10 Years

Ten years.  It’s been ten years since my life changed dramatically.  Ten years ago I woke up before dawn to pack and then load three bags of my belongings into my sister’s car.  Three bags was all I could take at the time and I knew I might not be able to retrieve the rest of my stuff for a while, so I tried to choose as wisely as I could.  I needed to get the bags loaded before my sisters and I left later that morning so no one would ask me what I was doing.  I managed to get my bags out of the house and then had to carry them on two separate trips on the bus to my job, where I stashed them in a back storage room until that evening when I left work.
Ten years ago today, at about 6 o’clock in the evening, I made a phone call I never dreamed I would make.  My hands trembled as I dialed a number I had known by heart since I was at least five.  I was physically sick to my stomach and went to the bathroom several times thinking I was going to vomit. Eventually, I went into a stairwell on the outer edge of the library my job was housed in, sat on the steps, and leaned against the cold concrete wall for support as I told my oldest sister I wasn’t coming home.  I was calling to let her know so that my family didn’t worry about me.  She wanted to talk about it; I didn’t.  It was a short call and I hung up with her still attempting to get me to stay on the phone.
Ten years ago, I loaded my bags into the trunk of my friend’s car and started the drive to another friend’s house where I was going to be staying for a while.  On the drive, my phone take constantly - family members, friends, my mom.  They all wanted the same thing.  They wanted me to come back, to talk to them, to not make the decision I had already made.  I didn’t answer my phone.  I eventually turned it off.  As my friend and I drove, I began to talk more about what I was doing, about why I was choosing to leave behind the life I had known for the last 27 years.  As talked, more and more words came tumbling out.  I was telling my stories - the stories of my childhood, the stories of my experiences, the stories of my hurt and pain.  It wasn’t long until the tears started coming too.  My friend pulled over into a parking lot and I sat and sobbed for almost an hour.
Ten years ago today, my friend drove me to an Applebee’s and we sat and talked for more than an hour as I began to reveal for the first time so many hidden secrets.  Ten years ago I walked away from an abusive community that used God and the Bible to control and manipulate people.  This was a life I was born into.  These were people I loved and had trusted.  This was a faith I had been taught to rely on.  The realization of what was truly happening and my coming to terms with the trauma and wounds I had suffered as a result of being part of this community had caused me to make the decision to leave it all behind and to start over.  Ten years ago I left everything I was, including the only identity I had ever had, and I began to build a new life.  There was no road map for me to follow and the entire world was an unfamiliar and scary place that I was walking into mostly alone.  It’s been a hard journey these past ten years, but it has been worth it.  If I had not walked away from that darkness 10 years ago, I would not have married Mr. Darcy, I would not have our beautiful daughter, and I would not be where I am today.  I am a healthier, happier person with a brighter outlook on life than I ever was as a member of that community.  Today, I am remembering where I came from and the journey I started ten years ago.  May I never forget where I came from, those who have helped me in my journey to freedom, and the many ways in which my pain and sorrow has been redeemed.  Happy Freedom Anniverary to me!

It's Been A While

It's been a while since I sat down and blogged.  I've wanted to so many times but have not had the energy or the time to do so.  I'm a bit of a perfectionist and I like to have my ideas cemented firmly before I sit down to write about them.  This is probably the single greatest reason I have not blogged in more than a year.  Lord knows I have had plenty to blog about.  A lot has changed since I last published a post here.  The most noticeable change is that I am now a mother.  There is a lot to unpack with just that one reality, and perhaps that's why I have forced myself to sit down and do what I have been wanting to do for months - write about it.  There are other changes in my life and there are still multiple ideas and thoughts that I am wrestling with, and I want to write about all of them.  So, here I am starting to use this special space again; a space I have come to for more than 10 years to talk about, think about, and process this journey called life.  For those of you who may still be following this blog, I hope you at least enjoy the wanderings and musings of my mind, but mostly I hope they will challenge you, comfort you, and cause you to ask your own questions. 

Introvert Meltdown

It's Friday night and my husband is still at work, so I am home alone without much to do.  Well, that's not exactly true.  I have things I should be doing, but just don't have the ability or will to do them right now.  This week has been one long experience that I refer to as "an introvert meltdown".  I've spent a lot of time with people the past couple weeks, have had very little sleep, have had a large amount of work to do, have been traveling, and have been sick.  I was pretty much done with the week before it started and I had to fight to get through each day, hoping for the weekend to come as quickly as possible.  Now the weekend is here and I am sitting at home processing things.

For those of you who are not introverts, the above paragraph may make no sense to you.  I'm sorry.  I have no reserves left to explain it to you.  For those of you who are introverts, I'm pretty sure you know what I'm talking about.

So, if I am in introvert meltdown mode, why am I blogging?  I don't know really.  I guess I'm hoping it will help me process things.  I have so many things I am feeling and thinking right now that I am somewhat confused as to how they all fit together and what I am supposed to do with them.  Writing has always helped me sort things out.  Writing also allows me to say things that I wouldn't usually say.  I guess, maybe, that's what this post is about.

 I haven't blogged in a while because I realized that I was becoming too concerned about how my posts would be received.  I was worried that people might be offended by something I said or would misunderstand me and my thoughts.  I was afraid that people would judge me for asking questions and exploring certain topics.  So, I quit writing.  Unfortunately, my brain did not stop thinking or wondering and my opinions did not stop forming or suddenly refuse to make themselves known. Instead, my head has become filled with all the things I am thinking, wondering about, questioning and there was no outlet for it except my poor husband.  I'm pretty sure he has wanted to stuff my mouth with thick socks, of the wool variety for extra sound-proofing, these past few months.  Since that is not a scenario I am fond of, I've decided to try blogging again.  In general, I don't much care what people think about me these days.  Perhaps I am getting old and cranky, or perhaps I have just figured out that people's opinions and behaviors have more to do with who and what they are than anything I said or did.  Who knows.  Whatever the reason may be, I am less concerned with how people respond to this blog and more focused on how I can use it as it was always intended to be used - as an outlet for me to express myself and explore different ideas and topics.

Because this week has been such an epic introvert meltdown for me, I thought that blogging about it would help me get through it.  I've tried a few other things, but they didn't really work.  I've had more calories, sugar intake, and carb loading in the past 5 days than in all the prior 30 days combined.  Maybe that's not true, but it really feels like it is.  I haven't been running in 2 weeks, which is making all this bad eating feel even more terrible.  In all honesty, though, I don't really feel that bad.  I know that come Monday I will be back to my routine and will be running and working out again.  My determination to be in better shape has never been higher and I feel that I am slowly but surely making lifestyle changes that have stuck.  Two of those changes are regular exercise and eating better.  In order to maintain those changes, I know that I have to return to my routine next week, so it will happen.

Besides eating my weight in desserts and fatty foods, I have also done a lot of yelling this week.  Most of it has been in my car or at home, and thankfully I did not actually yell at anyone, although I did yell while talking to Mr. Darcy a few times.  I did make it clear that I was not angry with him and was not yelling at him, but I'm not so sure he appreciated the distinction.  I was surprised by how much yelling I did this week and how angry I was about various things.  As I am processing it, I realize that I am probably not all that angry at those things; they just presented as easy targets for my wrath.  If I am completely honest, my anger is mostly due to things about my life that I see as unfair or unjust and the realization that I am powerless to do anything about them.  I am angry that someone I was taught to love and trust used their position of power to wreak havoc and destruction on so many people.  I am angry that there is no justice for the crimes they committed and that their family continues to commit.  I am angry that having a child is so damn difficult and that no one seems to have any answers as to why my body is not working.  I am mad as hell that in order to get medical help for having a child I have to pay the equivalent of the price of a new car because medical companies here in the US feel that families struggling with infertility are the perfect people to get a lot of money from.  I know that if I could just find a way to stop being angry over these things, I would likely stop being angry enough to yell at the guy who cut me off in traffic.  I also know that part of having a meltdown means having less reserves to handle the things that bother you.  Next week I will not be in meltdown mode.  Next week I will not yell at the cars on the road with me, at least not every day. :)

One thing I have not done too much of this week, despite wanting to on many occasions, is cry.  I am a crier.  It's how I relieve stress.  This week, though, I could not cry.  I wanted to.  I felt like it.  But no tears came.  That was hard for me.  Particularly since last weekend I had to stop myself from crying on numerous occasions when it would not have been a good thing.  When I got home and could cry, I was so aggravated that I could not. Part of me wonders if I would have made it through the week if I had.  I might have just hit "done" mode and then had to sit on my couch for a day while I collected myself.  Again, I know that will sound strange to many of you who have never had an introvert meltdown, but, trust me, it's nothing to be alarmed about.  Now that the weekend is here, I actually did have a good cry tonight and have plans to sit on my couch with Mr. Darcy tomorrow and collect myself while he collects himself.

Sometimes processing things means allowing yourself to acknowledge pain and grief.  Not everyone cries when they grieve, but I do.  As I process the past few weeks and reflect on what lies ahead of me, there are certain painful memories and experiences that I am working through and there are realizations and decisions that I am coming to terms with.  These memories, experiences, realizations, and decisions have contributed to my introvert meltdown and I am glad that I now have a couple of days to process and recover in the solitude of my home.

So, here I am at the end of my blog post and I am feeling much better.  I certainly feel less like I am having a meltdown.  I will still need the weekend to recover and I will likely not see anyone but my dog and my husband.  I will become a recluse and recharge my social batteries so I can again see people on Monday.  The things I am angry about or upset about will not go away, but I will have more reserves for handling them.  I will have a million thoughts and questions race through my mind and I will ponder a variety of things from neuroscience to community programs and maybe even politics.  Maybe I will write about those things and maybe it will help me not have another introvert meltdown for a while. :)

Days When It Hurts To Be a Woman

I love being a woman.  I love that I am different from men.  I don't wish that I was anything other than who and what I am.  However, there are some days when it hurts to be a woman.  There are days when it is dark and painful to to live as a female.  On those day, I don't wish that I wasn't a woman, but I do wish that my life and my story as a woman was different.

I've blogged before about my struggle with infertility.  My husband and I have been trying for 3 years to conceive.  Almost 2 years ago we got pregnant and then we lost the baby.  Since then we've had a series of unfortunate medical issues and scheduling conflicts that have only made it harder to attempt to get pregnant.  Still, all excuses aside, we should have already had at least one child.  Yet, for some unknown reason we have not been blessed with one.

Not being able to conceive and carry a child to full term has an impact on me and the way I view my femininity.  For some reason, I'm not sure exactly what, not being able to have children feels like an insult to my womanhood.  It's almost as though I feel like less of a woman because of it.  I know that may sound ridiculous to many of you, but, in a world that for centuries has revered the reproductive abilities of women, I feel like a failure as a woman because my body has not been able to reproduce.  It's almost as though my female membership card is not fully validated unless I can have children.  This would be different if I chose not to have children; but I did not.  I want children.  I want to be a mother so very desperately.

As you can probably imagine, or as you might know if you have tried to conceive, every month presents a roller coaster ride of hoping and praying while you wait to see if you were successful, and then grieving and processing when it is apparent you were not.  This month was no different for me, except, perhaps, I didn't have quite as much hope.  I can feel a numbness and a resignation creeping into my heart and I do not have the energy to fight it off.  In the past few months I have told myself that it is probably for the best and that, clearly, I was not meant to be a parent.  I have told myself that my life is happy and wonderful and that I will not feel the pain of not being a parent too greatly.  I have told myself that I must have done something to deserve this, and so, I should not complain.  And I have quietly agreed with each of these crazy, ridiculous thoughts because 3 years of hoping, praying, grieving, and processing is a lot of work, and my reserves are starting to dry up.

Today I am at the beginning of a new reproductive cycle, which means I am bleeding.  Menstruation is not an experience for the faint of heart.  That's why I firmly believe that any woman who has a regular menstrual cycle is pretty much capable of anything.  Since my miscarriage, my cycles have been incredibely painful.  I cramp for days and feel generally disgusting.  My cycle has created numerous embarrassing moments over the past few months that have left me feeling powerless over my body and it's apparently twisted way of expressing it's womanhood.  Today I had one of those moments, and it led me to ponder this strange conundrum of being able to have a monthly reproductive cycle, but not being able to reproduce.  How strange, how cruel that I must endure the pain and discomfort that signifies I am a woman of reproductive age and yet I CANNOT have a child.  It's as though my own body is throwing taunts and insults at me, and doing it when I am most vulnerable.  How do I endure this?  What do I do with this?  I have always viewed the ability to have children as a redeeming quality of having to endure a monthly cycle.  What am I supposed to do with it or think about it if I do not have the ability to do something useful with it?  What is the point?

I don't have an answer.  I don't know what to think.  I am saddened and weary from the pain and the heartache.  If I am trying to be positive, I would say that I am grateful for the heartache because it means I still have some hope.  But I am not being positive.  I am angry at my body for betraying me and then throwing its betrayal in my face.  I am hurt that I have failed at something that is fundamentally a part of being a woman, and I am scared that there is nothing I can do about it.  Today it hurts to be a woman,

Women Who Inspire Me Series: Post 1

I've been thinking about starting this blog series for a while and just haven't gotten around to doing it.  I guess that's a hazard of having too many great ideas and not enough energy/drive/will power to actually get them all done.  Anyhoo, it's been pressing on me for a while and I want to start it, at the very least.  Hopefully, I will finish it as well.

Most people who know me well know that I have long been a champion of all things female.  I feel that there is not enough celebration of, respect for, or admiration for the 50% of the population who play a large role in insuring the population continues.  I realize that not everyone feels that way, and that's ok.  But I do, and my blog has always been a place for me to celebrate and challenge what it means to be female in the world I experience.  In my quest to capture what it means to be female, I have been fortunate enough to come across some amazing women who have inspired me, challenged me, and encouraged me to continue my journey.  I would like to pay homage to those women with this series.  With each new post, you will see women who are different ages, have different lifestyles, who express themselves differently.  What I hope you will notice is the same courage, determination, strength, and beauty that defines all of them.   These are the women who inspire me:

Blondie
The woman I want to start this series with is a dear friend of mine.  Let's call her "Blondie".  Blondie and I have known each other all our lives.  I find it fascinating and awe-inspiring that I have known this girl for so long and yet she continues to inspire me.  She's always been "spunky", as she was called when we were kids.  When I was younger, I thought of her as fearless.  Now that I'm older, I realize Blondie is not fearless, she is courageous.  She has fear (just like all of us), and yet, she continually steps into situations and experiences that post people would shy away from.  Blondie loves to experience life and she strives to live life to the fullest.  She does not let fear or self-doubt keep her from what she wants.  That's amazing to me.  She wakes up every day with all the same or similar feelings and emotions I do and she makes the decision to keep fighting for her dreams.  In order for you to understand what an amazing feat that is, you need to know a little more about Blondie.

Blondie was born and raised in a less than stellar environment.  She was put down a lot, criticized a lot, and told she was bad through and through.  Her love of life was criticized as being rebellious and perverted.  She struggled in school, and instead of her learning difficulties being identified and addressed, she was told she was lazy and rebellious and was punished repeatedly.  I think it's safe to say that Blondie was misunderstood and misidentified for much of her childhood.  I'm pretty sure that most of the adults in her life weren't confident she would ever make anything of herself.  Yet, Blondie didn't let her rough childhood define her.  She chose to make something good out of it.  I'm pretty sure her determination and ability to be an incredibely hard worker are the result of her childhood experiences.  Blondie also managed to completely ignore the things she was told as a child and instead learn to believe in herself.  She is one of the most beautifully confident women I know.  She is aware of her flaws, but she does not try to hide them.  She is honest about who she is while still being proud of who she is.  She is always working to make herself better without losing sight of how great she already is.  That's a huge feat for a any woman, much less a woman like Blondie.

Today, Blondie is a wife and the mother of 2 beautiful children.  While she was pregnant with her second child, she put herself through school so she could pursue a career she thought she would be good at.  While raising her children, she has worked part-time to help provide financially for her family.  Her work schedule and life schedule have been chaotic and not easy to deal with, but you won't hear her complain about it.  She simply gets up every day and does what needs to be done, while looking fabulous, I might add. :)  She has made some hard choices and been criticized for those choices, but she has stood by them because she believed they were the best thing for her family.  At times she has been afraid that she was failing miserably, but she has never allowed the fact that she will make mistakes stop her from trying to be the best wife and mother she can be.  She is, honestly, one of the best mothers I know.  I have watched her be a mother for more than 5 years, and I am continually in awe of the masterful way in which she balances love, patience, discipline, and encouragement.  I can only hope that one day I am as good as she is at being a mother.

There's so much more I could say about Blondie and how much she inspires me.  There is no way to capture it all in this one post.  What I do hope I captured was the amazing woman she is.  Blondie inspires me to continually work to be the best version of myself that I can be.  She challenges me to be confident in myself, to be a hard worker without complaining about my circumstances.  She encourages me to keep fighting for my dreams and to not be afraid to try.  Knowing Blondie makes me more courageous and more determined.  I am a better person because she is in my life.

Happy Friday!

It's been a long week.  I won't say it's been a necessarily tough week, but it's definitely been long.  Returning to work after a holiday weekend is always hard.  It's ten times harder when you worked most of that "holiday" weekend.  After returning to work I thought things were going fairly well, then I started feeling "off".  I was crazy emotional and felt the urge to cry at the drop of a hat.  This is not usual for me; far from it in fact.  As most of you who have been following this blog for the past year know, Mr. Darcy and I have been trying to get pregnant for almost 2 years now.  Feeling strangely hormonal can indicate that a woman is pregnant.  Being the logical creature that I am, a small tiny hope crept into my mind - "What if this is it??".

Then, two days into my week, by basal body temperature dropped.  For those of you who are not familiar with fertility and how a woman's body works, a drop in your basal body temperature towards the ends of a woman's menstrual cycle is usually a sign that any egg that was released was not fertilized and the uterus should start shedding it's lining in preparation for the next cycle.  This is not good news for someone who is trying to conceive and is hoping they are pregnant.  My ever hopeful self desperately hoped that the drop was a fluke and that the next day my temps would be back up and I could still possibly be pregnant.  Tuesday was filled with more hormonal ridiculousness - headaches, nausea, high levels of emotions.  Wednesday morning my temp was down again.  It was a sure thing now.  All hope of being pregnant was completely gone.  All there was to do now was wait for this cycle to end and the next one to start.  The headache and crazy emotions hung around.

Thursday morning I woke up to a searing headache and another drop in temperature.  By this point I knew the headache was hormone related and all I could do was wait until my cycle started and hope the hormones would balance out.  I took the first half of the day off so I could rest.  While resting, I decided I had had enough of letting my body run my life.  I got up, got dressed, and went to work.  It was a slow day at the office and most of my clients ended up cancelling their appointments any way.  By the end of the work day my headache had subsided substantially and I decided to go ahead and go running as planned.  Physical exercise can help balance your hormones, and I was hoping it would help with mine.  Plus, I have been running consistently now for that past 7 weeks and I was determined to not let anything get in the way of my continuing this, including feeling crappy. (Side note: I ran my first 5k on Thanksgiving morning.  I actually ran 2/3 of the course and was super proud of myself for doing it.  Big shout out to my wonderful husband who pushed me to do it).

So, after work yesterday, I went running.  As I started running, I began to feel better.  I hit a mile and barely felt winded, so I kept going.  I kept going until I had done 2 miles, and when I finished I realized I had shaved 30 seconds off my mile time.  As I was running, I focused on pushing through everything I had experienced this week.  As my feet pounded the track, I imagined pounding into the ground all my frustration, all my fears, all my sorrows.  Got a headache - pound, pound, pound.  Feel like a weepy, weak lump of a person - pound, pound, pound.  Still not pregnant - pound, pound, pound.  I will keep going - pound, pound, pound.  I refuse to be a sad, mopey wreck of a person - pound, pound, pound.  I will fight to be the best version of me I can be - pound, pound, pound.

After my running/therapy session, I went home feeling super proud of myself and physically feeling much better.  With the mental clarity that running brings, I found myself laughing at the humor in the long week.  I don't know about any of you, but, when I'm tired or hormonal, some really silly things happen.  So, despite the fact that this week was a long week, there were some really funny moments.  Maybe you can relate to some of these:

It might have been a long day if you hear Dean Martin sing "Rudy the red-beaked reindeer" as something entirely different, and then realize with a sigh of relief that a song that old could not really be that inappropriate.

You might be crazy hormonal if you find yourself getting weepy-eyed over the words to "Hark the Herald Angels Sing".  That is a happy song, right?!?

It might have been a long week if you find yourself laughing gleefully and doing a little jig when your last client of the day calls 30 minutes before their appointment to say they are not coming.

You *might* have run away hormones if, while watching a documentary about Arctic animals, you start crying uncontrollably when a baby beluga whale is stranded on a beach and might die, and then what to cheer madly when the tide comes just in time to rescue him.

You might have had a long week and/or be hormonal if all you can think about is getting home to gorge yourself on chocolate and ice cream.  Don't worry, I didn't do this, but it was mostly due to not having enough time to do it, rather than any great amount of self-control. :)

If you have no idea what I am talking about and have never experienced any of those things, well, at least you get to laugh at my awkward moments in life.  And now, the long week is almost over.  I have 3 days of rehearsals and a production at the end of the weekend to look forward to, and then this super long, super hormonal week will be over.  I then get to have more long weeks with, I'm sure, their own hurdles to get over.  However, as long as those weeks offer me more humorous opportunities to laugh at myself, I will be doing well.  Happy Friday, everyone!!  I hope your weekends are a celebration of rest and relaxation from whatever your week brought you. :)

Mother's Day - A Week Late

Last week was Mother's Day.  I didn't really put much thought into it until the day arrived, and then the feelings and emotions came flooding in like a tidal wave.  When you've had a miscarriage, the rest of the world doesn't really consider you a mother. Sometimes, I find myself wondering if I really consider myself as having been a mother.  It's confusing, and painful.  It's complicated because not everyone knows that you had a miscarriage.  It's frustrating because you want to talk about certain things but you can't do it without addressing the miscarriage.  When other's find out they feel awkward around you and don't seem to know how to respond.  When I think about it, I feel guilty that I am confused and don't know what I really think or feel about it.  On the one hand, to not acknowledge that I carried a life inside me for at least 5 weeks seems to devalue the life that I carried.  On the other hand, I feel as though I don't deserve to be called a mom because I didn't finish my race, I didn't complete the course.  It's terrible.  I'm stuck in this strange limbo land that I can't really navigate.

At church, they asked all the mothers to stand so they could honor them.  I couldn't bring myself to do it, even after my wonderful Mr. Darcy urged me to.  I just couldn't stand up.  I felt that standing up would have been more of an embarrassment than an honor.  I felt ashamed that I didn't have any physical proof to let others know I had experienced the joy of being a mother for a brief moment.  And then the sadness came flooding back, and I could feel the loss as though it was yesterday.  The ache was just as painful and the tears came just as readily as they did 5 months ago.

The grief surprised me, and then made me feel ridiculous.  Society tells us over and over that the bundle of cells growing inside a pregnant woman is not really a child until it is born.  If this is true, then the loss of that bundle should not be grieved because it's nothing of consequence.  While this theory might make some women feel better about ending their pregnancies or choosing to not bring a new life into the world, it also serves to shame those of us who have lost a child unwillingly and are grieved by the loss.  It makes us feel as though the pain and the loss we feel is silly, unwarranted, or somehow ridiculous.  The message is that we are just experiencing a hormonal rash of emotions that are not based on any sort of logic, and, therefore, are not legitimate.  The truth is, our bodies were created to bring forth life, and when, in the process of bringing forth life, our bodies fail, we experience death.  Death is a loss.  Death causes grief.  I did not lose a bundle of cells that I could or could not have lived without.  I lost a life that I dearly loved and desperately wanted to experience.  That loss causes me grief as a woman, as a wife, as a mother.  That grief should not cause me to feel ridiculous.

I know last week was Mother's Day, but I would like to take a moment to acknowledge all those women out there who have carried a life and lost it before they had the chance to hold it in their arms and watch it grow.  The world may not acknowledge us as mothers, but I think it takes the love of a mother to grieve over a lost child, to remember the life that was.  You may not have gotten any cards telling you what a great mom you are.  There may not have been any gifts from tiny hands wanting to express the love they have for you, but, I thought of you, and I want to honor you for road you walked, the sacrifices you made, the love you gave to your child.  Happy Mother's Day!

What is Life?

What is this thing we call life?   What does it mean?  Why is it so unpredictable, always twisting and turning so that it is difficult to know what it's true purpose is?  I'm writing these questions, and, yet, there is a part of me that doesn't actually care.  My thoughts?  Why waste energy on trying to understand that which is incomprehensible?  Of course, I don't really feel that way, but some part of me does, at least a little.  I always say to Mr. Darcy, "If I could just understand it, then I would be ok with it."  In so many ways that is true, but in so many others it is not.  Or perhaps it's that I have learned there are so many things in this life that I cannot and never will be able to comprehend, so I know that I will never truly be ok with all things.  I don't know.  My head hurts from thinking about it and pondering all the what if's and why's, yet, my desire to understand is not satiated. 

I'm a bit of a mess at the moment, in case you missed it.  My life feels like a vast unknown wilderness that just keeps spreading out in front of me, bringing new meaning to the terms loneliness, desperation, emptiness, and loss.  While I feel so overwhelmed at times, there is this odd steadiness, in the depths of me, that can't seem to be shaken.  I joked to a friend a few weeks ago that I feel like Job from the Old Testament, except that I still have my sense of humor.  I cannot see that there is any hope of an approaching dawn, but something on the inside of me knows it will come.  I do not know where my next footsteps will take me, but I am sure I will arrive at wherever it is I am destined to land.  How strange is this dark, wandering existence I am currently apart of.  I cry, I hurt, I grieve, and still I can laugh, can enjoy, can hope.  I feel like the ultimate dichotomy, but I am still functioning.  Life!  What the heck do I make of it?!?!?

I am truly at a loss for how to make heads or tails of what is happening in my life right now.  I am equally at a loss in knowing how it will affect my future.  Yet, somehow, for the first time in my life, I am tired and weary of the worrying and fretting, and I am content to just ride the storm through.  I have no idea how I will get through this time, I have no idea if I am doing it right or wrong, and I don't really care.  I am finding that what I care most about during this season is living well.  What I mean by that is living with the intention and purpose of doing my best in each area, being pleasing to the God who is ever beside me and always faithful, learning to take each moment and live it to its absolute fullest - be that the fullest depth of suffering, the fullest depth of joy, the fullest depth of sorrow, the fullest depth of knowledge.  I want to experience life, really experience it, and learn and grow from it.  I want to come out of this experience knowing that I have changed, I have traded some of the dark, terrible pieces of who I am for something more wonderful, more reflective of the One who is working on me and in me.

I know that life is a journey and that each person must travel the journey laid out for them.  I just hope that as I am traveling my road, taking my journey, that I am doing it with grace and strength.  I hope that when I finish this journey I will not look back and see the way behind me is filled with more regret and brokenness than it is hope and grace.  No journey is complete without both good and bad; My hope is that, in the end, the balance created by the two will equal a life well-lived.

To My Baby

I never knew you, but I did.

I never met you, but spent time with you.

I never had the chance to hold you, but I carried you.

There are so many things about you that I never got to know – the color of your hair and eyes, the joy of your smile, the facets of your personality

But there are so many things I do know about you – you don’t like sugar; it makes you sick.  And you inherited my passion for hamburgers and Rueben sandwiches.

You kept me up at night and gave the term “aches and pains” a whole new meaning.

You made my skin look great, made each new day a wonder to experience, and softened my heart to everything.

You would have been mischievous and curious, like your parents, no doubt,

And we would have loved you fiercely and unconditionally.

I can hardly believe the short time I had with you is already gone, but I am forever changed by my brief encounter with you. 

You gave us hope and joy beyond belief. 

You gave us the wonder of creating life and watching it grow inside me. 

What an unbelievable miracle you made us a part of!

Your departure made us grieve and experience loss at a whole new level.

You left me with a giant hole in my heart, but I’m not so sure I want to fill it.

There is no way to replace you; there is only grief to bear

But the sadness is a reminder of the blessing you were

And that is not something I want to forget.

I’ll wear the scar of your loss always, just as my heart is forever changed by the love you awakened in me.

My Thanksgiving/Hanukkah Miracle

The Thanksgiving holiday is all about taking time to reflect on the blessings we have experienced in the past year and giving thanks for those blessings.  The Hanukkah holiday is about remembering the faithfulness of God to His people and the miracles He performs in keeping His promises.  This year, for the first time in over a hundred years, the Hanukkah holiday started on Thanksgiving, causing the celebration of both days to be joined.

I love Thanksgiving.  It's one of my favorite holidays for many reasons, but mostly, I love the family element to it.  I also love the story of Hanukkah and love the idea of celebrating God's faithfulness and His miracles.  This year, though, both holidays were particularly special because of what I experienced.  I call it my Thanksgiving/Hanukkah miracle.

This story starts 22 years ago, when my dad took six of us kids to visit my grandparents on their farm for the first time.  It was the summer of 1991 and it was the first time my siblings and I would meet the majority of my dad's family.  For the first part of our lives we didn't even know we had family outside of Tucson and we had only just met our grandparents 2 years before that.  This might not seem strange to many of you, but my dad's family has been in East Texas for generations and everyone has grown up around each other with their kids all playing together and knowing everyone in the family.  My dad was the only one of his brothers who did not live near by and whose children did not really know the family.  So, our trip to Texas that year was pretty important.

During our stay in Texas that summer, we had a mini family reunion so that we kids could meet all the family, and it was pretty amazing.  I had no idea there were so many Winchesters in the world, much less that I was directly related to so many of them.  It was a great trip, and I remember thinking that for the first time in my life I really felt like I had family roots.  My grandparent's farm instantly became a home away from home, and I place I would always love going back to.

In the summer of 1991, my parents were going through a separation and my family was a split one.  There were many broken relationships and it didn't look like things were going to be fixed any time soon.  My grandparents longed to have a relationship with all their grandkids and they wanted my dad to be reconciled with my mom.  At the end of our stay with them that summer, my dad, my grandparents, and my siblings and I all gathered in the living room of my grandparent's farm and said a prayer before we headed out on our drive home to Arizona.  As my grandfather prayed, he asked the Lord to one day bring us all back safely to the farm as a whole family, my mom included.  At the time, it didn't seem like that would ever be possible, but my grandfather prayed for it anyway.

Twenty-two years passed and during that time, many things changed.  In 1996, five years after my grandfather prayed that prayer, he passed away from a brain tumor.  He did not live to see the whole family together at the farm, but he did get to see all my dad's children make separate trips to the farm.  In 2007, my grandmother passed away.  She got to enjoy seeing all my dad's children make several trips to the farm and even got to see my dad's first grandson make a trip to the farm, but still, she never saw the whole family there.  My mom and dad were divorced by this time and the family had not been whole in almost 20 years.  It seemed like my grandfather's prayer on that summer day so long ago was not going to be answered.

In 2010, after 21 years of separation, God did a miracle.  My parents reconciled and were remarried.  God had done the impossible in bringing them back together.  Last year, my mom made her first trip to the family farm with my dad.

This year, on Thanksgiving, my mom and dad and all their children and grandchildren made the trip to the family farm in East Texas.  It was the first time all of us has been at the farm at one time, as a whole family.  For the first time, all of us participated in one of the traditional Winchester Thanksgivings on the farm, and after 22 years, my grandfather's prayer was answered.

I cannot tell you what that meant to me; to be a part of that; to watch it happen.   I am still in awe at the faithfulness of God and His ability to make the impossible a reality.  While I wish that my grandparents had been there to see this miracle happen, I know that they must have been watching from Heaven and their hearts must have been bursting with gladness.  How great is God and how faithful is He??  I am so thankful that He is all of that and more.  I am thankful that He answers prayer, even if it is not on our timetable, and even if we don't ever see it.  I am thankful that He steps out of Heaven and inserts Himself in this broken, chaotic world, working miracles and creating beautiful masterpieces that proclaim how great and marvelous He is.  This Thanksgiving season I am giving thanks, and this Hanukkah season, I am again reminded that God is faithful and He works miracles.

Cheese Sandwiches and Sundays

Dad, This one is for you......

Today I am feeling very emotional.  I don't know why exactly - it might be that I am feeling a little sick, or that I am exhausted from my hectic week.  What ever the case may be, I am emotional.  When I get emotional, I tend to reminisce, a lot.  When I am reminiscing, I tend to want to write about it.  When I am emotional and reminiscing, food is sometimes involved.  You know that feeling when you want something that your mom used to make for you or that one dish that you used to love when you were a kid?  Well, that's what happens to me.  Food is comforting to me, and when it is a food that I have fond memories of, it is even more comforting.  So, you take the fact that I like to write when I am emotional and the fact that I tend to reminisce about food when I am emotional, and you get this blog post. :)

The food memory that struck me today as I was driving home from church was that of cheese sandwiches on Sunday afternoons.  When I was kid, my parents were split up, so we divided our weekends between them.  We went to church with my mom on Sunday mornings and then my dad would pick us up in the afternoon and we would spend the rest of the day with him.  At my mom's church, they usually served the same thing every Sunday - bean tostadas for lunch with cake for dessert.  Being a kid, I did not always want to eat the same thing each Sunday.  When it happened that the usual meal was not appetizing to me, I would wait for my dad to pick us up and them eat at his house.  By the time we got to his place it would generally be later in the afternoon and there would not be enough time to eat a huge meal, so I would eat something that was filling enough to tide me over until dinner, but light enough that I would still want dinner.  Enter the cheese sandwich.

The cheese sandwich was a staple in my dad's house.  We ate it on Sunday and Saturday afternoons, and we packed it for school lunches religiously.  It was a favorite of mine and my younger siblings, no question about it.  The cheese sandwich held a very special place in our hearts and on our lunch plates, and there were very specific requirements that had to be fulfilled in order for a sandwich to qualify as a cheese sandwich.  Those requirements were as follows: It had to be made with Miracle Whip on both sides of the bread, it had to be made with mild yellow cheese, it had to be cut in two before eating it, and it had to be eaten with some sort of side like corn chips or cut veggies.  There were variations to the cheese sandwich that were acceptable, but not necessary.  For example, my oldest brother would smother his sandwiches in ketchup - eventually he would substitute the Miracle Whip for just ketchup, but that is another story.  Occasionally we would add lunch meat to our cheese sandwiches, but never so much that it would drown out the strong cheese flavor.  Sometimes we would add lettuce or other condiments such as mustard and pickle relish, but always the cheese must be the main part of the sandwich.

Making and eating those sandwiches was an experience.  You would start with the cheese and a cheese slicer.  You always adjust the slicer so that it cuts the cheese in slices about 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch thick.  This was thick enough to get a nice flavor but not too thick so as to be overpowering.  Then you would put the Miracle Whip on the bread.  You had to make sure that the Miracle Whip covered every part of the bread and was on thick enough so you could taste it when you bit into the sandwich.  After that, you laid the cheese on top of the Miracle Whip, added whatever extras sounded good, put the pieces of bread together and cut the sandwich in two.  Done!  Your masterpiece was ready to eat.

I cannot tell you how many times I enjoyed cheese sandwiches when I was a kid.  I never got tired of eating them.  They became a comfort food for me.  On Sunday afternoons when I was hungry and waiting for my dad to pick me up, I knew that the first thing I would do when I got home was make a cheese sandwich and head to my bedroom to enjoy it in solitude.  Usually, that cheese sandwich would make me sleepy and I would enjoy a nice Sunday afternoon nap before I participated in whatever the family had planned for the evening.  To me, cheese sandwiches represented everything that was good about food.

Since I've become an adult, there have been several occasions when the desire to enjoy a cheese sandwich has overcome me.  The requirements are still the same - Miracle Whip on both sides of the bread, mild yellow cheese cut just perfectly, the sandwich cut in half.  Each time I make a cheese sandwich and enjoy eating it, I think of all those wonderful memories as a child.  This simple food takes me back to a place where I was happy, to something I shared with my brothers and sisters, and suddenly, I don't feel so lonely or sad.  Today was no different.  As I was driving home, I suddenly felt the intense need to have a cheese sandwich.  The thought of the cheese sandwich sparked the memory of all those Sunday afternoons when I was kid and had enjoyed a cheese sandwich at my dad's house.  When I got home this afternoon, I prepared my cheese sandwich.  As I ate, the smell of the bread and cheese and the flavor of the sandwich took me back to when I was a child.  I found myself laughing at the memories, enjoying the reminiscence, and once again thankful for cheese sandwiches and Sunday afternoons.

Christian Elitism

What is it about Christendom that fosters so much elitism?  Why do so many people who wear the label Christian feel they have the right to look down their noses at everyone else?  Where in Scripture does it teach that if you believe in Jesus as Messiah you are better than everyone else?  Where does the Bible say that becoming a believer automatically gives you the right to judge yourself more worthy than others?  I would say you couldn't find that teaching, or any others like, in Scripture; and, yet, elitism and snobbery run rampant in Christianity.  It drives me crazy!

Elitism is the exact OPPOSITE of what belief in Christ is all about.  How many times in the Bible do you find someone talking about how great they are?  How may times do you see the great men and women of faith of the Scriptures looking down their noses at others?  You won't find it.  It's not in there.  What you will find is great men and women of faith talking about how unworthy they are to receive the gift of salvation.  What is in Scripture is teaching after teaching about how everyone is on equal footing with God and no person is better than any other.  Still, so many believers feel it is their right, and many feel their duty, to scold others, look down on others, or label others as less faithful in their beliefs and practice.  Why, why, why???

Those who do this can't possible think that this type of behavior makes God happy.  They can't possibly think that acting is this way is emulating Jesus.  Yet, I fear that many of them truly believe just that.  They honestly believe they are filled with "righteous indignation" at the sins and wrong behaviors of others.  They have convinced themselves that their are acting in defense of God and are fighting to preserve His laws, His ways.  How sad, and I truly do mean sad, not pathetic.

Now before anyone gets too hot under the collar and starts to claim that I am doing exactly what I am accusing others of doing, let me explain.  I am not looking down on those who are elitists.  They get me really angry and I don't like that kind of behavior, but I do not think that I am better than them.  For many years  of my life, I was a Christian elitist.  I thought that my brand of Christianity was better than everyone else's, that I was more accurately living out the Gospel than others.  I know what it means to think you are righteously indignant at the way God is being treated.

Because I know what it's like to be this way, it makes me so sad when I see it in others.  Yes, I get angry, but mostly, it breaks my heart.  It breaks my heart because I can see how far from the character of God it really is, and how many people are hurt and damaged when Christians put on their elitism robes.  I have seen first-hand how this type of behavior drives people from the throne of grace rather than drawing them in.

I agree that standing up for what you believe is important.  I understand that living by Godly laws and working to live out the Gospel in your daily life is important.  I get the the idea of wanting your life to be pleasing to God.  However, I also believe that living out your Christian faith in a way that sneers at or belittles others does not fall into the category of being a Godly person, and, actually, it negates many of the positive effects of living according to Scripture.

I wish that it was popular in Christian culture to love people, to encourage people, to invite people to learn what truth is, rather than browbeating, scolding, and sneering at those who do not measure up to your ideals of what Christian living is.  The people in Scripture that Jesus scolded and was ruthless with were the religious leaders of the day.  The people He was most merciless with were those who thought that following God was adhering to a strict set of rules and then punishing those who didn't follow suite.  To the sinners, the common people, the non-believers, Jesus was loving, kind, inviting, and understanding.  Never, never did He look down His nose at anyone; and if anyone had the right to do that, it would have been Him.

I think the saddest, most devious, most destructive tool Satan has is the elitism that so grips many Christians.  What if we as Jesus-followers spent less time judging the actions of others and more time loving them where they are at?  What if we spent less energy scolding and beating others up with our words, and spent more time healing wounds and encouraging the lost and dying among us?  What if we worried less about how the actions of others were making God (and let's be honest, ourselves) look and spent more time inviting others to know God.  Perhaps if we could step down from our pedestals long enough to be on the same level as those around us, we might experience more of the power and presence of Jesus in our lives, and might just be the light to the world we are called to be.

I wish that every time we as Christians felt the need or urge to turn our noses up at someone and offer our cruelest words of wrath, we would remember the many mires in which we have found ourselves and the many disgraces we have needed saving from.  I wish that every time we saw something that sparked the desire to wound someone in defense of our faith that we would recall how we were once enemies of Christ too.  I wish that we would constantly bear in mind the grace with which we have been saved so that we could extend it to those around us whenever they needed it.  I wish that we could stop trying to boast in who we are and what we believe and we would rest in the knowledge of Who He is, for that is enough; it is all we truly need.

Thoughts

There are so many thoughts running around in my head tonight.  There are things I want to say, things I want to mull over and work through, things I want to remember, and futures I want to dream about.  As happens so frequently with me, my thoughts have overwhelmed me and I find it hard to put them on paper.  Sometimes I wonder why it is that my thoughts have to rush in like torrential rains, and then why they have to stay and swirl around like churning oceans waters.  Why is it that I cannot think of things one at a time rather than 500 things at a times?  Even as I write this I find myself wanting to say so many things but having a hard time focusing on one specific thing to write about.  Perhaps things are more difficult right now because there has been so much happening recently.  Or, perhaps it is this time of year, which is always somewhat hard for me.  I could go on and on wondering why, but I have never found that to be helpful.  What seems to be most helpful is just talking about what I am thinking.

A few months ago I blogged about making some changes in my life.  I talked about some goals I had that included getting into shape and making healthier choices, trying new things, and working to pay some things off.  While it has not been easy to work towards these goals, I am really happy to say that I have made progress.  I just completed the 3rd straight week of consistently exercising for 6 days out of every week.  The workouts aren't especially grueling or long, and I feel almost embarrassed to admit that.  However, I am really proud that I have stuck with it and it's given me hope that I will continue to stick with it.  I haven't really lost any weight, which is disappointing, but I do feel better about myself.

On the trying new things front, I continue to stretch my horizons, particularly in the food area.  The summer provided all sorts of opportunities to try new foods, and I loved it!  I even spent some time trying new beers. :)  I haven't had nearly as many adventures as I had hoped, but I did have a few that made the summer very enjoyable.  I will continue to look for new foods to try and new adventures to have.  I don't think my focus will be so intense these next few months, but I also think that this has become more of a habit for me, so it doesn't need intense focus.

The financial side of things has been a bit more rough.  It feels that for everything inch I gained, I lost a mile.  There were some good things.  My student loans finally fell below the $100,000 dollar limit, which felt really good.  It's still a lot to pay off, but it helps seeing some progress.  There have been other struggles this summer on the financial front, but I can say that I am learning to stress about it less.  My wonderful husband is so much better at that than me and he is always quick to reassure me that things will be ok.  I do believe that, but I am growing weary of the battle and hope that it will not be too much longer.

There have been so much that has happened for me personally these past few months.  I feel like I am continuing to grow and I am starting to expand my hopes and dreams for the future.  My ideas about what I wish for have changed somewhat and I am finding myself imagining a future that looks very different from the one I always thought would be.  I am starting to realize that just because I am fearful of something not going the way I thought it would doesn't mean it will be a bad thing.  In fact, most times it turns out better than if things had gone the way I had intended them to.

Perhaps the best way to sum up my thoughts right now is to say there are some things that I am more sure of than ever, some things that I have never been more unsure of, and some things that I have realized I have no idea about.  How's that for a summary?  Just as random and chaotic as all the thoughts rolling around in my head right now.  Well, at least it's an accurate representation.

The Flood

It's been a while since I posted and while my blog has been quiet, my life has not.  It seems that my summer was filled with all sorts of everything and there was very little "free" time.  Or maybe it's just that I didn't really feel like blogging.  You know, creative types are known for lack of consistency. :)

At any rate, it is now halfway through September and I find myself wanting to write again.  This past week has been a hard one for my adopted state home.  We had massive flooding for most of last week and there are still parts of the state that are experiencing some flood-like conditions.  There was so much destruction from the rain and water.  So many people have lost their homes or their homes are in desperate need of repairs.  Some people lost their lives.  It's been a sobering, and at times scary, experience these past 7 days.  I've never been this close to a natural disaster.  In Arizona, the closest thing to a natural disaster we see is a bad sandstorm or a wicked thunderstorm.  The flooding in Colorado this past week was something else.  Entire communities were destroyed.  Roads all over the northern part of the state were washed out, leaving many people stranded or handicapped in their day-to-day lives.  

On the positive side, it has been so amazing to see how well equipped the state appears to be in handling something like this.  The fire fighters, police officers, and rescue workers all acted quickly and worked tirelessly to ensure the safety of people.  The national guard came in and worked hard to rescue people.  The thing that has been most amazing to see, though, is the response of ordinary citizens here.  Even before there were formal avenues to help with rescues and restoration, people were eagerly trying to help.  There were so many people who went out of their way to help their neighbors and people they didn't even know.  I don't honestly remember ever seeing a community band together in quite the same way.  Even now, with the flood waters receding and the destruction growing more apparent, people are starting to rebuild and they are helping those around them to rebuild.

Another thing I noticed during this crisis was the humor and positive attitudes people had while this was going on.  There was no negativity to be seen.  Nobody was whining, nobody was forecasting doom.  People were honest about what was happening, but with a very pragmatic approach.  I heard so many people say, "things are just things" when asked about the loss of large chunks of their property.  I heard people say funny things and find the humor in situations, and it was incredible.  I've never lived somewhere where people did that, and it was an experience to remember.

The worst part of this experience, or should I say the scariest part, is over.  The sun has started shining again and the waters are not threatening life and property.  However, there is still a lot of work to do to restore the things that have been damaged.  There are going to be months, if not years, of hard work ahead of everyone in this state.  I hope that the positive outlooks and humorous attitudes will continue through this time.  I hope that I can look back on this whole experience and still feel the wonder, amazement, thankfulness and pride I feel right now at Colorado my home state.

Facing the Storm

About a month and a half ago I told a good friend of mine that I felt like I was getting ready to face a storm in my life.  I just had this sense of needing to prepare myself to deal with some things that would be coming up, things that would be difficult to handle.  As the week has passed, that feeling has turned out to be very true.  I am in the midst of a giant storm.  The winds are howling like crazy around me.  The lighting and thunder are so fierce they make me tremble.  Everywhere I look things are being uprooted and/or destroyed.  Rain is soaking every inch of ground surrounding me.

I bet, right about now, you are thinking something along the lines of how terrible this is.  Perhaps you're feeling sympathy for me or thinking that you need to pray more for me.  While I welcome the prayers (I always do!), I want to reassure you that this is not a terrible thing.  I am content where I am.

When I was a little girl growing up in Arizona, the summer monsoon storms were terrific.  Big black clouds would roll in over the mountains some time in the late afternoon, producing incredible lighting and thunder claps that shook you to the very core.  Huge gusts of wind would churn through the valley, knocking over trees, ripping through fences, sweeping up anything that was loose or weakly attached to something.  Rain would come in torrential waves, soaking the ground and filling up the washes in just a few minutes.  It was truly an amazing spectacle to watch, and I loved it.  I loved the action of the storm and the smell of the rain.  Most of all, though, I loved the newness of the earth after the storm had ended.  Everything felt clean and washed out.  Some things looked forever changed.  Nothing was left untouched by the storm.

I have to admit, in my own life I have been afraid of the storms.  I have not looked for them with the same anticipation I looked for those Arizona monsoons; and I've asked myself why.  Is it because walking through the storms in my life is that much scarier than riding out a ferocious display of natural occurrences?  Or is it as basic as the fact physical storms allow us a tangible world to perceive and interact with while life storms are relegated to the world of the mind and heart, a world which is confusing and cannot be ever truly known?  I don't know.  I could philosophize about it, but the short answer is - I don't know. 

Just as I don't know why I have been afraid of the storms in my life, I don't know why, exactly, the storm I am currently in has ceased to scare me.  I could say it is a result of my life experiences or a result of my strong faith, but I have a hard time believing that is really the answer.  What I do believe might be the answer, though, is I have come to realize the value of storms in life.  In realizing that storms are valuable and can accomplish something good, I have come to see the effects of the storm in a different light. 

The winds that are howling all around me remind me of the peace and calm I have received as a result of my relationship with Jesus Christ.  The lightning and thunder are a constant depiction of the awesomeness and wonder of the Creator who not only created those things but orders each step of my life and has allowed this storm to overtake me.  There are definitely things being destroyed and uprooted around me, but some of those things are long overdue for a good makeover.  False ideologies, foolish ideas, shallow goals and ambitions, incorrect beliefs and perceptions are a few of the things I can see being uprooted and destroyed.  The rain that is falling all around me is refreshing and brings with it the hope for cleansing and a new life.

I am not afraid of this storm; I am facing it head on and hoping that I will come out of it a new person, cleaned out and ready for another chance at life.  I do not know what this storm will bring nor how much I will lose before it is over, but I know Him who walks with me through it, and I am confident that His love will continually cover me and He will guide me through.  I cannot control the storm, but I can be thankful for it and be open to it.

Update on My Quest

Well, so far things have been going really well.  That doesn't mean everything has been easy or perfect; it just means that I am progressing steadily and I'm very happy for the journey.  So, here's a list of the things I've done on my quest --

New foods: So far I have tried at least 6 new foods.  I had foie gras, pig heart, chicken pate, shrimp and grits, Colorado sea bass, and moussaka.  The goal was one new food a week and it has been 5 weeks.  That means I am doing better than my goal!  Hooray!  It's been so much fun to try things.  I don't always like what I'm trying, but the adventure of putting unknown things in my mouth is exciting.  Actually, most of what I have tried has been pretty good.  I'm not big on the animal organs, but the pig heart was the easiest to down.  The foie gras I had was not very good at all.  It was so super fatty that it was almost slimy in my mouth.  Yuck.  The chicken pate was alright, but definitely not my favorite.  The shrimp, bass, and moussaka were my favorites by far.

Along with all the new food I've been trying, I also had the opportunity to eat some amazing food in the past few weeks.  A couple of weeks ago Mr. Darcy and I went on a road trip through the southwestern states.  Once we hit New Mexico I was in food heaven.  I filled up on as much good Mexican food as I could while I was there.  The one bad food experience we had was attempting to eat Thai food in a small New Mexico town.  That was definitely not a good experience.  In our defense, the restaurant came highly recommended by a local person.  I guess a good general rule of thumb, though, is to not eat Thai food in the middle of the New Mexico desert.

New adventures:  I've had several firsts in the past 5 weeks as well.  I went to my first soccer game of any kind.  A friend of ours came to visit and the three of us went to a Colorado Rapids game.  We had fantastic seats right behind the Rapids' team bench.  I loved it!  The game was so much fun to watch and it was great to experience the fan culture of professional soccer.

The next thing I did was go on a road trip with Mr. Darcy.  We have driven a few places together, but never for more than 9 or 10 hours and never stopping along the way to see things.  This was truly our first road trip together.  We stopped in New Mexico and saw White Sands and then stopped in Las Cruces for some amazing Mexican food at La Posta on Cinco de Mayo.  It was fabulous!  We almost didn't want to leave.

The next place we headed was Arizona to visit my family and see several of our friends.  It was fun to catch up with everyone and we got to meet my nephew for the first time.  There wasn't much in the way of adventures in Tucson, but we will be back for that very soon.

Then we headed to Nevada to pick up our friend from the Las Vegas airport.  After getting him we headed to the Valley of Fire.  This place was amazing!  The rock formations were so strange but beautiful.  There is a section in the park that has rock formations with strips of colors in them.  Our friend said their were some structures that look like bacon and we kept looking for the "bacon rock".  Sadly, we couldn't see it from the road and weren't prepared to hike, so we left it for next time.  While in the Valley of Fire we did a short hike to see what is referred to as Mouse's Tank.  Along the trail you can see several petroglyphs left by the native peoples more than a hundred years ago.  You can also see more of the amazing rock formations that the valley is known for.  It was beautiful.

After we left Nevada, we headed for St. George Utah to spend 2 days in Zion National Park.  The park was absolutely incredible.  Everywhere you look there are breathtaking vistas.  This one was taken from a lookout spot on one of our hikes.

We did a total of 3 hikes while we were there.  The first one was Angels Landing, which was a super crazy one.  I didn't think I could do it, but Mr. Darcy and our friend helped me.  I was so scared, I didn't think I was going to make it to the top, but I did!  I made it to the top and back down.  Along the way people kept cheering me on and helping me when  I needed it.  I cried when I reached the bottom.  I am horribly afraid of heights and I felt like I was going to die on that hike.  Being able to complete it was truly an accomplishment for me.  Here's a picture of the trail we took to the top.

The next day we hiked the narrows of the Virgin River.  That was a grueling hikes as well, but not nearly as scary.  The most hilarious part was when Mr. Darcy and our friend hurled me up onto a rock, much like you would throw a football.  We were trying to avoid a section of the river that we feared would be to deep to wade in, and were picking out a trail through the rocks that line the river.  I couldn't pull myself up onto this one massive boulder, so the guys helped me out, lol.  I don't think I want to repeat that, but it was pretty funny.  We returned home from Zion very sore and tired, but happy for the adventure.  It was a great reset for heading back to work.  Here's a picture of us in the Virgin River narrows.

I haven't had any real adventures in the past two weeks, so I suppose it's about time to get started on one.  The summer is looking like a great opportunity to try new things and I am excited to see what will happen.  It's funny, but I didn't realize how much growing I would do in the process of trying new things.  I know the purpose was to grow, but I didn't realize how much I would grow.  I feel like the past month has such a time of change and transitioning for me.  There has been a lot of self reflecting and a lot of learning.  I feel like I have matured some and I am on the path to maturing more.  I'm much more focused, but I'm also much more open to possibilities and new things.  So, perhaps this quest is turning out to be exactly what it was intended to be.  That would be good, indeed.  :)

The Quest

As I mentioned in my last post, I have a new quest I am about to set out on.  Along with that quest I have some goals I am aiming to accomplish which will help determine the success of my quest.  There are really two large goals - 1. To learn how to care for myself and my things.  2. To learn how to be free.  Wow, as I write those I am immediately impressed with the enormity of those goals.  They're pretty huge, and I'm not even sure in the slightest how I am going to accomplish them, but then, that's what the quest is for.  I don't know where this quest will lead me or what I will face on the journey, but I am hoping it will end with my accomplishing these two goals.

Now, I am a huge planner and I would love nothing more than to plan this quest out to the nth degree.  However, that would only delay me in starting and would, in some ways, defeat the purpose of this quest.  So, the first thing I will be doing is NO PLANNING.  This will be a spontaneous quest.  I will do this.  I can do this.  It will not end terribly just because I did not plan it.  I will not die from not knowing what lies in front of me.  I will be alright with not knowing or controlling how things turn out.  There, my pep talk is done; now, let's move on.

While I will not plan this quest, what I will do is lay out some of the things I need to accomplish on this quest.  They are as follows:
To learn how to care for myself and my things --
1. Develop a solid sense of self-worth in order to establish the importance of caring for myself.
2. Develop the habit of caring for my body and my health in general
3. Develop the habit of caring for my property
4. Maintaining clean living spaces on a regular basis

To learn how to be free --
1. Try one new activity every two weeks
2. Try one new food every week
3. Learn how to lose myself in something
4. Pay down debt (this is a huge one for me in being able to feel like I can be free)
5. Learn how to worry less and have more fun

I know some of these seem really general or vague, at least they do to me, but that's the best I can do for now.  These are areas that I know will be hard for me on this quest but I am so tired of things being the same way.  I need to change.  I probably can't do all this on my own, so it's a really good thing I have a great Friend who will be with me along the way.  He promised to never leave me or forsake me and I believe Him.  Well, here I go.  Wish me luck!!

Wintry Ramblings

It's been winter outside my window for that past 3 days and I'm starting to tire of it.  I know we desperately need the precipitation, so I'm not completely tired of it.  However, I am really hoping the spring will arrive some time soon.  As I type this, I am looking out my window at the drafts of snow that seem to never stop.  We've had over a foot of snow in the past 2 days and it just keeps going.  It's as though the winter was running late and is now rushing to complete itself before the warmth of the sun overtakes it. Hmm.  That seems funny to me.  I have a mental picture of a big blue cloud sweeping into town with puffs of powdery snow spewing from him while the sun can be seen in the background steadily moving forward.  Hehe.  Just a little taste of how my mind works.

Well, aside from the late winter, there's been lots of other goings on.  Work has been very busy for me over the past two months and it's mostly been paperwork, phone calls, emails, and follow ups with clients.  Unfortunately, I don't get paid for that stuff unless there is a client session to go along with it, and more often than naught these days, there has been no session.  I love what I do and I'm really glad I can help with certain things; I just wish I got paid to do it.  *Sigh*  Maybe some day.

Mr. Darcy has been crazy busy starting a company of his own and there have been many ups and downs over the past few months.  I really am so very proud of him and I think he will do really well if the company can ever get off the ground.  It's a lot of work and very little pay-off in the short term, but we are hoping that it will pay off well in the long term.

Outside of work, life has been a bit crazy as well.  Sometimes I don't know what to make of the waves of calm and craziness that seem to ebb and flow in life.  For a few weeks, there is not much going on and the routine of life carries you through each day with the consistency of a properly wound grandfather clock.  Then, your life is suddenly changed and everything is hectic.  There is no routine, there is only survival and functioning.  You get past the worst of it and the routine takes over again.  It's kinda strange, but even this back and forth of order and chaos seems to have a regular pattern to it.  I've come to expect it, and I don't mind it really.  Honestly, I'm not sure I could survive without it.  Which leads me to another thought.  I've often asked myself why it is that I seem to always end up in stressful situations, almost as though I am drawn to them.  Why is it that when everything is calm and uneventful, I feel uneasy and even stressed out?  I've thought about this a lot, and at least one conclusion I've come to is perhaps for me, being stressed is normal.  As such, when I am not stressed, it doesn't feel right.  So, I seek out stressful situations in order to bring myself back into "balance".  The trouble is, I'm pretty tired of being stressed.  I'm pretty tired of living my life that way.  I want to be able to relax and enjoy life.  I'm sick of being uptight and serious.  I guess what I'm really saying is, I'm sick of being the person I was trained to be.  I so desperately desire to break out of this mold I have been poured into and just be free. But I don't know how to do that.  So, I've made it my next quest - to be free.  Wish me luck on my journey, for I will surely need it.

RSS Feed

I went to check my email this morning and to my surprise noticed that my RSS feed had exploded with 14 "new" posts from my blog.  You might be thinking, "Wow, you have been busy in the past 24 hours."  There's just one problem.  I haven't posted anything since last week.  Being curious as to what this all meant, I checked the feed to see what these new posts were.  All of them were more than a year old.  "Hmm," I thought.  "Maybe someone commented or posted something on them that caused the feed to read them as new."  I checked my comments and posts and there was nothing new.

I was thinking this was really strange and mentioned it to Mr. Darcy to see if he could make sense of it and he informed me that it happened to his feed too.  *Sigh*  Technology acting up is no fun.  After a quick Google search to try and figure out what was going on, I found some info on a forum about RSS feeds.  Most of what was posted made absolutely no sense to me and the instructions I tired to follow didn't jive with the settings layout of my blog.  I've decided the best thing to do is just leave it alone and see what it does in the next week.  In the meantime, I needed to mark all the "new" posts as read so my feed would stop looking like it had taken a hefty dose of steroids.

As I sifted through the 15 posts that had shown up in my feed, I was struck by all the things I have experienced in the past 2-3 years.  It was also quite amazing to see the progression I had made in certain areas during that time period.  Sometimes we forget where we came from and how we arrived at certain point.  It becomes so familiar to be here that it feels as though we have always been there.  Of course, we have not "always" been there, and seeing that journey played out for us again is quite amazing.

Reading old posts always brings up a lot of emotions and remembrances for me.  This time was no different. What was different, however, was my ability to be objective and healthily detached from what I was reading.  That very rarely occurs for me, and I think it is an indication of how much I have healed, how far I have come, in this crazy journey called life.  It's strange to me that an RSS feed problem would end up reminding me of hurts, growth, and triumph in my own life, but there it is.  I'm sorry for those of you who may have experienced trouble from my feed as well.  However, I'm not all that sad that I had to deal with it this morning.  It was a refreshing way to start the day.

Seasons

I am sitting on my couch this morning looking out my window at the beautiful Colorado scenery.  We had a snow storm yesterday that dropped about 8 inches of snow on us, but today, there's nothing but clear blue skies and a brilliant spring sun.  That might sound rather strange to some of you, but March is statistically our snowiest month here in Colorado.  So, although the calendar says spring is almost here, the weather does not always agree.  Our April showers are usually snow showers.  I like it though.  It took me some getting used to when I first moved here.  Now, I look forward to the spring snow showers that alternate with warm sunny days.

It's also the start of Daylight Savings today.  That means we lost an hour overnight and we had to set our clocks forward.  That's something else I've had to get used to since moving here.  In Arizona we don't observe DST.  I never had to reset my clock or remember when we were springing forward or falling back.  It's taken me some time to adjust to doing it.  I still sometimes forget.  Thankfully, my husband has lived with DST almost his entire life and he helps me remember when we need to reset the clocks.

As I sit here and reflect on the changing seasons that bring differences in weather and differences in time, I realize how much of my life is very similar.  There are seasons I experience and changes in time and weather that go along with it.  I am not now what I once was, nor is the time I am living in anything like the times I have lived in.  There are new experiences waiting for me, new challenges to face, new joys to thrill me, and new memories to make.  For a person like me who gets bored rather quickly with monotony, that is an exciting thought.  To view life, not as an endless stream of mundane routines you perform day in and day out, but as a series of cycles that continuously changes is much more invigorating, I think.  Life is not one long winter with sorrows and griefs, nor is it one long summer with endless joys and mirth.  It is an ebb and flow of winter, spring, summer, and fall, with each season being different from the last and different even from it's prior occurrence.  With each new season there is a new opportunity to learn and grow and enjoy life in a varied way.  I am thankful for those seasons.  I hope I get to experience more of them.