short, brief

Hmmmm. Can't think of much to write, except that I am so loving the weather outside. For the majority of the year, walking outside in Florida is like walking in a badly-decorated steam room. It's hot, it's muggy, it's just not fun. It makes me twitch and long for snow-capped mountains and seeing my breath. Only this weekend, it was completely wonderful: high 70s, breezy, sunny, beautiful. Jason and I spent a lot of time outside. Right now, the windows are all open, and the cool night air is floating through our apartment. Glorious.

Still running. It's nice to exercise outdoors and not find yourself a puddle of sweat afterward.

major landmarks of the world

Conversation between a six year old girl and my friend Katie while waiting for a Disney show to begin:

girl: "What's your name?"

K: "Katie."

g: "Where do you live?"

K: "In Orlando."

g: (look of awe) "So you don't have to go to a hotel when you leave?"

K: (Katie smiling)"No... I get to drive back to my house. What town do you live in?"

g: "Pace."

K: "Where is Pace? I don't know where that is."

g: (long pause, face scrunched in thought) "Um... it's by the Walmart."

down a pound!

AND it's a gorgeous day outside. Jason and I celebrated by going to the Food and Wine Festival at Epcot - where else can you purchase two potstickers for $4, or an 8-oz beer for $12? Still, I haven't eaten a soft pretzel as good as I did tonight, even if it was a bit overpriced.

In fact, we went so far as to buy annual passes to Disney. It was a splurge of magnificent proportions, I must say: I think I had heart palpitations when I saw Jason hand over the debit card to the friendly, pimply-faced Disney ticket cashier. But a few weeks ago, we had received an anonymous gift from a member of our church. It was sent to us with a simple thank you that said "we're glad you are here". As gift money, I had a feeling that maybe we weren't supposed to piddle it away on daily necessities or even something as level-headed and practical as paying off a credit card or padding our savings account. No, we decided to give ourselves a year's worth of dates and invest in us.

I love taking Jason to Disney because it is similar to taking a young child to Disney for the first time. I don't mean that he is childish at all, but he grew up in Michigan, and had previously been to Disney just once, briefly, and saw very little. Taking him to the different parks was a bit like sharing my own childhood with him: I grew up going to the Magic Kingdom, walking around Epcot, and I loved every minute of it. I still do. Even going on the rides that are completely hokey and outdated - like the "Carousel of Progress" where the world of "tomorrow" is replete with Luke Skywalker bowl-cut 'dos and green-screen computers - makes me feel all happy and giddy inside. Sharing that with the person I love most in this world is ten times the joy, especially when I get to see him discover all of the cool Disney things for the first time.

Our legs and feet are tired, but our hearts are full. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts, Anonymous Happiness Spreader, wherever you are.

life in the ED

I spent the day in the trauma bay at the emergency department of the hospital where I work. It's not exactly like ER, mostly because I never saw George Clooney walking around purposefully and rescuing patients with excellent plot outcomes. Things I did see and experience:

--overheard between two residents: "Um, to put in that NG tube... yeah... the thingy goes in there, I think." Fear should strike one's heart at the words "thingy" and "I think" from a doctor's mouth.

--a man with a self-inflicted gunshot wound who made himself into a quadriplegic needing breathing support

--several nursing home falls and two nonagenarians among them

--a bicyclist vs. semi with nary a broken bone or internal bleeding

I think the highlight of my day, other than the many times where I jumped in and did actual nursing interventions, was a two year old girl who came in with her mom. Both were in a car collision, and both were unhurt but visibly shaken; the mom was 36 weeks pregnant and fearful for her unborn baby's health. They brought her two-year old daughter into the trauma bay with her since there was really nowhere else for her to go, and the little girl was strapped in her car seat still, solemn, wide-eyed, and looking very unsure about her new surroundings. I crouched on my feet next to her and started talking to her softly: about her shoes, the candy she still clutched in her hand, her pretty dress. Slowly, she started to speak, mostly to ask "where's momma" ("the doctor is helping her get better"). Eventually, she let me pick her up and take her to her mom; she clung to my neck and played with my name badge, where I had a Sharpie pen and flashlight attached to keep her pretty occupied until her "oma" came to pick her up.

Of everything I did that day, helping a child to feel less scared and more safe was the best thing I did all day. Seeing her smile - even as small a smile as it was - made my heart swell.

NaBloPoMo

Welcome to National Blog Posting Month! I heartily accept the challenge to write a post every day... which means some days are going to be thoughtful and deep, and yet others will be, well... THERE. I haven't written a post a day ever, so we'll see how this goes.

Off to rehearsal!

momentum

This week was not a huge success by numbers only: weigh-in revealed I had not lost, not maintained, but had somehow managed to gain half a pound, even after running four days last week. Of course I was pissed off: all that hard work seemed to be for nothing. I wanted to boast another great week and inch ever closer to that pie-in-the-sky goal of mine. Not this week, apparently.

Mike talked to the congregation this morning about momentum, and how to maintain that spiritual momentum: trust, obey, and humble yourself. Simple words, but so difficult to do sometimes, especially if you've been conditioned to buck at the word "obey" like I have. Spiritually and physically, it's really hard to maintain momentum when things are not going your way. Why did I gain this week? Why did work have to be so hard? Why did we have to lose two babies in a row while everyone else seems to be growing them in droves? I don't know the answers, but I know how I slow down and want to quit moving when those things happen.

Being healthy is so much more than the running I do or the foods I eat. It is becoming a spiritual discipline, an act of trusting God to run the show when I've tried to do this by myself so many times before. I cannot expect to move forward if I do not, well, actually move forward. No one will move my legs for me. On those days when it is overcast and I am really feeling tired, I don't want to move. On those days when I have not planned well, I don't want to take the extra 5-10 minutes to pack a healthy meal for myself. I do not want to make the small steps to move forward. But I hear Him calling to me, giving me everything I need to do what I need to do: the energy, the skill, the basic coordination of one foot in front of the other, the abundance of healthy options.

A lot of people have expressed their admiration to me that I run; I usually get a comment like "I could never do that". I spent so many years thinking that exact same sentiment: I was weak, I was disinclined to anything athletic. I was the one who got picked last for teams, who went terrified to every P.E. class. I never joined a team or athletic club. Of all the many sports that remained foreign and undoable, running was pretty much at the top of the list of Things I Cannot Do. I told myself that I wasn't able to do anything more than the occasional fast walk or lap in the pool, and I certainly wasn't disciplined enough to do any of that on a regular basis, I thought. I completely and utterly believed myself.

So to find myself doing the very thing I thought most impossible - running on a regular, disciplined basis, and doing well at it and enjoying it - is no small miracle. I can hardly believe that I can call myself a runner, but I can. The little girl inside of me - the one who was always picked last - is crying with delight when I think about what I can do. I do not run fast and I do not run far, but I always, always keep going. I hear God telling me that I am so much more than I believed myself to be, and that creates my momentum.

I'll leave you with a movie clip that Mike shared with us and that struck a chord in my heart: God, I won't give up on you. I'll run until I finish this great race, and you are there right next to me the whole way.

my morning routine

Side note: I lost 2.6 pounds this week for a grand total of FIVE. I'm also running faster and my jeans are fitting much better. The muffin top disappeareth.

Anyway, here's a glimpse of my morning:

if you really want to fly...

"Hope for the Flowers" is the story of a caterpillar named Stripe who watched fellow caterpillars climbing and stepping on and over others with no idea about what was at the top. When he asked others what was at the top, the answer was, "No one knows, but it must be awfully good because everybody’s going there."

Stripe tried for a while and even met a lovely female caterpillar named Yellow, and they tried together and gave up together. Stripe tried again, and one day, as Yellow was waiting for Stripe to come back, she discovered a grey caterpillar struggling to get out of a cocoon. She offered to help, but the grey caterpillar said, "No, I have to do this to become a butterfly."

Yellow asked, "What is a butterfly?"

The grey caterpillar replied, "It is what you are meant to become. It flies with beautiful wings and joins the earth to heaven. It drinks only nectar from the flowers and carries the seeds of love from one flower to another. Without butterflies, the world would soon have few flowers."

Yellow asked, "How does one become a butterfly?"

The grey caterpillar replied, "You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar."




I thought about that story today as I went down the running trail. How easy is it for us to get stuck in a rut, follow the same old routine, and stay on the ground, wishing we could fly but being unwilling to undergo the metamorphosis? Beautiful butterflies are not born that way. They become. They give up the relative safety of living on solid ground to take a risk and reach higher, become more beautiful than they have ever been.

It's been a better week for me. I've eaten healthier - not on a diet, thank you - and made myself move more and found some very useful ways to let off steam and anxiety that do not involve peanut butter M&Ms. I found out this morning I let go of two and a half pounds over the past week, which a friend gleefully reminded me is ten sticks of butter. I was torn between my celebratory mood at having dropped the weight and disturbing visions of my body made completely out of butter (with bar-shaped chunks now removed).

I want to fly. I do. I know I'm going to need to resist the urge to buck against the cocooning process: there are some areas of my life that need to be altered, and I just don't like change that much, even good ones. I need to stop treating living healthy like a phase, which I've done time and time again. I'm going into this with a lot of faith and a not-so-great track record - I'm acutely aware that there is an entire congregation of people (literally) who witness the amazing yo-yo effect I do every 8-9 months, and it's a little unnerving to me, feeling like the Great Fluctuation.

So, here's to one more day of the butterfly effect. And one after that, and another after that. For now, though, I'm just working on today's cocoon.

melts in your mouth, not in your hand

Every now and then in my life, I get these stunning reminders that I cannot do life all by myself. I don't mean "all by myself" like a desert island dweller or hunch-backed hermit, but, you know, independent, on top of my game, smooth and unblemished. It's probably not a coincidence that peanut butter M&Ms have been a fixation of mine lately. Hardy candy shells are good for those M&Ms I've downed lately, not human beings or their hearts.

I submit the following evidence to you:



I really hate this picture. I shouldn't, because it was taken just a couple of days ago, and I have not radically altered my appearance since then, so this is pretty much me as I present myself to the world each day. I don't want to say I hate how I look. But I do. I look large. I feel large. I'm not bedridden or waddling or struggling to walk down the hall, but it's a direction I could go. I had this picture taken on purpose: sometimes you need to see exactly where you are to help define where you need to go and how you need to get there.

There's more under the surface, too. I have been anxious. I blamed it on school, the constant threat of homework and shifting schedules and unfair exams for the past 15 months. When I miscarried, I blamed it on my uterus. When I miscarried for the second time this year, I blamed my God. When I graduated, I blamed it on boards. All those things are done, and I'm still worked up. I could blame it now on starting a new job, the upcoming holidays, unrest in the Middle East, Orlando traffic, El nino, whatever. I'm starting to realize that there will always be something. And my God, I cannot keep feeling like a wind-up toy that's been wound too far. It makes me want to eat a lot and hide under the covers. It makes me not call my friends, and I felt so lonely tonight that I just broke down and cried after I couldn't get a hold of one of my best friends that I haven't spent quality time with in, I don't know, forever.

For now, life is taken in little one-minute bites. I've started eating better this week. It's hard, but it does feel better. I'm looking for someone to help me (professionally) sort out all the jumbled emotions I've squashed over the past two years, trying to be in control and not all messy and untoward. I'm getting out the running shoes - walking first for a while - because I remember feeling calmer and clearer when I did that. I'm calling friends. I'm praying a whole lot. I'm trying to shed the hard candy shell.

ah... you were right all along

I passed!

These last few days have been torture, although a special bravery award should be given to my dearest husband for marrying a woman who has an exaggerated flair for melodrama and possesses an overactive imagination and sense of self-doom. Really, I was frightfully intolerable, and he was wonderful, pouring peanut butter M&Ms and Strongbow directly down my throat upon command and giving me lots of snuggly hugs without expecting any nookie in return.

And yes, I have Learned My Lesson, folks: it ain't over 'til the Fat Lady at the Florida Board of Nursing office sings. No matter how convinced I was of certain failure, let's face it: a girl just can't be right all of the time, you know? I was wrong. Never have I been so happy to be wrong in my life.

A special side note for all my friends still waiting to take their exams: yes, it really did suck that bad. But expect the suckiness. Embrace it. Snuggle with it. It probably means you passed. Go to the mall after the exam and blow some money.

And a huge thanks to everyone who knew better than I did and had faith in me, even if I did put on a pretty convincing boo-hoo act after it was all over.

Picture of navy scrubbed-me forthcoming.