Today was a longer day of finishing writing assignments due by tonight. We had a 3-5 page reflection paper due for one class and 5-7 Image of God essay due for another. For pretty much every class we’ve had to write something about the image of God. I even started looking through my google docs to see if there were any past paragraphs I could just stick in there toward the end of this last one. And then I was just like, “Oh whatever”. It was easier just to write the paragraph and that point.

It feels nice to have this other more laid-back teacher again. I have missed her quirky realness that pretty much goes on through the entirety of the class. I remember the first time I had her. I can’t remember what she said or did but I distinctly remembering being slightly taken aback, maybe even disappointed, thinking to myself, “Wait. No. You’re the one who’s supposed to have everything together.” She just makes me laugh with her verbal processing and occasional oversharing where she just tells us things.

Dad and the kids had a work day today. There were picnic tables to move and woodpiles to replenish. Several others showed up to help too so that was good. I took a break around 11AM to take a walk and see what everyone was doing. They were over by the CGC. One of the boys was holding Casper who was playing and hanging around with the others. Another started making a fire in the firepit. I was feeling rather somber for a lot of the day. I was thinking about how God is in charge of our health.

Besides the research papers which I find to be more difficult, some of these assignments I actually somewhat am excited about. One of the things we’re supposed to for our Multicultural Counseling class is write a 5-page essay on an Ethnographic Observation experience. We are to show up in a place that gives us the experience of “other”. It also cannot be a place where we would be in a position of power. All of this needs to be approved by our professor. I first asked if I could visit the local public high school. She said if I was visiting a public high school in Chicago that might work, but in a school around here I would have a position of power.

So then I started looking to see if there were any nearby monasteries or convents. I found an event that is happening next weekend at a local convent in Springfield. It is an opportunity for single Catholic women ages 21-45 to come and see what the sister life is like. My professor said this event would work as long as they would be okay with me coming. The event organizer said there was only one other woman who is registered so far and that it would be okay if I came.

For this same class we watched a movie called The Color of Fear. It was a gathering of men including white but mostly non-white men. During the movie there was a heated exchange between one of the black men and one of the white men. The black man had spent a significant amount of time trying to explain to the white man the way the white man benefits from being white, as well as the black man’s pains that come from the color of his skin. The white man kept trying to reassure the black man that he as a white man did not look down on the black man for being black. He didn’t see himself as having any unfair advantages or positions of power because he was white. “I see you as human”, he kept saying, “there is no difference between us”.

This enraged the black man. And then I learned something. An attitude that I had always thought was one of respect, the idea that “you are no different from me”, is one that the other can find deeply hurtful and inaccurate. The black man wasn’t satisfied with simply being human. He wanted to be more than that but also never anything less. He wanted to be seen for who he was and not have differences swept under the rug by well-meaning generalizations like “human”. I’d never heard anyone say that before.

So while I found myself empathizing greatly with the white man, and felt like he was being unfairly ganged up on, I could also dimly see the point of the other man who felt like being called and seen as human was a devaluing of his identity and status and not an elevation of it. He wanted people to see his color, because to him his color meant something about his life and existence. And so I grew in my compassion, for the black man, for the white man, and for every other man who never meant to misunderstand.

It probably wasn’t realistic to say I wouldn’t talk about school. I kind of have to talk about it because it involves so much of what I’m doing right now. I think I’ve kind of downplayed the space this has been taking up in my life. At times it really doesn’t seem like that much. I consider it to be something that is feeding me and contributing to my health and well-being rather than something that is taking from it.

But there are times when it seems to be taking up more space, time, or energy than I currently have to offer. I felt a little validated when I added up the hours of weekly practicum and on-campus class time and it comes out to the close equivalent of a part-time job and that is not counting the outside time spent on homework. So I would say that especially this semester school has been between a full and part-time job. It helps to see it in that perspective and that the time I’m spending is contained in something.

I do still feel like I’m having some kind of increased “flare-up” of fatigue and the nervous symptoms. I just limit my activity and stay where I can rest. It still seems strange to me that these weird health things are even still something I’m dealing with. I’ve forgotten what it’s like now to have been the other way, where I didn’t think about and have to manage it daily. But even so there is blessing and I’m thankful for that.

Casper is still hanging around the outside of the house. Today he came with me for a walk. He likes to be held and picked up and fed. He let me hold him all the way from the house down the camp road and back. The other outside cats have their routines where they disappear and go do things but Casper doesn’t know his way around as much yet.

I took him down to the beach. He seemed interested in the canoes but I wasn’t in the mood to stay down there very long. It’s sad to me when the beach turns cold and we aren’t able to swim in the lake anymore. Until the ice returns there doesn’t seem to be much point in being down there.

Cats really are cute. They have brought us so much amusement over the years of living here. When we homeschooled there was always some kind of cat drama happening during school time. The two sisters would be fighting up in a tree. Our neighbor’s dog would be chasing another one. Kittens joined us while kids worked in the schoolroom.

Today I spent some time going through my assignments and combining them into a single list with due dates so I can see what is going on and what needs to done when. I’ve concluded after doing this that the rest of the semester is pretty much going to suck. I’m not going to talk about it. I’m not going to complain about it. I’m basically just going to try and do something each day to contribute toward getting everything done.

There’s this woman whose blog I used to follow who writes on Substack now. At first it seemed like kind of a new and rarer thing but now I can’t even tell you how many people’s Substack letters I’ve subscribed to and it really isn’t all that many. The only ones I regularly read are moms from Instagram or moms from blogs.

I don’t like writing blogs when all of my kids are not at home. My daughter was out tonight for a youth group meeting with Miles. They don’t understand the whole mom/parent thing where you can’t really relax and be at peace for the night until all of your kids are home from wherever.

The kids said they had a good Halloween. Josh is typically the Halloween person who gets the kids excited and works on finding costumes. He hadn’t really had much time or energy to do that this time, so he bought a bag of candy and last night took it out into the athletic field and was tossing it up into the air for the kids to catch.

I don’t know what it is about this one teacher that makes me feel like she can just stab at my heart for some reason. For the past several days I’ve been staying mostly in bed, waiting for my body to recover from the month. Parts of Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and today I’ve just been here wondering whether or not I should try to go to class. We’re supposed to watch a movie tonight and then write one of our three reflection papers on it.

So I told her that I wasn’t sick or contagious, but that I’d been feeling very run down and tired for the past several days. I debating whether or not to come to class and was wondering if I’d be able to make up the class work or access the movie from home. She said there is one copy of it in the library but another student who will be missing class for being out of town will also be trying to check it out. It’s an educational video that isn’t online anywhere. So it seemed, she said, like it would be up to me to decide on how I was feeling and whether or not I felt like I could get a hold of the movie. And I debated whether or not to even send the email in the first place. Because if it ended up going like this, then I’d just told her something more personal about myself.

It’s not like she’s not nice. But for whatever reason interactions with her can produce that sharp and sudden piercing of the heart feeling. And really I’m just tired of dealing with this and it being something that I don’t even know how to begin to explain to other people. I’m sure professors have their days when they are run down and more tired as well, and what are they supposed to do? Just not show up? I told her thank you and that I’d plan on being there.

It’s chillier outside today. It’s sunnier though after several day of clouds and it always looks nice to see the light in the trees. I didn’t stay outside very long when I took this. I’m still pretty tired and I need to go to class tonight. Something I’ve found helpful if you’re needing to guarantee you get a good nap is to put on a podcast while resting in bed. If music is playing I won’t fall asleep, especially if I know the songs that are playing.

I’ve kind of described it like your brain latches on to the song that it knows. It stays awake because it knows what it is listening to and what comes next. But when it is voices talking in the background, even if you’re interested in the topic at hand, it doesn’t matter because there’s nothing predictable for your brain to latch on to. That can’t be completely it though because even if it is a song that you don’t know you can still have a hard time falling asleep.

Josh came in and showed me a picture of his dad and asked me if he looked like that. In the picture his dad was only about a year or two older than we are now. We’ve always kind of thought his dad looked older, but some of that is just because he is the dad. I didn’t think it looked like him. But the other day he looked into the living room window while out on his walk and I said, “Oh my gosh, you just like your dad.” He did that time.

“You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.”
~Psalm 139:5~

In December of 2020 I knew something was wrong. On the first day of the month I started my Orange Theory membership and went in for one their early morning workouts. Not only was I thinking this would be a way to burn off stress and take care of myself during the busy holiday season, I was also thinking this was going to be the time where I finally got into the best shape of my life. The combination of strength training and cardio was just the thing my body needed.

The first day I ran on the treadmill and felt good while I was on it. I did the rowing machine and the strength training also. The girl showed me the three different stations and how whenever you came in your name would be on a board showing which station you’d start and then move to. During the workout you wore a band to track your heartrate. The idea was to stay in the orange. This was the zone where your body would be getting the most out of your workout.

I didn’t like seeing my heartrate that high. I didn’t like seeing my zone in the orange. Everybody’s was up there on multiple screens. The room was dark and the music was loud. I actually liked that part, and loved the intensity and sensory overload. I expected to come out of there drenched in sweat and feeling amazing. I don’t remember what I felt until I was home and sitting in our living room chair. I curled up in the chair and stared at the floor. I didn’t want to move.

That was the only time I could finish the workout. Any other time I went back that month I could not get through the treadmill part, or any of the sections without stopping. I was out of breath within a couple of minutes. And then I couldn’t get my heartrate to go down. I stepped outside where I could walk around in the fresh air, waiting to feel normal enough to go back in. The leader people would check on me and I’d say I was okay. Except something wasn’t right.

I remember being in Joann’s parking lot after another early morning disappointed that I wasn’t getting that feel-good post-workout feeling. None of this activity was anything new. I did kettlebells on my own and had been running for months. Again my heartrate would not come down. I opened the windows hoping cold air would do it. These weren’t panic attacks, but it was the closest thing I’d felt to it in a very long time. Each time I came out from a workout it took longer to recover.

After Christmas there was another event, right on schedule for it’s regular time. Something hadn’t been right then either. Every month, for five or six years, we wrestled in ways that should never have happened. Not once, not twice, but over and over until I couldn’t move. And again the next time and again the next. And then after that last time I thought I was fine again. Except during New Year’s while hosting my family I noticed I had a hard time standing up. I went to bed to lie down.

And I stared at the floor and did not want to move. I had no thoughts, there was nothing I was thinking, I just stayed there in the bed and didn’t move. Mom came in, Dad came in, my sister came in and brought me food. A couple of days later I was still in bed and read a story in the Bible about a woman who’d been oppressed by a spirit for 18 years so that she could not stand up. I suddenly realized what had happened and called my Dad to say I’d accidentally been starving myself.

No wonder I was so weak. For those three days over our New Year’s gathering I’d hardly eaten, and so I thought I’d been starving myself. I tried to eat something to replenish what I’d lost, hoping then I’d feel better. On January 6th I went to the hospital and that’s when I tend to think this all started, a little after the first of the year. But it had really been going on a while before that, the shortness of breath having started before COVID. I was able to keep doing all of the things until I wasn’t.

The kids and I didn’t go to church this morning. I wanted to talk to them about some things. These past several years in my experiences with infirmity, my son leaving the house, my father-in-law most recently passing, these have all been things that have reinforced for me the shortness of our life. Once I no longer had to work for money, I left my job for the sole reason of being able to spend as much time with them as possible. I could always be a nurse. They wouldn’t always be little.

And one of ways I wanted to use that time was for teaching them deeply in the Christian faith. I wanted to pass on the love for God that I had, for them to know the Bible, for the hope of Christ to take root in them so it would stay with them throughout their lives. And I’d seen this already in the way they’d been during our last days with Papa. And that gave me some comfort then, because especially over the last few years, I haven’t been able to be as engaged or involved with them as I once had been.

Not that I was trying to promote my own mothering. If anything by the time your child grows up, you realize then how much you lacked, how much any good was only by God’s gifts. And they all thought it was funny, at least a little ironic, how I was telling them this while we had stayed home from church. Dad had even called to make sure we were up. And we went again for Sunday School because I had to teach, and because they wanted to go to church. I agreed that I would go now too.

Yesterday I spent most of the day in bed. It was one of those where I’m super tired which I know is going to be the way that it is sometimes. It gives me time to assimilate the truths of God and know him more as he knows me. My body is his as is all he holds together. There’s so much in my head that is swirling around. It is helpful to know God is patient with me even as I am not always patient myself. But what I don’t say here I try to live out, if not on any paper, then in the light of the day.

We dropped the boys off at school and stopped by Hae’s to get some coffee. Neither one of us have been great about this, but every so often we take turns remembering that we’re supposed to be being more intentional about doing little things like visiting these coffee shops together. We get into the habit for a while, but then life gets busy again and that just seems to be the way that it goes. I really don’t even notice it most of the time.

With the kids being older and in school we have more time for these things. While we were in there UIS cross country team came in. It looked like they had just finished a workout. Of course I had to think of our son out in Nebraska and how this could have been him walking in if things had gone a different way. It’s so interesting to me how marriage unfolds across the seasons.

This evening my mother-in-law came over for supper. While at Hae’s I started googling recipes looking for colorful fall meals to serve and delight our evening company. Josh suggested we just order pizza from Rico’s like we sometimes do on Fridays. That was fine and admittedly easier. I do still want to try the nourishing fall recipe thing sometime. On the way home we stopped by County Market and picked up a few groceries.

I feel like I’ve been talking about this school thing too much, so I’m going to say a few more things and then be done for a while. I told my supervisor that I’m not going to be needing the internship after all. Today after practicum I was already scheduled to get a tour of the inpatient unit on the hospital. I had not had a chance yet to talk about the change of plans, but it was good for me to go over and see it. It confirmed for me that I would not have been happy there.

Working with other people, and overseeing them, is a difficult thing. I see this from watching my husband be in charge at the camp. The boss holds all the complaints, suggestions and problems. If the CGC is out of toilet paper, he gets the list. I don’t know if he actually shops for it anymore, but if someone else buys something, he gets the receipts. If someone thinks it’d be nice for the camp to hold a particular retreat, he’s the one brainstorming about it when I get home.

Casper was sitting outside the front door. I guess that means we’re keeping him but I don’t know yet if his name is going to stick. I don’t think it’s ever taken this long for us to settle on a stray cat name before. The kids have a poll going in their discord camp group asking a few other camp people what they think his name should be. I never did mention here that our older cat Ghost passed away last summer. We buried him on the morning of the July full moon.

A cat showed up at our window tonight. Josh and I were at the table when I heard a cat crying. I thought it was Midnight but when I went to the window to look it was a mostly white cat with light brown spots. Usually the stray cats run away when they see us but this one was acting like it was wanting people to give him attention or at least food.

We named him Casper. I don’t know if he’ll stick around or not. He seemed pretty used to people so maybe he just came over for something different to do. Tom showed up at about the same age as this one so we wonder if sometimes people don’t just drop them off somewhere and they find their way to the house since there are other cats around.

The interview I had today went well. She said she was going to offer me a position so the next step was to get set up with human resources for the things you have to do with them as a new hire. The first thing she said when we sat down was “It’s been a while.” Then I was supposed to tell her about myself and then we asked each other questions.

I asked if she could show me the resident wings. One is named Spring, and one is named Summer. I don’t remember the name of the third one as it wasn’t a season. It’s a huge place with varying levels of senior living options but the parts I would work at would basically be the areas that were more similar to a nursing home or rehab facility.

This is all a very new again experience for me. She said she was basically going to treat me like a brand new nurse because of how long it’s been since I’ve worked as one and also because of how much has changed in the field. When I was doing it we still had all paper charting and documentation. Everything like that now is done with computers.

What I’m happy about with this place is that you also have the option of working four hour shifts. The 3-7 or 7-11 evening shifts were always my favorite. You can go in and get some hours but you weren’t there terribly long. I wouldn’t ever have to work a 12. When she asked what shifts I’d work I said days, evenings, weekends, but no nights.

At some point I do have some feelings about this. This all just happened kind of fast and I know I partly do these things to myself. But I also didn’t ask for my school to close before I could graduate. I was liking that path and when I got back to the car I did feel a pang of sadness for the educational route and path I thought I was on but changed.

And when I saw the wings it looked so unfamiliar. Hospitals essentially all look the same. But the more home like environments have different hallways, different pictures, different co-workers, different residents. I didn’t like it. I didn’t love it. And it wasn’t because there was anything wrong with the place. It’s because I did not know it yet.