The younger boys and I played Scrabble tonight. The bigger kids were all out doing things. Two of them were at a local Lutheran church youth group. Ethan was meeting Laura for supper. Dad had a voter’s meeting. I probably should’ve gone but at this point I’ve kind of mentally checked out of that almost done position (not saying that’s right). I wrote my report and gave it to Josh to read. I was thankful he was doing that for me.

I feel like all I’ve been saying for the past two years is “I have this paper that’s due this weekend” “I have a paper I need to be working on”. I think my definition of paper has changed. “Paper” means anything that has ten or more pages. If it’s smaller than that then it’s only an assignment. Today I was working on my Multicultural paper which has to be 20-25 pages. The other one I have to do has to be 20. I found four more sources.

Today I decided that I’m not going to try super hard on this paper. I’m going to type things, get my required amount of pages, and turn it in. I think I still am a little hurt from the last one that I did try hard on. I’m not the only one who felt this way. I was talking with another classmate about our thoughts this afternoon. Something about this teacher makes us uncomfortable and it’s because our own issues are getting stirred up.

I remember feeling this way another time trying to write. Toward the end, I kept turning things in and it wasn’t right. No problem, I thought, I just need to be open and learn and be humbled. These people, after all, were smarter than me. I remember one piece I had submitted and resubmitted so many times that by the time I was on my last attempt to get it right I didn’t recognize it. I couldn’t remember what I had once wanted it to be.

And then it finally occurred to me that maybe this really isn’t about grit or determination or humility or grace. Maybe it was time to view this all from a different vantage point, from the view that a door had been purposely closed and the reason it had been is because God was moving you elsewhere. Maybe they really just didn’t want you. Maybe this really just wasn’t good enough. Maybe it was time to let go of that place.

Everyone waited up for Dad and Ethan last night. They arrived back home around 11:40 pm. I’d gone to bed for a while and slept from about 10-10:30. Elianna came in and laid down on our bed. I gave her a back rub for a while, not too long. People talk about how their teenagers will come in and talk to them when it’s later at night. They could be super tired but they are so thrilled to have their child sharing with them a piece of their heart and their time.

I wouldn’t say it happens often. My oldest would do that more, where randomly at 11:30 at night he’d start telling me all about something usually related to sports. Those times I had that thrilling feeling, where you’re just so happy that this person is talking to you. With my daughter it’s different. She’s more like her dad in that she is more reserved and keeps her feelings mostly to herself. She never liked journal prompts with personal questions.

But she liked to write stories, or blurbs about an animal she’d researched. Our personalities are different, but we have our femaleness to bond us. If I’ve done the right thing when she comes in, and thrown my phone off to the side like the waste of time in parenting it so oftentimes is, then she’ll pick it up and start looking through pictures. Last night we were texting Ethan, asking about their eta and seeing how long it’d take him to notice it wasn’t me.

Josh’s dad used to make one day round trips. During his freshman year of college, I traveled to visit him a couple of times with his parents and sister. I don’t remember what we did for hotel rooms. I think I must’ve stayed with a friend, one of the girls they knew and who had a futon. This past time when we visited Seward it looked different because the trees were all big. Before, when we were there, they were young trees nowhere near as grown.

My daughter and I went out tonight after a family dinner out. The Bath & Body works soaps were on sale for $2.95 a piece, insane. But good timing since I was there to buy lots of them. I like to use them as welcoming gifts. I thought my son looked taller today, but he said it just because I haven’t seen him in a while. He was right. His head was no taller than the last pencil line. One of them had grown several inches since earlier this year. I’m not surprised.

After a whirlwind week of homework, a random job, and visiting a convent, I am needing a moment to center myself and collect my thoughts. I haven’t been in the greatest place mentally, as if the ground beneath me is not still stable. You’re tired of hearing it, I’m tired of saying it, but whatever it is that is different about me now is here to stay.

There really do not feel like there are words worth much writing. I have much to do, Lord-willing, today and tomorrow. Josh is en-route to Nebraska to pick up our college student. I do of course wish to clean in extra welcoming measure, to sweep and shine the floors and diffuse my Orange essential oil.

Not to pray as the hypocrites do, but I would like to ask God, “Can you give me strength to live my life? To have joy? To be at peace?” I am tired of the patterns of over-exertion, of the up and down moods and the isolations of my mind. In a little while I will pick up the boys from school. We’ll come home and have lunch. They are wonderful helpers.

I don’t know if there were more leaves on the trees this year or what but it seems like the ground is just covered with them right now. I don’t remember ever seeing them this thick before to where it might has well be snow that has fallen. I played some Christmas music this morning–not the obnoxious kind. The kids noticed and thought it was still too early. Do they not remember? Come mid-November, it was time for Christmas music and decorating the school room.

Our new hire training finished up this afternoon. I don’t need to worry about it now for over a month. Not much has changed that I can tell so far. I don’t know what it is about healthcare professionals, but there seems to be this universal thing where we are notorious for taking poor care of ourselves. You would think nurses especially would not have this problem. But right before break the instructor announced that she just remembered she hadn’t peed yet today.

That’s a mild example. You become so used to having your hands and body in other people’s body fluids that it’s not big deal to speak of your own. When I would do 12-hour training shifts in St. Louis, I prided myself on how I could go the whole shift without peeing. It seemed like kind of a rock-star skill that even after giving birth I still pretty much had an iron bladder. It seems so stupid to me now. When you have to go you just go, no holding it for ungodly amounts of hours.

But none of it was conscious. You just didn’t stop, and when you did sit down for lunch, it wasn’t for very long. It almost felt wrong to eat. When we toured the floors yesterday sometime past two, both the daytime nurses were eating their lunch. “Of course you caught me after I just sat down”, one said. No one was judging. I don’t think it’ll be that busy of a place. It always thought it was weird to see staff members. I did it, but not at the nurses desk. You went into the back to have privacy.

I think it’s more of a thing people talk about now. I know I for one am much more aware of my own body. For a while I’ve wondered how women who work full-time make it through the day without the chance to take a nap. Now I know. They just talk about it from after lunch onward of how tired they are and how much they need a nap. We walk to the juice bar and get something to drink. It made me feel better to know they got tired. I still do wonder about Taylor Swift and her rain shows.

I didn’t go to class tonight either. My paper wasn’t completely done and I needed to know I had more time to work on it. This morning before leaving for training I read one of the articles assigned from last week and the assignment made much more sense after that. I try to at least skim through the articles she posts.

This job environment is starting to feel more comfortable. I was kind of mad at myself for being impulsive and signing up for this. Josh’s dad has only been gone a little over a month. You’re not supposed to make major life changes during those sorts of times. There was a crap ton of stuff already going on and then I just added one more thing to the mix. The night after I interviewed with the nursing director, I had the worst series of nightmares I’ve ever had in my life. When I woke up my mind directly went to the interview. I was terrified the nursing director had been a witch and had cast a hidden spell upon me and tried to curse me in some way. I pretty quickly was able to tell myself that God does not send dreams like this.

The scheduling lady met with us individually to set up times to start to work on the floor. I told her I really couldn’t start until after this semester was over. That’s over a month away but I really can’t afford to take any more added time away from working on these bigger papers. And when I was looking at the rest of December, I wanted to tell her, “Well, I kind of need about 10 days leading up to Christmas to spend with my kids doing fun Christmas things.” And about 10 days afterward because that’s when I am usually exhausted or sick. But who in the real word would understand any of that?

My sister texted this afternoon to show us her acceptance letter. She was offered a job at the Lutheran church where her boys go to school. It’s an administrative assistant position 15 hours a week. Just an hour or so prior to this I’d texted them a picture of my new employee badge. This morning we began the first day of the orientation and training process for new hires. We watched a lot of videos.

Tomorrow and Wednesday are for clinical training. You’re not actually on the floor, you’re just getting the more specific ins and outs of your department. I have officially bit off more than I can currently chew at the moment. Yesterday evening I skipped a church meeting (Josh went for me) so I could finish a 5-7 page professional identity paper. Today I had to email my practicum supervisor and let him know I couldn’t be there today because of this training. Tonight I am staying home from one class to write a 5-page Social Identity and Cultural Self-Assessment assignment for another.

This Multicultural class is supposedly the hardest class of the program and it’s the class I am taking with the semester of taking 15 credit hours. So it’s not like I’m being a weenie about this, not that anyone has said that I am. But I am starting to feel the pressure of stressing in regards to getting everything done. There’s Thanksgiving as well where everyone is scheduled to be here over a course of four days.

The Ethnographic Observation essay isn’t due until December. I received a nice note from the host sister filling me in on what they had done for the rest of the weekend. I’m glad the other Rebekah had some personal one-on-one time with her since she was the one who was actually looking into officially joining. The entire process from start to finish takes approximately eight years. During that time you are given multiple opportunities to opt out and decide that the religious life isn’t for you.

She compared the discernment process to the process of courtship. I can’t imagine a courtship taking as long as eight years, but maybe in some other culture it somewhere exists. And it isn’t that other options aren’t religious. They had just finished hosting a vocational retreat where they teach on the four vocations: single life, married life, ordained life (priests), and avowed religious life (monks, brothers, sisters, and nuns).

There’s another girl who was there as part of the nursing staff for training. She had worked in another area long-term care facility and said they treated their employees like s*%#. It can be kind of hit or miss with these places. I won’t be able to fully know what I think until I am able to spend more time in the care units. Today they gave us free lunch so that was nice. Josh is making supper tonight before he has his meeting. We had to cancel piano lessons, but I told the boys I’d be their listener.

I called my husband after finishing lunch to see if I could stay a little longer to make rosaries. One of the sisters is known for making over a thousand of them. She was going to come over to the Dominican guest house and teach me and the other woman who also was visiting. I was already staying longer than I’d originally planned and was starting to feel like it was time to head back.

But the sister who was hosting seemed to want me to stay. The other sister was taking time out of her day to come over, so I understand. It turned out to be fine, though I didn’t get the entire rosary finished. I worked on it for about an hour before saying that I really needed to start packing up. She showed me how to finish the hail Mary’s and Our Fathers that meet at the end to form a cross.

So I do know how to make rosaries now, which is cool. I also had a wonderful time at the “motherhouse”. The other visitor who was there was named Rebekah. She’d driven all the way from Minnesota. All Friday evening and Saturday morning, when our host sister was introducing us to any sisters we’d run into or who came up to us, she would say, “This is Rebekah and Rebekah.”

Probably three-fourths of the time they’d say in response, “Oh my! Two Rebekah’s!” And then the host sister would tell them that not only were there two Rebekah’s, there were two Rebekah T.’s. Rebekah T. and I would look at each other again and smile, shrug our shoulders, whatever we would do, laugh even. It never got old and really was funny. Several had lived in Minnesota before.

There’s too much to say and not enough energy. We were meeting my mother-in-law and sister-in-law for supper. I came home and heard about the things that I’d missed. Casper had been up in a tree the whole night before finally coming down sometime in the mid-morning. They’d tried several times to get him down but you really can’t force cats to come out of trees until they’re ready.

I came home and laid down. We didn’t even walk around that much but it had been a fuller day of visiting and talking. I told Josh I wasn’t going to sleep I was just going to rest until it was time to leave. He had a board meeting that morning and that had gone well. There’s a guy who is coming to harvest red oaks and walnut trees. I didn’t ask about the HSA, I figured I’d ask about that later.

There is a difference between sisters and nuns. Nuns are part of the avowed religious life but remain cloistered and devoted to a life of prayer. Sisters also take vows but are not cloistered. Much of what they do includes being involved in parish and community service. Our sister host was very kind and hospitable and I enjoyed being with her. It was good to be there and good to come home.

Before my father-in-law came home on hospice, he asked if we thought he was doing the wrong thing by giving up. We were up in his hospital room with the boys. There hadn’t been any decisions made about not going to St. Louis, but we had all expressed feeling uneasy about sending him there. I didn’t know what to say to him and fumbled out something about him not really giving up. Later I texted my mother-in-law with more clear thoughts and feelings.

In the days following his death, my mother-in-law kept saying how she had no regrets. She’d always believed in fighting for him, and doing what needed to be done for him. In his final days he was home and he was comfortable. In the earlier days he was awake and talking and was just like himself. After weeks and months of him being in and out of the hospital, it felt so good to all be back in the house again where we have lived and spent so much time together.

I do have regrets, two at least. The first is that I didn’t visit him more. I had rubbed his belly with oil and advocated for his admission, but after that I didn’t go back, not as often as now I wish that I would have. I wasn’t really thinking in terms of limited time. Once everything was figured out, stabilized, once he was strong enough to come back. But things kept happening and he didn’t get better. He wasn’t getting stronger. He never did get to use his ramp.

The second regret I have is that during one of the earlier nights before we left, I was in with him for a while by myself. I wanted to tell him thank you for everything he’d done for me. There really is a phenomenon that happens where your entire life with that person begins to flash before your eyes. You start to remember things you’d forgotten about. The major times you spent together stand out. I realized how much I loved him and how much he had loved me.

I don’t know why I didn’t say anything then. But my mom ended up telling him for me several days later. My parents came up on the Saturday before he died, which was one of the last times I saw him truly awake and talking. He and my dad were talking about heaven and seeing each other there. My mom told him thank you for loving me, for treating me as his own, and for being there so much for our family. He and my dad shook hands. Mom kissed his forehead.

My sister-in-law is in town again for a few days. She’s here to help my mother-in-law start the process of going through their things in the house and packing up what can be packed to move. The builder says their new house might be done by Christmas, but that would be a stretch. I was relieved to hear that. Originally they were thinking things might be done around Thanksgiving and she could be moved in by Christmas. Those already busier holiday weeks just seemed like a terrible time to try to move.

I thought a little bit more about the question I’d been asking regarding why I can’t ever seem to get it completely right. Basically what it all boils down to is that we have to have things that are keeping us humble. If I got everything right all time I’d be prideful. Do I wish I had the kind of brilliant, jaw-dropping verbal mastery and intelligence of people like Jordan Peterson or C.S. Lewis? Yes, I do and I think that’s pretty normal.

But it isn’t even that. Or rather it isn’t even only that. I was thinking about my grades desires and what that’s all about. I want to be smart. I want something I can hold up and show my husband and kids and say, “Hey, I actually am not a dummy.” But I also guarantee that absolutely no one on their death bed is ever saying to anyone, “Somewhere in a drawer is my report card…” Here is what I actually want, and believe always I have: “Hey, if you can do that, great, but ultimately? That isn’t what I love about you.”

I’m feeling better than I was last Tuesday at this time. Yesterday as I was coming inside after taking a walk for basic leisure and as a general way to deal with stress I was hit with the thought that I was scheduled to present on my journal article that night. Was it at the very top of my assignment list that I’d very recently typed out? Yes. Had it completely slipped my mind over the weekend until that moment? Also yes.

It boggles my mind that even when I take steps to be proactive with an issue, I still cannot seem to completely get it right. This isn’t me trying to be cute or subtly deep. It really does confound and bother me. I was wondering where I even get the idea in the first place that things can change. Why do I keep thinking that if I just try hard enough or do something different enough, things could finally change?

So I did get that done. And I was thankful to the Lord for reminding me of it. This morning I dropped off the boys at school and had about 30 minutes to sit in a coffee shop waiting to meet a friend for coffee. Or tea. I’ve been trying to do something on my papers each day, even if it is only finding a source. In that half hour I found two sources for my Multicultural paper, and then tried to do some of the reading.

We talked about our college boys. If I think about him too long I still could cry, but otherwise I feel like that pain has soothed. I was trying to think of how I’d describe it. It wasn’t a break and it wasn’t a cut. It was a separation that happened between us (I told you I’d cry if I thought about it). But he has his different life out there now. It’s a life that is less bound up in my thoughts and not part of my day to day anymore.

I heard back from one of the sisters today. She asked if I’d be staying the night. The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind. I live close enough that I wouldn’t need to, but then again it might add to the whole experience of the matter. I don’t have a schedule yet of what we’d be doing other than meeting for community prayers, meals, and Liturgy. Today the weather is very nice. It was almost 70 degrees today.