Of all the things that have come out here I feel like the worst is definitely the fretting. I think I’ve officially started to drive the UIS people nuts. For most of today I really was trying to figure out how to finish by the end of Spring. Anything to avoid having to go all the way until whenever. After I’ve already been emailing and asking them if I could stretch things out and telling them that I am trying to be mindful of classwork loads.

When we met back in April they were saying to me “Oh but that’s a long time to wait” and I said I was fine with it. I’d accepted and processed and it was really no big deal. The Research Methods class makes my brain recoil when looking at it. It’s too mathy right now for my brain. The Foundations class is only in the fall on Tuesdays. The Neurobiology of Trauma elective looks fun, but I need to keep enough evenings open.

Do half of what you think you can do. That was the protocol that I thought a good guideline. It gives me the room left for homeschool and work shifts and visits here and there on the weekends for meets, all Lord-willing. I truly mean it when I say that. Too many things can turn in an instant which is how I even ended up here in the first place. Your health. Your home. Your family. Your job. None of it is immune to swift changes.

I still have plenty of things to do here, even as the kids are growing up on the regular. I know a woman moving to Germany at the end of the year for three years due to something with her husband’s work. Her goal while she is there is to become a better housewife. They’ve been married several years. I smiled because it’s still an ongoing goal of mine. I love that about life though, how there’s always room to keep on learning.

Josh and Elianna ran some errands this morning. I had them buy a vacuum because I didn’t want to wait two days for Amazon. Every couple of years we just need a new vacuum. I haven’t tested it yet but I’m going to after I’m done here. I went into work for a half hour for an education session focusing on empathy training for residents with dementia. You couldn’t hear or see very well but still had to follow several instructions.

This school thing is temporarily driving me crazy. Sitting through our final class for the summer I started thinking about how I could possibly make the whole thing work. Easy. I just take all three class and internship in the fall. Then next semester all that would leave is one. I’ve looked at the syllabus for at least two out of the four. They’re not bad. The papers here are only ten pages. But the classes are weekly the whole semester.

I don’t know how people do this. 300 hours a semester for internship comes out to about 20 hours per week (using 15 weeks). You get 2.5 hour a week from the class meeting. Six hours a day, three times week, that seems to me like an absolute eternity. And people seriously do this every day. They leave their homes and go to a completely different place for a job that they’d have to hopefully really like. They would have to.

My bachelors program was finished in an accelerated 15 months. Two full semesters crammed into two summers, plus fall and spring with clinicals going on through all of those. I loved it. There was none of this hemming and hawing and calculating and obsessively thinking. There was the aching heart of me missing my baby but it was only for a time until I could finally stay home with him. It helped that he was in good hands.

I did want to quit once while we were sitting by the seminary fountain. I absolutely would have except that I seriously believed then in submitting to my husband. His voice was my divine and guiding light and if I listened to it then I couldn’t go wrong. He didn’t think that I should quit. We were only going to continue having kids from that point on. We were there, I was doing it, I might as well just get it done. He didn’t have that ache.

I thought that going to school, ultimately, was pointless. In the grand scheme of life, when I stood before God, this would not be thing of my life that mattered. What mattered would be how I loved other people and what I did with the time that was given me. That time, I wanted to give it to those most important. Them. I also had thoughts. It would be easier to finish now with one, then to try to do it later with more.

So for me it was basically now or never. Realistically I didn’t see it happening, going back to school later, if I was to quit. It’d be hard to juggle school and little kids, and that would’ve been my choice, and I was fine with it. School isn’t what really mattered anyway. But the voice of God thought otherwise, and the voice of God thought school did matter. So I trusted that voice and I did not quit. I finished and I have no regrets.

School is what it is right now, an unclear path. I walked away glad for another box checked off, but sad feeling like it could be a while before I was back, if ever. But it hasn’t stopped me from looking up Colorado Christian or Johnson, the other schools that were mostly online options. Maybe they’d let me take one or two with them still. But the Tuesday foundations class is a no-go. Those are the cross-country meet days.

I was in the mood to meal plan for September and August and came up so far with a week’s worth of suppers. The dining hall life surely is one of the greatest luxuries here and the relief I feel from the cooking is unspeakable. But the time does come when it’s time to pick it back up and look forward to something more wholesome and tailored. With evening internship hours, it’ll help us all out to have more of a plan.

Elianna and I took a trip to Country Market for watermelon. I was craving it for whatever reason. She brought along cash from the trading post and bought water bottles to restock it. Sam’s was completely out when they went this morning if you can believe it. Josh has been keeping me updated on the latest election happenings, so I’ve heard the general basics here and there. After 2020’s election I checked out completely.

The boys and I have been working in the schoolroom again. Over the weekend the three younger ones were in the living room on the floor playing chess. For a moment I was sent back in time to bliss. The coveted slow Saturday mornings appeared without me asking or trying to force it. The other two kids were at six flags with the camp staff. The oldest has hardly been home all summer, which I do notice but not as much.

We were doing some ridiculous acrobatics in the basement. One of the guest beds areas in a corner has a smell just strong enough that I wouldn’t want to sleep there. We supposed it might have been the vent behind the headboard. We duct taped garbage bags around the vent to block the smell should it be coming from there. I checked a little later and I think it seemed better. It will take me a bit to know for sure.

It was acrobatics because we could hardly move the bed to get to it. So we had to contort ourselves to reach down into the narrow air space where we were able to manage pulling the bed out somewhat. It was cracking me up. This isn’t even my bed. But when people come over it is nice to have the space. Dad came in later when I was resting. We took a nap then went down for supper. It was baked potato bar.

“Are you guys seriously going to be hungry for food in two hours?”, I asked as we finished up our afternoon ice cream. Thankfully they all said no. But they would be hungry by the end of chapel. So the 5:30 mealtime was moved to 9:30. We’d stopped by Country Market after church and picked up food for lunch and supper. For supper we were supposed to have meatballs and rice. No one thought to get any sauce.

Prior to that we were at a pastor’s goodbye party. One of the pastors who has been around here for over ten years took a call to Oklahoma. The parking lot and church were packed. I knew we likely wouldn’t get a chance to talk so I wrote a card. I do get emotional with these sorts of things. Leaving a church is very hard, at least when you were loved and you loved in return.

“Today is the 25th anniversary of Dad and I meeting.” I’d brought it up a couple of times leading up to the day. And those two or three times Dad made the same joke, “And rather than celebrating, Mom’s going to spend the day curled up in a ball, crying over the fact she ever met me.” Sigh. And I responded the same way every time, half-amused yet shaking my head at the pitiful sight, “I’ve already done that”, just to be clear.

25 years is a long time to know a person, and no I wasn’t crying about it. I was actually coming out of a haze, where once again I was sure that I could do no, be no, see no more. Every so often my mind reverts to its original state, and I catch a glimpse of who I’d be if it weren’t for forgiveness or loving, if it weren’t for a God who puts the sorrows and pasts of his children behind him.

I see who I would’ve been if it weren’t for him, and it is not a pretty sight. The basements, the alleys, the colleges that would’ve set me on a completely different path. And though I cannot say for sure, I am fairly certain, that the hardest and most difficult relationship problems we have had would very likely not have been there had he been joined to a different person. I can say for us both that it is true of the good things.

“A million dreams is all it’s gonna take.”
~From The Greatest Showman, sung with my nieces~

Our company left in the afternoon but I had to work so I wasn’t there. One of the nurses had a sister who was coming to town so she was trying to find someone to cover her evening shift. I’ve pretty much decided that I don’t do late evenings (7-11) basically because I don’t want to stay up that late. There are other reasons but I won’t go into them. She found someone from 7-11 so I said I’d do the 3-7.

It was another semi-hectic day. It is not unusual to have to stay 1-2 hours past the end time and on a bad day even three. I haven’t even been there long but even I can see that it wasn’t always like this. But the patient load has definitely gotten harder as they keep admitting more involved people with issues. You can feel like you’re concentrating and being careful but all of that can be disrupted fairly quickly.

I still like it, I just hope I can keep it. We had a fun time with the girls visiting this week. My sister has done a lot of hosting this summer including their former foreign exchange student and her mom for ten days. My cousin’s wife had always wanted to see the house from the Home Alone movie that’s in Chicago so they took a day trip to do that while she was here. It recently sold for over 5 million dollars.

Family is in town again for yesterday, today, and parts of tomorrow. I’ve been hyping up this lake time for months and of course when this afternoon came I wasn’t really feeling it. It was fine though. After lunch they wanted to go to Hae’s for a midday pick-me-up. They had iced coffees and I had an iced green tea. In hindsight I should’ve skipped the coffee shop and stayed behind to take a half-hour nap. That works a lot better (for me).

But the energy came again. My sister really wanted to take the lilypad out to the middle of the lake with the canoe ores. So that’s what we did. We ended up mostly at the other side of lake and then made our way back. The water was the perfect temperature. My cousin’s wife lives in Florida and down there they can’t swim in any freshwater without fear of gators. I absolutely cannot imagine. That’s why so many down there have pools.

Wayne came over to ask where he was supposed to put the dirt. The spots in the basement flooded again with this most recent rain. I showed him the corner by the boys room. Then I told him there was another spot in the basement and he said he’s been there done that with parsonage basements. I don’t know what that means. The plumber guys also came and fixed some things in the shower. It made a nice difference.

I don’t understand why my capacity for anger remains so present, or why pain seems to be such a ready feeling in life. I really think some people feel pain more than others, and it has nothing to do with their tolerance for it. Things can change and wounds can heal, but “why do I hurt, Lord? why do I hurt?” It can feel at times like my heart is on fire.

Like so many other things, I really and truly need God’s help to be happy. And not even his help, I need his uttermost being. Like I truly cannot be happy without him. I have the Holy Spirit, and with that heaven’s joy. But who here would know this? Certainly not the ones who see my face everyday. Certainly not the ones who’ve hurt me just as much.

Oh what is the use? I fight for their affections and defend my own value, and all the long while God gives to me both. Could God really mean for all flesh to die? All of it? The living and breathing would kill me first. There’s too much there to transform in a life. And God takes his time. He who would not spare his own Son, now of me leaves no trace.

“The living, the living, he thanks you; as I do this day”
~Isaiah 38:19~

The ongoing issues I’ve had with this transfer have pretty much turned me off to pursuing any more school. I don’t want to complain but it’s been a huge pain to deal with. It’s not the classes or the teachers. It’s the death by a thousand forms and passwords that still aren’t completed and I still can’t remember. I’ve never known something to be so technologically complicated, even when I can get a person.

Here’s what happened, not that it matters. The credit totals for the counseling programs are essentially the same. But where Lincoln’s program had 9 hours (3 classes) of theology credits built into their program, UIS has those same hours but as additional counseling related classes. I had only had one class of the core left, plus one elective. But now I have the core class, the one elective, plus three more classes from UIS.

They thankfully counted last summer’s intensive as an elective. Both programs require two electives, so I’ve got one done. My brain has been trying to figure out the best way to fit the rest of these in. After this summer I’ll have four left, plus two semesters of internship (three if spread out). It’s official that (Lord-willing) I can start with internship next month which in addition to the hours includes a 2.5 hour weekly class time.

So I really don’t want to add anything else to that. With internship you’re making videos and transcribing your sessions and presenting things to the class. That seems like enough and my brain gets the aversion feeling when I think about trying to add anything else. But enough with that. I wasn’t really calculating that when I chose UIS, I just liked the idea of being in person and thought it didn’t seem like too much to add.

I ran into Casper on the way back from main camp. He loves when the kids are here, but even he needs his alone time. The boy cats have all gotten skinner this summer. I think it’s because they’re outside more and go for longer walks in the woods. He was sitting next to a small hole in the ground, seeming like he was waiting there for something to come out. I wasn’t interested in whatever it was. I pet him and kept on.

One of the biggest shocks of early motherhood is how invisible it felt. Like how could so much be happening, so much growth and work and pain and truly beautiful moments, but there was no one was here to see it? I was the witness to all that was happening, and it felt in some way like a sacred duty, a calling, to pay attention through all of it. I have done what I can. The call anymore is different, but I do not know what it is.

But if that stage was invisible, this one feels even more so, thought it doesn’t seem like quite the outrage. It simply is. When I used to look ahead to the moms who are where I am now, there was nothing special about them. They were moms. Before you at least had the visual impact of showing up with your kid crew. They couldn’t miss it. And you felt the burden of little people taking so much space with their needs. Those carseats…

Celebrity women talk about how irrelevant they become once they hit a certain age. Those who have found their value in regularly attracting the male gaze (no judgement) can understandably find it disconcerting when the heads slow in turning. It’s the same thing here. Youth has its value, makes an unforgettable impact, but then what? Erikson in his developmental life stages identifies this point of life as generativity vs. stagnation.

So it’s not the invisibility that’s got me now, it’s the uncertainty of pushing through this discomfort. The discomfort of daring to hope there is more, that life can be fulfilling even without what I’ve known. Aging is a gift and I will always believe that, even when you see the pains too that it brings. But this isn’t really about the loss of looks or life stages. It’s about continuing on in service to God as a new creation, wherever he calls.

The colors were exceptionally pretty this evening. My sister was here dropping off her girls for camp. My cousin’s wife and one of their daughters are visiting also. My youngest sister also was along for the ride which I wasn’t expecting. We went for a walk to stretch their legs before they had to head back north until it’s time to return to pick up the kids. We walked down to trading post and they said bye again to the girls.

Elianna and I attended a bridal shower after church. She had to run home first and get paintbrushes for when she was going over to do a project with Miles. While she was doing that I stopped by County Market for a card. There was an older man from church ahead of me in the line. He had a few things in his cart including a bouquet of yellow flowers. After saying hello I wondered out loud to him, “What are the flowers for???”

He said they were for his wife, and that he visits every week. She died during covid. He didn’t say how long he’d been doing this, but it somehow made me happy, was comforting even, that he was honoring the woman he had loved for so long. I was afraid at first that he’d gotten remarried, not that it’s any of my business to judge. This afternoon the boys helped me clean up the dining room. It gets cluttered sometimes.