Jan 4, 2009

Life Sure Takes You

Do you ever go back on your blogs or in your journals and read some of your old entries, and marvel at how your life has changed? I look back on life two and a half years ago and cannot believe how my priorities have shifted, and how much more at peace I feel about some aspects of my life.

This post in particular really made me remember a lot of the stress and strangeness of my life as it was transitioning from single-parent-working-momhood. Also just coming out of a lot of difficulty, and the resulting feelings of anxiety and insecurity.




5.2.06
sooooo drained....

Can I just say that the world caught up with me and dumped its entire contents in my lap today?

Can I complain a little about the fact that I'm 6 1/2 months pregnant and still look bascially like I have a beer belly?

Oh, how about this: my laundry smells sour because the dryer I use doesn't work well and so I have to leave them half dry and I overdid it last time without the benefit of a dryer sheet.

Yikes. I just feel so overwhelmed. I gave a lesson in church today about a really ugly subject matter: pornography. The hardest part was that I suddenly realized that this is a subject that is probably going to follow me around for the rest of my life, so I better get comfortable with it. You know when you have the sudden dawning insight that your mission in life is one that you would never have thought or chosen but somehow is strangely appropriate and oddly comfortable? Well there it is. One of my missions in life: to educate people about how to help those who struggle with pornography, or the loved ones of those who have difficulties.

Thank God that we don't go through pain for nothing.... but there is an entirely different kind of pain that we experience when we really reach out and help those around us. And it's something we can't avoid if we're really doing our best to be God's instruments.

What a sensitive, wimpy soul I feel I have sometimes. And yet sometimes i know I'm strong.

In the aftermath of that lesson, however, I didn't want to go to work and face 18 anorexic and bulimic women with severe depressive problems and tragic backgrounds. I wanted to curl up in a ball and sleep away the day. But here I am. All the girls are in bed. I check them every half hour... and it's oddly reminiscent of when I checked every half hour on my newborn daughter for the first week or so after her birth, terrified I would find that she'd stopped breathing.

Sometimes I venture into one of the girls' rooms and pause for a minute or so until I can see the reassuring rise and fall of a quilt cover.

The girl we keep out here... the one we just discovered with tons of contraband pills...
she's snoring. So I know she's OK.

My daughter is warm and safe in her bed, without me to check on her... and my husband, alone in his.

It's gonna be a long night.

Labels: omphaloskepsis

posted by NoSurfGirl | 22:32 | 0 comments


Sometimes it's nice to go back and look at the rough spots in ones' life and be grateful we can look back on them. There will be more ahead, but right now, life is pretty good.

13 comments:

Putz said...

two years agoo on my blog i was talking abouyt aliens....now i'm talking aboput wierd people born almost 200 years ago...is there something wrong with me???????

the nice one said...

NSG-it's good to see i'm not the only one who rides the roller coaster of life and how wonderful it is to see how much we have grown. well you're definatly one of my heroes

Stephen said...

and it's oddly reminiscent of when I checked every half hour on my newborn daughter for the first week or so after her birth, terrified I would find that she'd stopped breathing.

Sometimes I venture into one of the girls' rooms and pause for a minute or so until I can see the reassuring rise and fall of a quilt cover.


I find myself still checking to see if my "baby" is still breathing (she is nine years old now). Funny how some things don't change too.

Lucy Stern said...

Life is all about changes.....We just hang on to the roller coaster and take it as it comes....How we handle the changes is what is important anyway...Glad things are better for you now.

Heather {Healthy Family Cookin} said...

That's funny because I was typing my journals from this same time period only yesterday! It's hard to "relive" those parts of life, but it certainly is good to see how much life has changed and how much we have grown. Although we're never quite the same after going through trials like these, we grow through them and they end up making us who we are.

Anonymous said...

What's a bit unsettling to me is the thought of NOT keeping a journal or blog of things that happen in life. Sometimes I'll look at an entry (journal or blog) of six months or so ago and think, "Oh yes, I remember that day!" If I hadn't written about it, the memory might well have been lost to be forever.

Putz said...

so are the two girls comming into your home that you told lucy about on your blog anre the one you have in your belly 6and 12 months pregnant and the one your adopting from africa...that does make two rithg or am i misssing something??????

nateandrebecca said...

That is definitely one nice aspect of keeping up some sort of journal. It makes it so much easier to see what we have accomplished, the things we have overcome, the direction we are going, etc. I am amazed sometimes looking back on my own past entries and realizing how my perspective on some things has changed. I am so the same as I was, but so very different too...

Lucy Stern said...

I'm curious about the girls too.

Donnell Allan said...

Your post prompted me to read past posts on your wonderful blog and I love you more than ever now.

For one thing, your poems are amazing!

Thanks again for creating this blog :0)

brie said...

Hi,

In the past you've commented on my blog, and today I happened upon your's again. I can't help after reading this post assuming you do or used to work at CFC. Do we know each other?

Unknown said...

Yup. I was a tech for a while. Haley was my friend before CFC brought us together again... I commented on your blog once after looking through the links on hers. Hope you are well and all. :) Nice to hear from you.

I keep my name anonymous for protection purposes but I was a blond tech on the inpatient unit. Kind of quiet most of the time :)

Megan said...

I love how open and raw your emotions are in this post. Yes, you have changed, but you still have the ability to be brutally honest with yourself and with your emotions. I think that's why people like the way you write - you have the ability to put into words what others cannot. I love that post. (and I still check my kid's breathing every night...)