Would You Pray about Buying a Time Share?

nuchylee, via freedigitalphotos.net

The minivan has a button for tuning the radio on the steering wheel.  I guess this could come in handy, but mostly I end up bumping it by accident.  Then there's some guy answering a caller's question with the phrase "Catholic birth control."  I hit the button again, hoping that it's in the opposite direction from the first hit and I'll hear NPR playing classical music again.  No.  Now some other guy is explaining why he doesn't recommend time shares.  You pay whether you use them or not.  Maintenance fees go up.  They can be very hard to sell. So don't rush into it, he advises.  Pray about it.  I hit the button again.  NPR.  Relief.

But... of course the little voice from behind me pipes up, "Why'd you change it Mommy?"

I try not to lie to my children.  I can explain (hopefully in developmentally appropriate terms) where babies come from.  I answered truthfully that yes, in some states men can marry other men (but you still can't marry your brother even if you do love him more than anyone).  But in this case I... don't exactly tell the whole truth.

I say, "We don't need to listen to someone talking about time shares.  We are not going to buy a time share."

I didn't feel like I needed to explain that I find this advice to pray about buying a time share irritating.  Because most likely he would again say "Why?" and I'd have to try to explain.  And it's complicated.  I guess.

I mean what does this financial and apparently Christian sage expect to happen when his listener prays?  Will someone miraculously knock on his front door and offer to sit down and map out his income and expenses so that he can see exactly how much money he can afford to spend on vacations each year?  Will he have a feeling of peace about his decision that will cause him to move forward?  Will an obviously "better" opportunity present itself?

I know.  The Bible says to pray about everything.  But if we're doing that then why point out the need to pray about this, particularly?  Just in case he forgot? 

I also know that the Bible promises that if anyone lacks wisdom he should pray for it and God will provide.  But either people are forgetting this promise or it doesn't work quite the way we'd hope because lots of decisions get made - especially regarding finances - that I would not consider to be wise.

But really, it's not bad to pray.  I didn't really change the station because I have a problem with praying.  I changed it because I have a problem with this casual way that we talk about praying.  As if it's.... what... some kind of magic eight ball that will reveal just enough of the future to let us know what to do?  What about common sense?  What about basic principals like spending less than our income?  What about charitable giving? 

If there are moral/spiritual issues involved they have to do with meeting obligations to people who rely on us and thinking about possibly helping people who don't have the basic necessities of life like clean drinking water and basic medical care.  But hey, maybe all those factors have been considered and the listener really does need a few weeks out of the year to rest and relax and maybe a time share would be great.  Maybe praying would help him reflect on all of this.

So I'm probably just being petty.  I'm probably jumping to conclusions about how people who are calling into radio shows aimed at Christians who have questions about their finances act and think.  I'm probably a little bitter that when I was growing up we spent so much time traveling around, visiting dozens of churches, hoping to convince enough people to give us money that we would be able to spend four more years bringing the gospel to an isolated "unreached people group."  While some guy here is sitting in a radio studio telling people to pray about whether they should buy a time share.

Or maybe I'm just frustrated and discouraged by years of pouring out the desires of my heart to God and feeling like it didn't make a difference.  Maybe I just don't know what to do with the fact that when I couldn't stand to pray anymore, when any attempt brought up a well of pain and sadness, when I decided I couldn't expose myself to that any more... that was when I found some measure of peace.  Not the perfect peace that the Bible promises, but a greater peace than I had known when I was hoping and yearning and reaching out. 

Maybe, in spite of a lifetime of teaching on the subject I just don't understand prayer at all.  But I do know that this kind of glib instruction to pray about an issue that might be better handled by careful study and thought rubs me the wrong way.  I think that the Christian community would do well to think about how we talk about these topics in such a public way.  Maybe I'll even figure out how to drive the minivan without hitting that button.

Third Culture Mom at the End of the School Year

photo credit: Lotus Carroll via photopin cc

Being a Missionary Kid (MK) or Third Culture Kid (TCK) is kind of like being a Preacher's Kid (PK).  Long after one stops being a "kid" the experiences and ideas encountered as a child leave a mark.  I'd say, though, that for a TCK the effects are farther reaching and more profound.  (Also MKs can also be PKs.  I'm not a PK but that's another story.) Here's an example of how being an MK still affects me today.

Lenny finished kindergarten a week ago.  It was amazing to me how casually the year ended.  Yes, they had a special school assembly (celebrating his elementary school's 60th "birthday" as chance would have it) and a field day (which was rained out in the afternoon).  He came home with a school t-shirt after the field day (they improvised in the gym).  On the last day of school he brought home a beach ball saying, "I had a ball in kindergarten!"

Lenny was sad to see school end.  He knew that it will start again in the fall but that he will be in a different grade and have a different teacher - across the hall from his old classroom.  He knows that he will be at school all day and eat in the cafeteria.  But he said, "It will just be for the same amount of time."

I didn't understand.  I reminded him about all day school.  "No, the same amount of days.  Then it will be over again."

Ah.  We needed a moment of melancholy to acknowledge the friendships that would be lost and the familiar routines that would change.  I said, "Yes, life it like that.  Every year you will have a new grade and a new teacher and some new friends.  For twelve more years you will start a new grade every fall, finish every spring and after the summer start again. Then, if you go to college there will be lots more changes.  Then when you finish college you will get a job and maybe buy a house and then things will be the same more.  Unless you become a dad and have kids.  Then all the changes will start again."

I may have overdone it.  But he said, "I like that last part."

"Which part?"

"The part about being a dad."

And the discussion was pretty much over.  We were on to what we were going to do after school.

I was more prepared for this non-event transition than I was after the first year that he was in preschool.  That year I felt myself panicking a little and pushing back a profound sadness.  My reason and time have taught me that in a small community in the Midwest transitioning from the school year to summer does bring changes, but FAR fewer than the changes that I dealt with growing up.  Most people stay in the community.  Even if we don't see them regularly there's a good chance we'll run into them at the library or the park or Lenny will encounter them in a class or other activity.  And then there's social media - a boon for introverts like me who really do care about people and want to stay in touch but dread picking up the phone and can't handle a crammed social schedule.

Growing up the end of the school year was a time of profound sadness mixed with eager excitement for me.  I didn't go to the same school for two years in a row until I was in fifth grade.  Even when I stayed for a couple of years in a row at a school for MKs lots of my friends left - either for good or for a year for "home assignment."  So at the end of every year I knew that I wouldn't see some people in the fall.  And I definitely wouldn't see them over the summer since I was about to climb onto an airplane and fly to the city my parents based their ministry out of.  Which also meant that the last few days of school were filled not only with painful partings, but with packing.  Everything that I considered mine had to either be taken home with me, gotten rid of, or put into storage.  But not much could be stored.  Especially if that particular year we were going "stateside."

As an introvert those intense last days of school were also tinged with a certain disappointment.  I'm most comfortable with a few close friendships but teenage years don't exactly encourage one to be satisfied with that type of social interaction.  Being part of the group - being able to join in with cliques and clubs and team sports - hold a pretty high value.  Sitting around for a day or two signing yearbooks is a great way to highlight the fact that one has a social circle that's smaller than seems to be acceptable.

And any relationship that had been difficult - whether with an adult or a peer - was now unlikely to be resolved.  It was much more likely to be left hanging, possibly for the rest of my life.

Much has been written about the importance of helping TCKs find closure in these types of situations.  That's good.  But nothing can change the fact that every time it happens it's emotionally and physically exhausting.  And even the best of intentions can't change the fact that relationships don't fit well into set time frames.  Hopefully today's TCKs benefit from the internet and the ability to stay in touch over long distances and time.  Getting back in touch with many from my past has changed my view of my connection to my past even now.  But when I was growing up I never would have imagined the possibilities.  Letters between the Philippines and the US could take weeks to arrive and phone conversations cost a dollar a minute.  Even with inflation that's too steep for keeping up with school friends!

So this year I approach the end of the year with some anxiety, but I try to be realistic about what the challenges will be.  I hope that we can manage to keep in touch with Lenny's best friend from this year in spite of her family's busy schedule and ours.  I set up activities for Lenny so so that he will have something to do in the afternoon while the baby and I rest.  As the schedule for the weeks fall into place I realize that the summer will be over before we know it.  I'm already dreading the return of short, cold days, cold and flu season and homework.

Yes, the cycle will continue.  But if the end of the year when I was growing up was like skydiving - standing by the open door of an airplane getting ready to jump into the void while hoping my parachute would open - then these transitions are like sledding - crouching on a sled at the top of the hill, anticipating a quick slide to the bottom followed by another long climb up.  There will be some laughter, a few thrills and possibly a harmless tumble.  It's memorable, but much less momentous.  Calmer and much more manageable. 

A Quick Note About My Thought Process

From the zoo:  Don't waste your time searching for signs of life!

A friend commented that she hasn't seen much movement on my part regarding this faith journey I'm on.  I've been thinking about that.  I think that what I've been doing, actually, is settling in to the point I'm at right now. 

I've spent a lot of years avoiding thinking about what I believe about God and the Bible.  I went for two years, in fact, without going to church at all.  During that time I didn't spend much time praying, reading the Bible, or even wondering what I believed.  I assumed that I still believed in God, but I had some problems with the details of how my relationship with Him was supposed to work.  Putting myself through the ringer of trying to figure it out was too stressful, so I just stopped trying.

Then when Lenny was starting to really understand what was going on around him I felt that it would be good for all of us to go to church as a family.  I'd found some other ways to plug in to the community, but church was always one that was important to me growing up and I felt that it would be good to do that for my child.  We ended up staying at the church we had been going to (Allen never stopped).  Lenny loves it.  His biggest disappointment is that we always have to leave and he never gets to spend as much time as he would like with his church friends.  It's pretty much the complaint he has about any social interaction.

My biggest anxiety is that I am not teaching him about God the "right" way.  I don't want to fill his head with a bunch of rules and rote answers about who God is and how to please Him.  Perhaps as a result Lenny said, when his children's Bible suggested that he tell others about God, that he doesn't know very much about God and wouldn't know what to tell others.  We suggested he tell what he knows and, if more information is needed, ask an adult.

But when I went back to church things had changed pretty dramatically in my life.  Besides becoming a mom I'd gotten more involved in the community, made one of the closest non Christian friends I've had in my life, and seen an improvement in my health.  I felt more capable and less inclined to accept influences in my life that lead to emotional upset.

People say things like "I don't know what I would do without God in my life" or "God has blessed me so much."  I might have said that in the past.  But the fact that some truly positive changes came in my life at a time when I was feeling very distant from God is confusing to me.  Either I should be extremely grateful because He chose to work in my life at a time when I was doing everything "wrong," or doing everything "wrong" was really the right way to do it and the good changes had nothing to do with belief in, or the existence of God.

I would love it if tomorrow at church I had a supernatural encounter with God that reminded me all over again of the faith and hope I once had and restored my belief to the level it was then.  But I can't go back to the emotional wasteland I was in at that time.  I would rather be here, questioning everything to do with faith but with a tentative confidence in my ability to live a full life than clinging desperately to my faith while my hopes are shattered again and again against the rocky shore.  If God is real, if truth is revealed in the Bible and demonstrated by the church then that reality will withstand questions and even a more skeptical, distant examination.  Well, some might question that.  I've been hearing and reading some interesting thoughts about the nature of belief lately, but that will have to be dealt with another day.  Or night.

Capital T Truth: Examination of Faith

I claim on my Twitter bio to be "obsessively honest."  I should probably take that out.  I probably would be soul-searingly honest on this blog except that I don't want to hurt other people or violate their privacy by revealing parts of their lives they'd rather not have smeared all over the internet.  Also, I don't always want to deal with the feedback I might get.  On that count I should say that for the most part the feedback I've gotten so far has been very positive and helpful.  Some discussions offline have been... revealing.  And tended to leave me feeling a little more cautious about what I share here.

I read a blog post this week about honesty and how it can be good in relationships, but also used as a weapon.  I don't want to do that.  Ideally I would deal with the parts of my story that have to do with other people privately and just share the parts that have to do with me.  It's not really that simple, though.  Nothing that I think or believe or do is not somehow connected to some other person.  That's probably not the best way to say that.  Everything I think and believe and do is somehow connected to some other person.  I can't tell my story in any meaningful way without including parts of the stories of other people.  Maybe that means I just can't tell parts of my story right now.

So here's a story I think I can tell.  My husband and I met through a Christian group on the campus of the large state university we were both attending at the time.  We shared a Seder meal one year with some other group members.  It turns out that lamb does not agree with my digestive system.  I got terrible cramps.  Also at the meal was a Jewish man - an Israeli national who, although he identified as an atheist, had agreed to share the meal with us and explain some of the traditions.  When he saw that I was in pain and hard my explanation he said he thought he could help me - if I was interested.   I agreed - mostly to be polite, I think.

He asked me to sit down and close my eyes.  He asked me if I was a believer.  I was confused by this question.  I said, "I believe some things."  He said something to the effect that what he was going to do might not work without belief.  Then he reached out and placed his hand near my abdomen.  I don't remember anything else that he said or did.  After a moment a warmth spread over the area that had been hurting and the pain subsided somewhat.  He must have seen me relax somewhat and asked if I felt better.  I said I did.  The evening moved on, as far as I can remember, without much discussion of the event.

I still don't know what he did or why it worked.  It might have been Reiki.  That's the closest thing I've heard of to what happened.  This was outside of what I was comfortable with or expected to happen at that time.  But I didn't dwell on it much or question it.  I think that I thought that the mind/body connection is powerful and could probably explain it somehow.

The point is that the question about whether or not I was a believer has stuck with me all these years.  Growing up I was taught that it was not enough to simply believe.  One needed to believe the right truth.  Accepting a general idea of spiritual possibilities or even seeking a general good wouldn't get a person anywhere.  Capital T truth, as defined by the Bible and interpreted by the Evangelical Christian tradition was necessary.  For salvation.  To avoid eternal suffering and separation from God.  Other types of belief were only interesting to me in terms of how they compared or contrasted with "real" truth.  I didn't explore or consider them for their own sake.

Now I wonder if I have really even explored my own faith.  When I read about different ways of interpreting and thinking about scripture I realize that I have accepted some ideas uncritically.  I have been satisfied with the answers I was given growing up and have not really considered the alternatives.  Well, maybe satisfied isn't really the right word.  I accepted them, anyway.  There was a certain element of fear involved.  I think that I didn't want to look to closely at the alternatives.  Capital T truth, after all.  Salvation depended on it.  Eternity.

I thought I was well informed.  I went to church and Sunday school.  Bible class taken seriously at the Christian school I went to.  I have memorized so many scripture passages and they still roll off my tongue.  I took Old and New Testament Survey classes at my Christian college.  I think I know more about Evangelical Christianity than the average bear.  (Or person sitting in the pews or the plush purple chairs as the case may be.)

I also have made at least some effort to both live out and experience the truths I've been taught.  In high school I helped with a ministry to the "squatter" kids who lived near our school.  During summers when I was in college I worked at a day camp for inner city kids.  Once I moved away from home I picked churches that emphasized the work of the spirit and expected, but did not demand, God to "show up" in tangible and exciting ways.

And sometimes, in some ways, that has seemed to happen.  But most of them, like the incident with the digestive discomfort, can probably be explained by looking at the power of the human mind or the impact of good, loving people reaching out to each other.  Which, you may say, is one way that God works.  But I have also seen that happen, as it did that night, when the people involved made no claim to know God.  Which doesn't prove that He doesn't exist... or that He does.  It just... is.

The lonely, sick years wore away at my faith.  The times when I poured out my pain in prayer and begged for a reprieve and nothing changed.  The housebound years when for weeks at a time the only person I saw was my husband.  The lonely feeling of having an illness that required an explanation but was never really understood.  The disappointment of losing a career that I had labored so hard for.  God did not take that time away.  He did not change that situation.  It was like that for a long time.

It did change.  Now it is different.  And part of me thinks that I "should" be so thankful.  That I should be shouting from the rooftops that God is faithful and has finally answered my prayers.  But the career is gone, I think, forever.  And my children still feel the impact of my lack of health every day.  It's so much better than it used to be, but it's far from "good."

So now, in the midst of this full, overwhelming, extremely exhausting time, I try to think about Truth.  I try to understand how it can sit inside me and bring healing instead of constantly rubbing against the old hurting places.  I look at the "popular" ideas that have floated around in my consciousness for as long as I can remember.  They don't seem consistent with my experience.  Is my perception wrong?  Have I understood what I have been taught or the Bible wrong?  Is there a "Truth" out there that I can be at peace with?  It's hard for me to think about it without experiencing debilitating pain.  But it seems impossible for me to walk away from these questions. 

I've realized lately that I haven't really spelled out what my questions about faith are on this blog.  Maybe I can do that soon.  In the mean time, if you have a Pinterest account you can get an idea of what I'm thinking about by looking at the board "Spiritual Journey."  I'm not really trying to plug my Pinterest account here, it's just a great way to spy on people in general and me in particular.  Did I say spy?  I mean... understand??  Maybe I should do a post with links to some of the posts I've pinned with a summary and my thoughts or comments.

Is that enough of a conclusion for this post?  I hope so, because it's what I've got for now.

Beautiful Bodies are Everywhere!

I want to say something about body image and beauty but I'm worried I'll say it wrong, or a least won't say it as well as I'd like to.  But it seems that Zig Ziglar (whoever he was) was right about this:

So here goes:

A few days ago (may be more by the time I actually get this done) a blogger I like a lot posted a thing on Facebook about how she was dreading buying a swim suit and apparently people gave her a hard time about it because she's kind of skinny.  I missed the giving-hard-time part because the comment went by on my feed and I didn't bat an eyelash.  Lots of people are uncomfortable in swim suits.  But then she commented again saying that she had learned her lesson and apparently all the struggles she's had with body image over the years do not qualify her (or allow her or something) to make comments about her body without people hating on her.  I did read the comments after that, lots of which were supportive.

And it got me thinking.  Somebody used the phrase "skinny shaming" and I get that because it's happened to me.  Someone used the phrase "skinny privilege" and tossed out some stats about thinner people making more money and doing better in politics.  I'm too lazy/tired to look them up right now, but I believe it.  It bothered me.  It's not right.

I wanted to talk about physical beauty.  Not "sex appeal" but whatever elusive qualities in a physical body that lead us to enjoy looking at another person.  I'm not talking about having a beautiful personality here.  That's important.  Extremely important.  Probably more than physical beauty.  It's just not what I'm talking about right now.

I wanted to tell people that they don't have to listen to lies about what their bodies have to look like to be beautiful.  I wanted to be like Oprah when she gave away all those cars:

Everybody gets a beautiful body!

Society's definition of beautiful body's is too narrow.  LOTS of bodies are beautiful.  Lots of people are physically beautiful.  All kinds of body parts are beautiful.  Lets take legs, as an example.  Long legs and short ones - hairy, smooth, with or without a thigh gap, bowed or straight, pale or dark, muscular or willowy, curvy or straight or showing signs of a lifetime of hard use.  Yes, even legs with cellulite and varicose veins are beautiful.

But then I thought, maybe this is a little like all those participation trophies kids get these days.  They show up and manage not to assault anyone, so they get a trophy.  Does it really mean anything?  Maybe not.  You show up and have a body and I tell you it's beautiful.  Does it really mean anything?  Well....

If you just read this post then no.  Me telling you that you have a beautiful body is not meaningful.  Sorry.  Beauty is about perception.  It's subjective.  It's personal.  You are beautiful because someone looks at you and sees beauty.  I cannot do that through my blog.

But as human beings we do it all the time.  We look at people and find some of them beautiful.  Way more, I think, and of a far greater variety than one would guess by looking at the magazines in the supermarket checkout line or the lineup of stars at a red carpet event.  Lots of beautiful bodies are walking around in the world.  Lots of people out there are appreciating them.

People are even telling us so.  If someone tells you your beautiful, believe them.  Well believe them if they are actually looking at you rather than writing a blog.  They are the ultimate judge of what beauty is for them.  If you are beautiful for them then it's true.  If they tell you so my advice is to give it the benefit of the doubt that they are not just being nice or trying to make you feel better, but that they really mean it.  Bask for a moment in the sunshine of that "you are beautiful" moment.

Wouldn't it be great if we created more of those moments for each other?

About the trophy thing, though.  Being beautiful is not a competition.  It feels good to be beautiful to someone, but it's not a prize you have to take from someone else.  My husband finds me beautiful but if he sees another woman who is also beautiful that doesn't take away from his appreciation of me.  Partly this is because beauty is not a limited resource - we're not carving up some beauty pie that may someday be consumed.  Also this is because my physical beauty is not the only part of me that he finds attractive.  If that's the only part of someone we know we really barely know them at all.  Human beings are so much more than physical bodies.  Our worth is determined by.... so much more.

Also, while we're opening up the definition of physical beauty lets not try to push people who have enjoyed society's approval for so long out of the circle.  There's room for everyone.  What do I mean by that?  While I was thinking about the whole issue of body image I saw a link to an article about classical paintings that someone airbrushed.  The paintings are of nude women from an era where soft, voluptuous bodies were "the thing."  The airbrushing slimmed them down to make them fit into today's standards.  Some of them are not very attractive - to me.  I think this is either because the original paintings actually distorted the bodies somewhat and it shows up more when they are thinner or because the airbrushing isn't that good.  The top one especially ends up looking like she has too many vertebra.  She looks a little like a Great Dane person.  But the bottom one works pretty well.  Maybe this is a little creepy, but I would look kind of like that... if I gained ten or fifteen pounds.

Because I'm super skinny.  If there's such a thing as too skinny I'm it.  Not too skinny because I starve myself, but too skinny because society tells us that a woman should have some curves and I have precious few.  Because now that I'm almost 40 it kind of irritates me that the clothes that fit me best are in the Juniors section.  Mostly I find this irritating because I like my pants to have a zipper that's more than two inches long and a waist that's within shouting distance of my belly button.  I digress. 

The point is that some people, like my husband find me beautiful and that's good.  But at the bottom of the article, under the painting that looks kind of like me, it says,

"Needless to say, something is definitely lost when the contours of the skin, and all the light and shadow that play on its surface, are cut away and toned to a plasticky finish. The startling GIFs show just how much our perception of beauty has changed over the past centuries, and as well as how extreme today's "norm" truly is. When it comes to beautiful bodies, we're siding with Botticelli every time."

 The authors are entitled to their opinion of which versions are more beautiful.  But implying that thin people are strange and not to be considered beautiful doesn't help anyone. 

Instead I think we should be looking at the people around us.  Really seeing them and realizing that beautiful people are everywhere.  It's probably in our DNA to find all kinds of people beautiful.  And maybe we can enjoy the fact that other people find us beautiful too.

What do you think?  Can we expand the definition of physical beauty?  Can you accept that other people find you beautiful?  Can we have a healthy, balanced view of the importance of physical beauty?  Did I manage to say something that makes sense?

It's Kind of Comfortable Here Under This Rock

I found this contest to wind a Kindle.  I kind of want one.  We have no "devices" in our house smaller than a laptop.  Unless you count the flip phones.  Seriously people.  Each adult has a flip phone.  They serve us well.  Plus, as much as I love this post about how great it is to accept and support a mom using her phone at the park I'm kind of glad I don't have the temptation. 

The thing is that to increase my chances of winning the device I was interested in I had to "like" or follow a bunch of kind of annoying social media accounts.  I hit my personal limit for Facebook and Twitter and thought "Why not start an Instagram account and follow there?"  I cannot figure out how to do it.  I think you have to download an app onto a phone.  Flip phone - remember?

Look, we have the internet.  I realize that chia seeds are now a food.  I finally (sort of) get what hashtags are all about.  (Although my spell check is apparently blissfully ignorant of these developments).  I listen to the news on NPR on the radio on the way to Lenny's school so I know that professional football players are (again) suing their employers for failing to mention that playing a violent sport could harm them.  I even know there was some thing with Beyonce and her husband and sister in an elevator.

But I do not care.  About any of the above bits of modern life.  Except hashtags.  I keep thinking if I could just unlock the mystery of hashtags people would pay attention to me on Twitter and read my blog.  I'm thinking of just using the tag #pleasepleasepleasepleasereadmyblog every time I post a link but that uses too many characters.

Wait.  Where was I?  Oh yes, under a rock.  Not totally under a rock.  In fact swamped and drowning in irrelevant information like most of the rest of the internet savvy world.  But at least sheltered by the rock of not having the ability to view it on a piece of equipment I could accidentally drop in the toilet.

Also?  I have not been to a movie theater since.... .....some time before I got pregnant with Linus.  And then it was once, to watch a Jacky Chan movie which was kind of a disappointment.  Further?  I have not watched a real (as in targeted at adults) show on TV or Netflix since before Linus was born.  I did watch that one 007 movie on Netflix with my husband.  We turned the captions on so we could hear it over the chatter of the baby.

And don't get me started on the stuff I don't know about contemporary music.  Actually, I can't really say much about it because I don't even know enough to know what I don't know.  Josh Groban is awesome.  Is that contemporary?

And yet my life seems pretty full - overwhelmingly so, sometimes.  We're wondering where the materials came from for the Great Wall of China.  The baby thinks I do the best ever rendition of "The Wheels on the Bus."  My husband and I actually sat on the front porch last night and discussed lawn care and summer plans.  Plus, I'm on a higher level of "Farm Hero Saga" than any of my Facebook friends (please do not take this as a challenge.  I seem to need this small island of "achievement.")

So maybe it's a question of priorities and actually ignoring some areas of modern culture that don't seem useful or important to me.  Still.  If I had time I'd watch every episode of "Scandal" that has been put up on Netflix since the baby was born.  No spoilers please.  This is on my bucket list.

Wait.  Where was I?  Oh yes.  Do you shelter under any rocks that help make life less overwhelming?  If so, which ones?

Happy Mental Health Awareness Month - or Something

photo credit: Lucia Whittaker via photopin cc

May is "Mental Health Awareness Month" which is handy, because I am depressed.  Ha ha.  It's a depressed person's joke.  Get it?  Well, OK, maybe not really a joke, just a sort of dark irony.  It is never handy to be depressed.  I know.  I've been doing it most of my life.

Really.  The first time anyone (with applicable professional training) told me I was depressed I was sixteen years old.  They decided not to start me on medication at that time because they noticed that I had made what seemed like a significant (and fairly sudden) improvement.  Who knows.  This was in the pre-Prozac days and teenage depression is notoriously hard to treat even with modern meds, so maybe it was the best choice.  I'm not sure.  By the time I was twenty Prozac had been developed and I was taking it.  The longest time I've gone without has been surrounding the conception, birth and breastfeeding of Linus - almost two years now.  With Lenny I stopped a few weeks after I found I was pregnant and started a few months after he was born.  I kept breastfeeding.

Also sometimes I've had fairly significant anxiety and taken medication for that.  Sometimes I've taken lots of medication - with somewhat questionable results.  One of the most dramatic improvements I've seen is when I started doing vitamin B12 shots.  That may have actually "healed" something up in my brain because even after I stopped doing them I have seen differences.

Oh, meds have usually made a difference, but most of my most profound depressions have been while I was taking meds.  Time for a new one, the medical wisdom goes.  That is its own nightmare and is probably responsible for the only hospitalization for depression I've had... to date.

So what am I trying to say here?  Depression has been called the "common cold" of mental health disorders.  I'm not sure if that's because it's so common or because treating it only gets at the symptoms, not the cause.  Counseling combined with meds, research says, is more effective than meds alone.  So I've done that for years too.  Most of the time I am really a model patient.  I am, in fact, a very cooperative individual.

So that's sort of a whirlwind history.  This current depression feels a little different.  After a winter filled with flues and colds and terrible bitter cold and a baby who refuses to sleep for more than two hours at a time I am exhausted.  Now we have had a little time of better health and better weather, but still the baby rarely sleeps better.  So it's hard to say how much of this might resolve itself if I could just get some better quality sleep.

So in case you're wondering, here's how the sleeping thing goes.  Linus sleeps next to me.  There's a crib with one side missing right next to the bed.  Occasionally he sleeps there, but mostly on the bed beside me.  Either way when he starts to fuss I wake up and before he's completely awake I shift him slightly, rearrange my clothes and he "latches on" and starts to nurse.  Usually in ten or fifteen minutes he's back asleep and I rearrange slightly and fall asleep too.  Truly, if he does this in two hour shifts all night long I actually feel like I have almost gotten actual sleep.  Sometimes though he has a sore tummy or something and wakes up more often.  Sometimes every hour.  Then I tend to feel like I'm being tortured.

(In case you're wondering, I am aware of the various methods of "sleep training" proposed by various baby "experts" and we have, so far, chosen not to use them.)

So none of that really explains how this depression feels different except to say that it definitely didn't drop out of the clear blue sky.  Most of the winter I was in a pretty miserable mood, but when I'm physically ill sometimes it creates a kind of fuzzy peace that softens the mood.  Also, I just have to focus on doing the next thing and don't have energy for the deeper darker thoughts and emotions. 

But now that spring is here and we've had a little time without viruses I have a little energy to focus on the stuff I've been putting on the back burner.  The thing about being a mom is that you learn to do impossible things.  The thing about being a mom who's depressed is that everything feels impossible.  And you keep doing it anyway.  Most of it anyway.  And this time, for some reason, I felt so powerful and invincible and depressed and hopeless that I've been trying to solve all of life's faith dilemmas while getting no more than two hours of sleep at a time.  It's not going too badly, actually.  Or maybe it's going terribly.  I'm not sure.

Quite often I read people describing depression as involving a sense of numbness.  But for me, this time anyway, some experiences seem to be intensified.  I can feel the amazing softness of the baby's skin or the gentle warmth of the finally shining sun.  I appreciate the humor of Lenny sharing with the group at library story time that his mom is sarcastic (this was the Facebook status update:  Yesterday at library story time they read the Mo Willems book about naked mole rats. Which says they can be very sarcastic. The librarian said, "like teenagers" and Lenny added "or my mom." Busted.)  I treasure the tender moments between my boys and their dad.  I am ridiculously happy about the fact that my boys now have matching summer shoes.  I take the boys to band concerts and the park.  I decorate cookies and we take some to our favorite neighborhood grandpa guy.

But under it all there is an aching.  Actual physical pain some of the time that often spills over into tears.  Almost every day I think "I can't do this."  I want to sleep more than anything but beyond that I'd actually like to feel numb.  I want to watch crime shows on Netflix and do crochet or make paper beads.  I want to play computer games that are stupid and mindless and find them absorbing and fascinating.  I want to cry without feeling like I'm cheating the people in my life by using time and energy that I could be using to connect with them to instead wallow in a pain that I desperately do not want to let spill over into their lives.

It's hard to concentrate.  Just moving from one task to another takes a palpable effort and sometimes Lenny sees me pause and reminds me, "We're supposed to be in a hurry Mommy.  I need my lunch.  We want to have time to play soccer before school."  And I sigh and tell him that I'm doing my best and he says "I know your tired."  And I remind myself that I will never be a perfect parent and that there's a chance that his awareness of my struggles will make him a stronger and better person instead of scarring him for life.

I am already in the habit of letting lots of "little" things go.  I take Lenny and his friend to the park even though the dishes are stacked on the kitchen counters and the hallway is a sea of unwashed laundry.  I sit in the late afternoon sun and hope that it won't damage the baby's skin since I've forgotten a hat or sunscreen for him.  I watch Lenny play and marvel at the ease with which he sweeps from one game to another with his friends.  I brace myself for the letdown he'll experience after we drop his friend off and get home.  I go inside and need to empty the dishwasher so I can make room on the table for supper but I just cannot do one more impossible thing so I sit down in front of the computer instead.  I know that my sweet husband will come home soon and I'll borrow some momentum from him to get back into the swing of doing all the stuff.

So that's my mental health story for the moment.  I'm still pondering whether I should call my psychiatrist and tell her that I think that starting up counseling again is not going to be the solution we hoped for and maybe I should also start taking meds again.  I'm pretty sure I'll put it off at least until after I talk to my therapist on Wednesday.






   

http://www.goodtherapy.org/