their different things. I really feel like I’ve worked through most of this but it probably doesn’t hurt to have a refresher every once in a while. Hopefully that doesn’t sound like overkill. It’s good to know how people process.

It’s been very cold again today. I went outside for a walk and barely made it two minutes. It was nice after a busier yesterday to have nothing else going on today. Tonight for our family time we went to the store to buy ice cream. I normally do not care for it but tonight I did have some. I’ve been stalled out on my walking goals while this weather has been so unfit for walking. The scale has not moved in this month.

My limbs and extremities changed a lot over the past few years. I don’t think it’s stupid to talk about our bodies because I know that many women have things about themselves they do not like. It’s one thing when you feel it might be possible to change it but it’s another when you are sure or unsure if certain parts of you can change. A woman who has a mastectomy is not shallow or vain for missing who she used to be.

I tell myself that in dimmed light it doesn’t matter. But when certain summer clothes don’t look the same or you’re embarrassed for certain parts to be seen anymore it makes it different. I tell these women that confidence and how we feel is 95% attitude.