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.

The kids went out to help Dad with the mowing. Grandma’s tractor has been in the shop so they hadn’t been out there to mow in a while. I was going to be working on a paper but work texted saying that one of the nurses had called off. I still needed a weekend shift this month so I said I’d go in. And yes you do want to help out when you can. It’s a very busy wing and there’s always something going on but I do still like it.

After getting home we went for a ride around the property. It’d been a little while since I’d been that far on the grounds. We zoomed around through the woods and along the river. I know the names the names of points, like “high point” and “John’s spot”, but I still wouldn’t know how to walk from here to there. I’m sure I could eventually find them, but I don’t go out to the “back 40” often. I stay on the side closest to main camp.

I checked in the shift notes to see what had happened with the lady I mentioned. It said she “expired” on Wednesday a little after five. Her son had come in to sit with her which made me happy. This time there was a resident who was very exhausted and wanted to just give up and die. A supervisor was there so I asked her about it after the family was asking me questions. Later he perked back up and ate his supper.

Today I entertained some guests. Laura’s mom and Matt’s mom came to camp for an afternoon visit. We’ve had this planned for a couple of weeks because it took that long to find a date that worked for all of us. They brought their swim clothes and we spent a significant amount of time at the beach. Laura’s mom was there first and was able to come out earlier than Matt’s mom. So the two of us went out on the paddleboard.

When everyone was there we swam the lake. One of the former camp counselors who used to work at camp during our first several years here was also visiting for the week. She showed up one day when I was on my way back from taking something to the dumpster. This is how it works, people sometimes just show up. I didn’t have anything going on that morning so we visited for a while and she caught me up on the things.

We used to swim the lake together. She did it more with one of the other counselors at the time, but I had just been thinking of our swims when I was at the lake on Saturday. She wanted to swim this afternoon but I told her some women were coming today. We could maybe all do it together. I checked with the other moms to see if that would seem like something they’d want to do. They seemed up for that and even eager to try.

So I made sure everyone understood that this was not intended to be a strenuous or high-pressure swim. It was meant to be leisurely and everyone would take along a floatation device. You can’t take people’s health and physical abilities for granted. You have to be mindful of who can and who cannot walk down a hill without hurting their knees. Even with the age gaps we had much to talk about in a small Lutheran world.

It was fun. When we returned we sat on the dock and watched a cabin do a canoe race and then a swim one. Elianna came down and I asked if she had to lifeguard. She said no she was just coming down to sit with me. I expressed somehow that it made me happy. She sat with us too and Laura’s mom passed out cookies. After a while we decided we should head back up and get ready for supper. We ate in the dining hall.

I like when parents can come and see their kids in their various elements. One’s coaching and love for athletics was coming out at the beach. Laura’s cabin was trotting for supper so she was in charge of dismissing the tables, leading the song prayers, and distributing mail. Her mom took several pictures from the table. Later on a walk Matt was leading a session of fishing. When he does it nearly everyone always catches a fish.