My presentation is over thank the good Lord in heaven. He gets me through these crazy assignments and the unpleasant things I must do. It actually kind of enjoyed being up there and sharing with the class what I have learned about homelessness. They graciously participated and discussed and answered questions. Alexis was there and before class we saw each other and gave each other a huge hug. I miss her so much.

For group we’re supposed to lead a psychoeducation section sometime. Jane did hers on codependency. I forget what Kyle said he was working on. I think I want to do mine on fun, resilience, and joy, with fun including the definition of doing something you love. After I was done I met my sister and mom at the hospital. The doctor came out and said things went well and there were no significant blockages. We were happy to hear that.

The leaky valve is still severe. So they are thinking surgery will happen in the next 2-3 weeks. We hung out with dad in the recovery room where he stayed to be watched for a couple of hours. Both of the kids PR’d in the mile and Zorro enjoyed attending the track meet. We were grateful to God for good experience at the hospital. Dad said maybe this was a stretch but the word that came to mind to describe it all for him was sublime.

It’s always good to be back after being away for a trip. While visiting Ethan I asked about what he wanted to do for Easter. He said he’d come home if someone would come and pick him up. We hadn’t even thought that far ahead as far as plans. Josh will have the Friday service and there’s supposed to be a meet that is on that Friday as well. So I told him I would come and pick him up and we could leave from the meet.

So that was kind of nice to have another meet to look forward to. The kids start their track meet season tomorrow with the regular season opener in Riverton. I’m supposed to give my presentation tomorrow afternoon during class. I switched with the girl going ahead of me so I could go first instead of second. My dad is having his heart cath procedure tomorrow in Springfield so that is where I plan to go after my class.

I don’t have anything deeper to say at the moment. I find myself roaming around in dreams about the future. I was telling Josh this morning that I’m thinking I will need to be proactive about getting clients and advertising myself once I (God-willing) graduate. I would need to find ways to get my face-to-face hours. I could volunteer at Trinity for one day a week. He said I could do the same thing at the high school.

Would he care if I did it without any pay? He said if it was for the Lutheran schools then he wouldn’t. The Contact thing is still in my head because professionally I know I need to talk to my supervisor. It was one of those things where I figured I at least had a couple of weeks before it likely would at some point be noticed I was gone. I don’t want to burn a bridge or end on bad terms or mention the things I never brought up.

Tonight we enjoyed a nice evening outside. The boys were playing pickleball at the volleyball net while Josh and I were taking our individual walks. Along the road I met Elianna also walking with Zorro. The purple flowers drew me over to the girls’ cabins and then I walked around there enjoying the small change of scenery. The trees are still pretty bare and when I came over the lake hill I marveled at the sun’s light.

The rest of my visit went very well. I had a very nice time upon returning to the house where I was able to spend some time with my friend and her family. It’s the kind of family where you smile inside because they’re so delightful to be around. I slept through the night for nine straight hours. They have a beautiful finished basement where they kick out their teenage son whenever guests come to stay.

In the morning we visited for a little while longer before I said goodbye around 9AM. I drove over to campus to see what Ethan was doing and to figure out my plan for the morning. He was getting ready to go eat breakfast but didn’t recommend it because it’s never that great. I drove to McDonalds figuring I would find something there but there was no longer a McDonalds where there used to be one. I ended up at Subway.

The Subway there opens at 9 which I’d never heard of. I had a regular chicken wrap like you’d have for lunch with a bag of chips. After that I drove across the street to a gas station to pick up a medium coffee. I told Ethan I’d be in the campus center until it was time to head to the track for his meet. If he had time I told him to stop by and visit but if he didn’t that was okay too. He came by for a while after noon after lunch.

He left to go back and get ready. Because of weather they were only doing distance events and several of the teams had decided not to come. It was cold and windy but clear as day. I hung out on the stands for a while until it was too cold so I went back to the car. I watched the men’s 1500 then left during the women’s 5k. I came back in the middle of the men’s 5k in time to see Trey and Vaughn and the others. Trey won.

Vaughn isn’t running as fast these days. Ethan says the team will sometimes call him King Vaughn because he’s the fastest. I think Trey got tired of a freshman beating him because it doesn’t seem to happen as much anymore. This time Ethan was running the 800 and was ranked last in the fast heat. He’s been doing pretty well and I was happy to see he’d worn his long sleeves and tights under his regular running uniform.

I filmed his race. I was alone in my part of the bleachers and whenever you’ve filming a race you somewhat are not able to fully watch. But for the last lap I was able to see him better and saw he was third when the pack opened up. I thought “Oh my gosh, he’s running great”. The teammates were running back and forth across the field shouting at the Concordia runners so I did not have to worry about raising my voice for that.

He was passed at the end and finished 4th which I thought was really good. I waited for the score board to show what the times were and saw he’d officially set a new outdoor PR. I was excited for him and yet wasn’t surprised. I texted Dad who was in the car driving and Elianna who was home. I walked to the other side of the stands, him down there, I saw, looking. I gave him a thumbs up and he raised his thumb back to me.

I’m sitting here in the campus center wondering what exactly I’m doing here. The coffee shop is closed and the janitors are already vacuuming. The drive went well after leaving home around 8:30. I had some time to think and called my aunt and talked to her. Ethan was still at practice when I arrived at the campus so I parked in front of the football field, pulled my blanket close to me, and fell asleep until he met me.

We drove over to the place where I am staying. I’m slightly regretting not getting a hotel room only because once I leave here I’m going to be ready to sleep again. We went to Jimmy John’s for supper because he’s done that before and knows he can run afterward. We talked about his schedule for the next few semesters and he didn’t exactly ask me but I gave him my blessing for dropping out of the honors program because sometimes you have to sacrifice good things for better things.

I ordered shoes from Amazon for him and his brother. We drove down the road to the apartment complex where they might be living but no one is sure yet. After that I dropped him off as there was nothing left to do. I said I was going to Janzow for a while to work on homework. I told them I’d be back around 8 and figured that will allow some time to catch up and still get to bed early. I always did feel kind of alone here.

Well I actually worked on my power point slides today. I don’t know if it’s better or worse that I do not know most of the people in my class. There’s Alexis and Kyle and Peter from my other school. There’s a guy named Josh who sits in the back row with me and we try our best to stay present and not look completely shocked at each other when something very outrageous is said. It’s a young class and you’d be surprised.

But these are the ones I’ll be doing internship classes with in the summer and the fall. So you get a better chance to know people then. On the way home from my internship class last night my mom called to say dad had gotten the results from his tests. He’d gone to the doctor last month after weeks and months of having shortness of breath. The anxiety thing runs in our family so you never know. He also then had fluid in his legs.

So he has to have open heart surgery to replace a leaky aortic valve. His current cardiac function is between 25-30%. With the surgery the doctor says is go could up to 50. He also has something like a bulging aorta which is something we’ve known about for a while. He’s planning to have the surgery in Springfield as well as all of his pre-surgery tests and follow-up. I’m glad that he is having it here because that means I can go.

Ethan has a weather shortened track meet this weekend. My tentative plan is to leave between 6-8. I’m staying with the friends we stayed with over the summer. I debated whether or not to ask her because there is that part of me that is fine being a recluse. But I thought I should take her up on the offer since she offered. Josh stayed with them back in January and he had a very nice time and visit with their family and new puppy.

Josh and the boys finished boiling the rest of the sap this week. They took a whole day to be out there taking turns with the fire. Today I was having dreams about the boys climbing trees. I was taking a nap sometime before lunch drifting in and out of consciousness and sleep. It still just amazes me that this is where we’re at, as in how are they growing up and this old. I came out to the couch and told them I loved them.

“Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him?”
~James 2:5~

Group today I thought went well. I like it most with more people around the room. One of the women who’d been there last semester is back. She’s had several multiple relapses and recently was back in an inpatient program. But now she is back here. I like her because she is very intelligent and has rich things to say when she shares with the group. That’s not exactly why I like her, but that is something about her that I like.

The thing that gets me is how normal these people are. With addictions I’d tend to think of those junkies on the street, homeless and congregating near whatever building was offering the next free meal. They don’t have teeth and their clothes are old and worn. They’re malnourished and often part of a minority population. Everyone who comes to group here is white. Some own businesses. Most of them are currently not working.

Because they’ve taken or been forced into some kind of leave or disability in order to focus on finding sobriety. The person who was the only one there last Friday was not there and did not end up showing up to the weekend conference. After that intense and grueling 1 on 1 group session that Jane and I watched, I thought maybe there was a 65% chance of him showing up, but I was definitely hopeful. I couldn’t believe he didn’t go.

He’d wanted to shut down group a few years. It wasn’t worth it, he could make way more money seeing individual clients. But someone told him that day he needed to read the obituaries. One of the people who’d been in and out of group had died. The alcoholism destroyed his body and killed him. In lieu of flowers, the family said this person before he died wanted memorial memorial money sent to the Thrive Center.

So then he said, okay, no matter what, we’re having group. Jane wasn’t there so it was just me and Kyle when he said that just so we know, for whatever reason, he’d been off in group today. He wasn’t attuned, he didn’t know where to go with it. Gabor Mate’ calls this the compassion of recognition. It’s where you are able to look at the person in front of you, next to you, and all those around you and understand we are not any different.

Somehow we’re in April now. People keep talking about how they’re starting to stress with the approaching end of semester but up until now I haven’t felt any of that. With pretty much every assignment left due this month, I really do need to get cracking on the homework and finish the things I need to do. This power point presentation is the thing that is stressing me out most and after that is over I will be able to relax.

I’ve started to have a little bit of regret from leaving Contact. Not so much the leaving itself, but the timing and how I managed the exit. While the teachers are supportive, they encouraged me to come to them first before making such a big decision without them. I did think that it all probably came out of the blue. But the fact was that certain things with me there had been slowly building over time. I was tired of ignoring it.

And ready to be challenged in areas I’m needing to grow. Unfortunately I still have two videos left to accumulate and show but with no clients to record. I was at Thrive yesterday making things crystal clear with my supervisor. He tells me that I am the number one priority in getting the next two people who come in. There is cop coming out of rehab that he says he is not going to have any time to do the assessment for.

But I probably won’t get the cop because there is too much on the line with him being a professional. In his defense, he said I was giving mixed messages as to what I was needing. Laid back, in no rush, whenever it happens. We actually had a great conversation and I think I really am at peace now both with him and with the site. I’ve decided I am there to be humble and learn, to be more like the baby learning to walk.

I woke up and came into the mud room to find my middle son holding car keys and leaving the house. The image was foreign and my brain scrambled to make sense of what I was seeing and my mind sought to remember what facts and had been previously communicated to me that would explain this but that I in that moment was not remembering. The kids had a half day. The upperclassman were coming to camp.

So Elianna did not have to go to school. My son still did and was driving himself. Did he have the phone? He did. I shook my head in disbelief and put my arm around him and hugged him goodbye. “Have a good day”, is what I say when we hug. Later I asked my college son if he wanted to make plans to hang out on Friday. Sure, he said. But what you do with your 20-year old son? We could go out to eat and walk and talk for hours.

I mean that’s what I envisioned. He said it couldn’t be anywhere crazy to eat since he was going to have to run the next day. He’s used to the cafeteria food so then I thought maybe could just stay and eat there. What if we just stayed at school and ate supper like you normally do with your teammates? It would be so fun to talk to them. Would that be too weird? It completely amazes me when he says that classifies as too weird.

Sometime last week I started crying on the way to group. I remembered myself in the shower crying, when I was weaning the last one, or knew it was time to, and I could not imagine, I could. not. imagine., never having this magic again. These homeschool years, the years before, have been so completely wonderful. I cried again with Dad and Elianna at the table. “It’s weaning pains”, I said. He said it’s growing pains, that it’s good.

We were all in bed before 10. I can hear their voices from below through the ceiling. Before Dad gets too comfortable, “Can you tell them to go to bed?” He fumbles out, stomps on the floor, shouts through the vent, “Go to bed!” It cracks me up. I used to laugh at times when we were together, but sometimes now, at the same place and time, I cry. We hold. What is it, he asks. I try to say, “I want you to stay close to me.”

“…and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect…”
~Hebrews 12:23~

My sleep has been terrible the past few weeks. I will wake up and be up for three hours at a time and sometimes even longer if I just can’t fall back asleep. Laura’s mom was a the retreat and she showed me this magnesium bar that looks like deodorant. You rub it on the inside of your wrists, over your sternum, and on your feet if you want to. Her mom recommended it to her and she thinks that it works and offered to let me try it.

I slept through the entire night. So I got the product information from her and will pick some up the next time I’m in town. Laura’s mom said her mind starts to race and that’s what keeps her up. I don’t even think that’s what happens with me. I’m conscious and tired but it’s like my brain just can’t make the switch back over into shut down mode.

So then I’m sleepy and tired the next day and don’t remember much other than that I’m awake and can’t sleep. I found someone to work my Sunday evening shift so I was able to go to the annual camp banquet. In my opinion it was one of the best we’ve had. The musician was an absolute dream on the guitar (Cumulonimbus by Adam Maletich). One of our old camp friends was the speaker and it was so great to hang out and see him.

This women’s retreat was such an edifying experience for me. I’d kind of gone into it with no expectations other than to to receive or give whatever it was God had for me. the first question of the night we were to pair up with a partner and share with them what we were wrestling with. I asked the speaker how long we had because when women get talking we can really get talking and I need to know how much time we had.

She said how about 7ish minutes. So I listened to the woman who was sitting beside me and she was wrestling with things she’s been wrestling with for years. We have a history and know each other’s more private struggles. I spoke to this woman who knows my past and I believe her response was a word from God to me. I felt wowed and at peace.

God really does speak to us through his people. As I listened to the speaker I had the thought that the place we struggle(d) most with feeling so unappreciated is the same exact thing where we are most exceptionally gifted. God does this for two reasons 1) to humble us, and 2) to free us. To free us to love wildly without expectation. Because the joy came not in what others saw in or from us, but because Christ was shown there.