Quite the Week

This past week has been rough.  Mini Me returned Sunday afternoon from her trip to Disney with her dad and it has proven to be a very difficult week of transition for her.  She was extremely tired on Sunday evening after Little Miss Geek left.  Then Monday it was back into the routine of school and gymnastics and life in general.

Monday was going well until we got to the gym for gymnastics.  Mini Me ran into the bathroom and then came up to me crying saying she had diarrhea.  Baby Geek had his class so I asked her what she wanted to do and she opted for going through with class.  We were all the way over there plus she had a meet this morning and she had missed the week before because of their vacation.  She pushed through practice making several trips to the bathroom and even saying she threw up once.  But she did it.

Tuesday was better but she still complained of a stomach ache.  Wednesday everything fell apart.  Baby Geek had also gotten out of the routine of things and he was being very difficult.  Mini Me had a complete meltdown about going to practice Wednesday.  Again saying her stomach hurt.  I was in a difficult place because I knew that she needed to go to practice for the meet yet I didn’t want to push her too hard.  Finally, she decided she would go to practice.  After about an hour the smiles were back and she was very glad she went and decided she wanted to come again Thursday night for a make up practice.

Things got a lot better on Thursday, although Baby Geek continued to be a challenge and today it Mini Me’s extra practice time paid off.  She did very well at her meeting this morning.  She did better than her first meet and stayed on the balance beam.  She earned mostly red and blue ribbons so we were very pleased.  It was an early morning for us but she was so thrilled with going to the meet and how well she did.  She got a new leotard as part of competing in the meet and won a drawing for some gymnastics balm to help with the blisters and cracked hands and feet that come with being a gymnast.  She competes again at the beginning of April and I know she will only continue to improve.

After I got home from the meet I was able to make it to my contemplative prayer group and got a bit of the nourishment I needed after the week.  I think I’ll share a bit of what came to me as it turned out to be pretty helpful for me.  We were using a centering prayer where you repeat one short word to enter into your meditative state.  This is what came to me.

Peace.  Peace.  Peace, I say to myself, waiting for something to come.  All thoughts of the outside world I dismiss.  Peace.  Peace.  Peace.  Still nothing comes.  All I hear is my own voice inside my head.  Peace.  Peace.  Peace.  Small bursts of light appear behind my closed lids but still nothing, only silence.  Peace.  Peace.  Peace.  All other thoughts are gone.  I still only sense silence.  Peace.  Peace.  Peace.  The notion dawns on me, perhaps that is what God needs me to have this day after the hectic, crazy, busy week I’ve had.  I fall into the silence and welcome it.  God has granted me my centering word.  Peace.  Peace.  Peace.

Baby Girl is Home

I feel like all is right with the world again.  Mini Me came home today.

She called me Thursday night and was feeling a little sad because she missed me.  I did get her to tell me a little bit about how her trip was going.  She had actually run into the girl who she was best friends with up until she started school and we moved away.  Mini Me was actually chosen to lead the elephants in their procession during the Lion King show at Animal Kingdom.

She came home today around noon and she had brought back a Lightning McQueen car wearing a Mickey Mouse hat and a Mater wearing a Goofy hat and ears for Baby Geek.  He was so thrilled and it warmed my heart that she thought of him while she was away.

But it does feel good to have her home.  I cooked a big dinner that she had wanted me to make for weeks and after the Geek left to take Little Miss Geek back she and I had some nice snuggle time.  We have a very close bond and I think it is very hard on both of us when are are apart for that length of time.

Tomorrow is back into the routine of school and gymnastics and life in general but hopefully we’ll be able to grab a hold of a few extra snatches of time in and there to make up for the time that we lost.

Back to It

This week I’ve been back into my running routine.  Although, the length of my runs are a bit abbreviated for now.  I got out of the habit of running when I was so sick and it made me slow to fall back into things so it’s been about six weeks since I’ve run.  Ugh.  No wonder I was feeling so low.

This week I’ve picked it back up.  I can definitely feel my lungs have tightened up a lot.  It amazes me how quickly that scar tissues surrounding my lungs stiffens back up.  Exercise is a definite must for me now for my pulmonary health.  If I want to have any kind of lung capacity I have to keep this up.

I do listen closely to my body and I do not push myself too hard.  This week I’ve only been able to do about twenty minutes total and I’ve been dividing it by walking for five minutes, running for ten and walking for five.  It is frustrating to once again have to go slowly back into things but I think it should pick back up more quickly.  Next week I’ll increase my time by five minutes and just keep going incrementally up from there until my lungs feel like they are back where they should be.  At the end of my ten minutes I can feel the part of my lungs that is attached to my diaphragm pulling and it hurt so I knew it was time to be done running and walk.

It’s still too cold for me to run outside so I’m stuck on the treadmill.  But that also means that I have at least a month or two before I’ll be doing any races so I have plenty of time to get back up to a 5K and my goal for the early summer is to get in a 10K and hopefully even a triathlon in there too.

Difficult Things

There are a lot of difficult things associated with being a divorced parent and having to share your time with your child.

This week I’m dealing with a difficult one.  Mini Me is off this week to Disneyland with her dad.  This is not the first time she had gone with him and her dad’s family to Florida and to Disney.  It was really hard the first time to not be with my child when she got to experience it for the first time.  It is still hard this time.

I find myself walking a fine line.  I am very happy for her because I know she will have a wonderful time and as a parent her happiness comes first and foremost.  But I am also sad for myself because I haven’t been able to take her myself.  I want so badly to be able to go and share that experience with her.  I know that the time will come and we will eventually be able to do it but money has been so tight lately it has been very disheartening to be unable to do it.

Little Miss Geek is also going to Disney with the female who gave birth to her so the Geek is also experiencing this same sense of pain and disappointment.  We are trying to remind ourselves that we the time comes and we also get to make the trip they will still love it and still have a great time.  In fact, it might even be better because they are friend in addition to sisters and it is always more fun to have friends.  Plus we still have the Baby Geek and his  joy will be for the first and only with us.

But it still sucks.

Some Nature Contemplation

I want to share a bit of some of contemplative prayer journaling this week.  We were focusing on nature and listening to God speak to our spirituality through the world around us.  What I wrote today resonated with me a bit and I feel compelled to share.

The world is blanketed in white.  Fresh snow cover all; shielding from view all that looks brown, dead.  The drabness is replaced by stark white, making all look clean, fresh.

The air is still cold and the wind bites at my nose, but all is not quiet.  The birds continue in their song, refusing to be muffled by winter’s grasp.

The battle between winter and spring is coming to a head.  In the end, spring will win, as it always does but in the meantime, winter will continue with it’s fight.

The whiteness of the snow gives the illusion of purity but all it is doing is hiding what is lies beneath.  Beneath the white all is still dormant and brown.  The snow is a temporary mask.  When it melts away, a muddy mess is all that is left.  But I can take heart because out of this muddy mess will come new shoots of green and blossoms of new life.

God is showing me my own life in this.  I was covered with snow; putting on a mask that hid all that was dormant and dead within me.  I held onto my snow because it was nicer to look at than the rot happening inside of me.

When the snow began to melt from me all that was ugly was revealed.  My life was a mess.  I wanted the snow back but God continued to let it melt away.  When it was done, I was a muddy mess and I hated what I saw.  I despaired.  I was certain that I was dead and my usefulness to God was at an end.  But I was wrong.

God is pulling at me again; reminding me that out of my muddy mess new life will come through God.  I will once again put my faith in the Lord and once again I will come to bear fruit.

Drudging Through

The last month has been rough.  There has been a lot of illness, crisis and general craziness.  It’s been difficult on me to keep my focus on things and keep myself doing the things that make me feel the most healthy.  I shifted much of my own focus onto looking after everyone around me (who are all on the mend again, thankfully) and neglected to take care of myself.

Since the PEs, I usually do a decent job of giving myself what I need.  Usually that’s in the form of running and taking some quiet time for myself.  However, I neglected to do that and it hit me hard.  Just as my grandma was recovering from everything with her blood clots and my dad got his GI bleeding under control my body decided it had enough.  I got sick.  Really sick.  Gradually, an upper respiratory infection set in and did not want to let go.  So I was laid low for two weeks.  I saw my doctor three times in five days because my lungs were getting progressively worse and since everything they are very careful of infections in my lungs.  I was about a day away from pneumonia and hospitalization before I finally went to the doctor.  So, a strong course of antibiotics, inhaler, codeine and steroids later I am finally feeling better.

Fortunately, I managed to recover just in time to get back to the flower shop for Valentine’s Day.  It was probably too soon to be back but there was really no way I could have left Suzie to do it alone.  We were insanely busy and sold about 700 roses that day.

The other bit of relief I received upon feeling better was being able to visit one of my dear friends who is dying of cancer.  I wrote about my relationship with him and seeing him here.  The overwhelming rush of grief I felt when his wife called me and told me how things had progressed was intensified because I was as sick as I was.  I am so thankful I was able to make the trip to see him.

So, after this rough month, what I am doing to take care of myself?  Well, I’m easing back into a workout routine.  I was too sick to exercise and I can feel my lungs have tightened back up again so I’m back to slowly working things back up again on the treadmill.  I am really looking forward to a turn in the weather so I can get back to running outside.  The treadmill does not inspire me.  I am still seriously considering the triatholon in August so warmer weather will mean I can increase that training as well.

My visit with my friend has inspired me greatly with my own spirituality.  As you know I’m being a bit more vocal about it here because it is becoming a more prevalent part of my life.  It is the season of Lent in the Christian church and for me this means a time to grow my relationship with God.  As part of that I’m doing a contemplative prayer study with my church.  Contemplative prayers is really best described as a meditation, sitting quite and listening.  This is not something specific to Christianity and I think it draws us closer to our own spirituality and oneness with the world around us, whatever you believe.  I will be the first to admit that mediation is something that I am not good at so this class is a challenge to me to enhance this discipline in myself.  As I mentioned before, I feel God is pulling strongly on my life and I really want to use this class and this Lenten season to listen closely and see if I can find further discernment.  I will likely share some of my journalings from this class here.

So that is how February is progressing for me.  I hope you are all well and staying healthy and remembering to care for yourselves as well as those around you.

Chuck

If we are very lucky, someone will enter our lives that will imprint themselves so deeply onto our hearts that we will never be the same. I have been blessed in my life with not one but two of those people.  They are a husband and wife pair that I met during my first marriage in the church my ex-husband and I attended.  Sue and Chuck became fast friends and embodied all that I believe God calls us to be to one another.  Their home was always open to anyone and everyone who had need of them.

When I met Chuck was not a proclaimed Christian.  He did not really attend church but it was obvious that he was exactly the kind of person that God calls us all to be.  I was honored to be involved at the very beginning of his transition into the church and formally becoming what he really truly already was.  Chuck quickly became one of my best friends.  I was so blessed to be there when he was baptized into the church and loved strolling hand in hand with him down our own spiritual journeys.

When my marriage ended, Sue and Chuck did not take sides.  They supported me through that most awful of times and never judged.  They opened their home to me and Mini Me to stay should we need it.  They alone of that church knew the truth of what happened between my ex-husband and myself.

As time went on and the rest of the church cast me aside I drifted away.  I was going through my own spiritual darkness and everything from that time was painful.  However, Sue and Chuck never left my heart and my Christian love for them never decreased.

A year and a half ago Chuck was diagnosed with inoperable esophageal cancer.  I saw him shortly after that at a benefit hosted for them and he was determined to fight.  While he was determined to fight he was also at peace with what his fate may be.  I saw him, talked with him and remembered just how much I loved him.

Unfortunately, time has moved too quickly and the cancer is winning.  About a week ago Sue messaged me to tell me that the cancer had spread throughout his whole body, they were moving him home for in home hospice and God was calling him home.  The extent of my devastation and grief over this news been overwhelming.  Even worse was I was extremely sick with my own bronchial infection at the time and could not rush to his side.  I prayed fervently that I would get well and God would grant me the chance to see this beloved friend one last time.

Friday evening I was granted that request.  I arrived into the house that was like a home and so full of love to see this man who I love so dearly devastated by a horrible disease.  And yet, even there among it all there was peace.  I was able to sit beside my friend and talk to him.  I held his hand, told him I love him and that he has never left my heart.  As I sat there beside him, holding his hand while he drifted in and out I realized that I was so blessed to have experienced a love that is the purest, truest, most beautiful of loves with another person.  It is not romantic love by any stretch of the imagination but a love that so pure and from God it can only be described as such.  A love so beautiful, it hurts.

I want so badly to be mad.  To be mad at God, to be mad at myself, to just be mad that such a wonderful person, a wonderful friend must leave us here on this earth.  But as much as I try, I can’t be.  I can only be filled with peace because my beloved friend is going to get to go home.  He will be welcomed into God’s presence with open arms and I cannot be angry about that.

I do not know if I will see Chuck again in this world but as I left Friday I was able to hug him, give him a kiss, tell him I love him and he will live with me forever.  He responded by telling him how beautiful I was and how I have always been in his heart.  I pray that I will get to see him again before he goes home but if I don’t, I can rest easier knowing that he will, without a doubt, be going home.