This afternoon UIS hosted an orientation for the counseling program’s incoming cohort. They had sent out an email to current students looking for volunteers to be part of a panel. Five of us came today to be part of the Q & A session. Jane was there, along with another student who I am familiar with from classes. It was fun to share and be there.

I love the start of new school years. I am so ready for school to be done though, kind of. I still can’t believe it has taken me this long but the more I’ve done it this way, the more I appreciate being able to go slower and take in more experiences. Besides internship, the classes I have left are Research Methods, Foundations of Clinical Mental Health, and Sexual Dysfunction and Family Violence.

My energy levels are still very low since the wedding. Laura’s mom and I got together for tea yesterday afternoon and she said that she too had just been resting and sleeping. It always surprises me and simultaneously comforts to me to hear I’m not the only one who experiences life like this at times. I wouldn’t have expected it to be another way.

Laura seems to be feeling better. Ethan says she seemed almost back to normal which I can hardly imagine. She was invited to participate in the cross country camp social events but had been too sick to do so that was disappointing. One other teammate was also married this summer and the wife has reached out to Laura which is nice. They both still have two years left of college.

There’s a singles retreat going on here at camp over the weekend. There were 20-something young men and 5 young women. I was glad to hear so many had registered and also surprised to see so many of them were guys. When you’ve been married since early on you really have no context for what it’s even like to be without a life partner.

So hopefully someone there can find a person who is special. Matchmaking is not supposed to be the intent but I can’t imagine it not being on most if not all of their minds. While they were playing kickball the kids were cleaning up the kitchen. We made pizza tonight for supper and made it work with only two. The four kids were there which was nice. I know we talked but I can’t remember.

“We sense that something is missing in our lives and search the world for it, not understanding that what is missing is us.”
~Parker Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness~

People coming out of addiction experience terrible suffering. When they let themselves experience it, it is almost too much to bear to where they have to 1) be honest, and 2) break their suffering down into parts. They have to somehow give it limits.

You have to suffer with people in a way that isn’t going to bring you all the way down. There is a healthy disconnection from any triumphs, struggles, or setbacks. It’s how to truly be with any person, you have to take yourself out of the messy equation.

Disappear for a while but not to escape. Fixate on your drugs to realize how they never served you. Want them all you want but only because you’ve had them for every pain, trial, and terror. Be free to live another day. Retrieve today, you will not drink.

Dad, the kids, and I went down to main camp to move the tables and chairs. I went with because I wanted to go along with them. It’s been just about a week and a half since the wedding. Ethan texted me this morning to tell me he’d taken Laura to the doctor and she’d tested positive for mono. She’s been feeling pretty sick the past couple of days.

It’s not that I thought it was funny, or even that I was worried. I just had this peaceful sense of “and so it begins” and told him to let me know if there was anything I could do from here. I’ve thought a couple of times, wanting to say it at various times over the past several days, that if they need anything that we’re here. But they know this already.

So once I heard she was sick that was pretty much all I needed to make it final to me that I needed to for sure and today let the Memorial thing go. There are enough things going on that I don’t need to be adding or juggling any extra thing that don’t really need to be going on. I also got an email from a woman from church who I’d reached out to.

So I wrote the email and that was that. It was like ripping off a sticky bandaid. I’m grateful that the Lord give us access to himself where we can pray for our loved ones and comfort each other with caring words. Laura’s mom misses Laura and hadn’t heard anything since the morning time either. Her son is doing better now after his surgery.

School went well today also. I’m using this week to help my son get established in his schedule and subjects. I told him earlier I was going to do something I’d never done before in a school year–to not order a single book. So he stopped me from ordering a great geography book this morning. He saved his math for last. “Tedious but satisfying.”

“We can never go back. We can only go on and on.”

~Joy Williams~

I feel like I’ve been going on and on about the kids. We were sitting on the couch this evening and I was like, “It happened. This is what they always said would happen where one day the kids are gone and it’s the two of you looking at each other wondering where all the time went.”

He said, “There’s still one right there”, pointing to the one on the couch with his book. I functioned enough to help move Elianna’s stuff to Grandma’s but the rest of the day I came home and slept, with the exception of switching out the laundry here and there. The boys were at practice.

Elianna was at a friend’s house for a birthday party and last night together before the friend leaves for college, out to Concordia Seward actually. I laid in bed and tried to find an appropriate video to show Wednesday for group.

I’ve been leading the recovery group while the instructor is in Hawaii. I am still trying to decide what to do about this Memorial thing because everyone I’ve talked to about it thinks it’s better to just let that go. But I really wanted to do it.

But if I am doing some of the secretarial stuff at Thrive, then I 1) do not need the hours, and 2) will not have much left to choose from when I consider needing days for individual sessions. I will also have to do homework at some point.

So I don’t know what I’m going to do. I feel like I’ve connected again with the supervisor at Memorial and was excited to go back there and maybe form some connections and get more experience where I could see how I’d changed.

And if I’m being honest there was that part of me that thought it could also be good for business. Like if they liked me there they would send their discharging clients to me. Thrive has had lots of patient referrals lately with no shortage of names.

And really, it’s like I wanted to be able to do groups as a freer person and away from the pressure of the supervisor’s shadow. Which I basically got to do by doing these groups without him there. It just feels like I can’t be totally sure.

“There is no season such delight can bring, as summer, autumn, winter, and spring.”
~William Browne~

Sometimes I like reading through my old journals just to see what random quotes I wrote down. It always impresses me how much I was reading, and how I seemed to read so much more in the throes of homeschooling even though it seems that now I have more time. Sometimes I read things and wonder where I was getting it from.

~~~

Pride-the belief that you know so much as to do without the transcendent

Humility-deeply aware of your own ignorance
*listening makes micro adjustments to one’s own self
*the ultimate sacrifice is the continual sacrificing of self to God, guided by unshakable commitment to highest good

~~~

This book about C.S. Lewis that I started reading last night repeatedly talks about the Joy, or longing for something beyond the world that meets the eye. I know this longing well. It makes the waters cooler, the grasses greener, the honey sweeter. It also makes the sorrow longer. Perhaps it never goes away. Not in this life.

~~~

The boys are getting so big. I tucked them in tonight and sang to them, hoping to calm their energetic demeanors. I do not feel yet that motherhood has passed by fast, but I do see now how it, indeed, is passing by.

~~~

There is one week left of school and truthfully, I am ready to be done. I am over all the struggles. I don’t like unpleasant situations. I am homeschooling because I believe it will make not only an eternal difference for my children, but also an earthly one. I just hope that I am not wrong, that all of this unpleasantness was not for nothing.

~~~

Difficult and rich-this is what a person in an authentic maturation finds at the essence of it all-and it shows-both inside and outside, on the person who strives toward it. This we know, there is a noticeable difference between a considered life of depth and one based on phantasmagoric beliefs. On this journey toward “true home” though we may, from time to time, turn back to record or measure from whence we came, we do not turn back in order to turn back.

(source unknown)

Once we get through the weekend I’m looking forward to hopefully getting back into a more normal routine. Last weekend and the entire summer was such a whirlwind, and I’m still kind of lingering in the after effects of everything, but I know that life does not slow down simply because something big just happened. The laundry room is still full of clothes and the freezer full of meals to be cooked. The extra gifts are still in our room.

In just the little I’ve worked with individual clients it’s interesting to me how the next step or thing in life will almost naturally appear. As they attune to the path they are on and start to hear more clearly the still small voice that is speaking to them, there is less confusion and more hope and peace. I am not the voice and I cannot hear what the voice is telling them. I can only help them to know it is there and ask what it is saying.

When I asked myself what the voice is saying it is something along the lines of “keep going”. Relationships come to mind that I still am needing to work on. Another week must pass by before I am able to continue with counting hours. Tests will be taken and classes attended. Kids will run races. I feel I’ve grown to be a patient person yet find it still hard to wait. I’m getting more comfortable with being still in the inbetween times.

I haven’t even mentioned when the cross country team was at our house for an hour. I told Ethan I wanted to fangirl over all of them and say all of their names. Ethan told me to please not do that. I don’t understand the thing inside that age of kids that gets kind of weird when their mother acts like she might also be a human person with feelings. It’s like I’m expected to be this perfectly matronly creature of wisdom and restraint.

So I didn’t do it, but I did speak to them every once in a while, at least in a more seemingly acceptable way. Like when Thomas drove in and I said, “Oh hi, Thomas!” and behind him in the next car were Aiden and Nate. The others came in before that and interrupted an overdue conversation Ethan and I were having. He later apologized for leaving so abruptly but I was not disappointed. I was grateful we’d taken the time.

So anyway. I feel like I’m slowly getting back to normal after everything. Emotionally I think I have leveled back out and physically I’m still pretty tired but getting there. We had Red Robin gifts cards so tonight we did that. Tomorrow we are planning to work on the peaches. Between the two parents we’ve heard a couple of times from the newlywed. Tonight was the Rockies game. I checked the game later. The Rockies had won 4-3.

Dad, the kids, and I went to the state fair this evening. They’d gone earlier in the day but I did not go with and stayed here with Zorro and continued to rest. The excitement of the past few weeks has had me running on adrenaline which had had me feeling wired and unable to nap or sleep well in the night. Each of the kids chose one ride and then I rode something with the leftover tickets. It was the kids mini-roller coaster and was fun.

The kids contributed their dollars. All of a sudden things got tight really quick over the summer. Between medical bills, tuition payments, Zorro’s surgery, another driver, new tires, increased taxes, and then the wedding, we made it all the way down to having almost no money. I have enough to pay my (hopefully) final tuition bill for the fall and then that’ll be gone and will have to be replenished with additional pay checks.

I’ve always figured I would only work part time but I don’t see a reason why I couldn’t work at least closer to full-time. Between the two jobs it shouldn’t be a problem at all. The pastor at our church is still out from his stroke and there’s been talk about trying to find a more permanent solution to cover his continued absence. He is healing but is still unable to work. So that might be something. However it works out the Lord will provide.

I remember all the times we
played together. You were my world
and my entire life shifted
to think of you and only you

Others came later and we
built our routines and
blanket forts in the living room

I missed being with you
but my heart
grew in power
to be able to hold more
to love more

Without you, I know this life
will be different
but also new joys
in life will come

Loving you taught me this

and allowed me to become
a truer version of myself

someone who cares
who plays hard and
works because she has to

but most of all
someone who loves
and was loved in return

.

.

(photo credits: laura’s cousin & aunt)

We’re having a staycation this week before the kids go back to school on Monday. I haven’t been much use for anything as the past two days have been spent on the couch, or walking outside, or in bed. Josh still has his board and committee meetings for the high school and continued building planning. The boys have had cross country practice the past two evenings. Elianna has been packing up her things to move out.

I still have Thrive things but next week won’t have as much. I see it in my own immediate family right now how as times goes on it gets harder to synchronize everyone’s plans. This is something I’ve been thinking about looking back on the wedding. It meant so much to me, and it was so rare and special, to have all of my family there for this special occasion. I can only imagine that as years go on and life happens this won’t be the case.

I want to go to every graduation, every wedding, every bridal shower I’m invited to for our nieces and nephews. I want to go to the games of my nieces in St. Louis. No person is unimportant and the presence of others matters. It was such a joy to have every single person here over the past several days. It can feel like time is ending but really, as long as we are here, we can still our spend time in so many ways that are meaningful.