Looking Forward

Time flies.

If all goes as planned, by this time next year Basement Artist will be married and living in Montreal.

By this time next year Social Hurricane is hoping to be somewhere out on her own, probably in some sort of roommate situation, maybe in a nearby city.

By this time next year, Lord willing, Graphics Magician will be a freshman in high school finishing up his first quarter.

And a year goes fast.  It goes by much faster than it used to, which my father has always assured me is a sign of advancing age.

Speaking of which, by this time next year if he's still with us he'll have turned ninety years old, and various other relatives will have ticked another birthday off the list.  

Adored Wife will celebrate her fiftieth this coming year.  (I'll only be turning forty-nine--I married an older woman.)

When our daughters leave home and as our son continues to grow toward independence it's going to mean radical changes in our home life.

Don't know what it's going to look like--everybody's experience is a little different, but lots of people have gone through this before.  We're hardly unique.

It's going to be interesting finding out.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Counting Your Blessings

Social Hurricane deals with a lot of issues.  Bipolar disorder, hallucinations, anxiety, dyslexia, insecurity.  Plus, while she's honestly cleaned up her act a lot, she had a very rocky couple of years in her teens and she has to live with some of the consequences of THAT particular roller coaster.

But working steadily as a third-shift Certified Nursing Assistant at a medical center for the elderly has made it really, really easy for her to count her blessings.  I guess this comes with a lot of the "helping professions."  I'm a minister, and there's never any shortage of people around who have it worse than I do, but social workers, health care professionals, attorneys, law enforcement personnel and probably plenty of other people are regularly in a situation where they're dealing with people who are having a tough time.

But we all have our own individual journeys to make, and the Hurricane is regularly doing some very personal care for people who've lost a lot of their independence and capability and in many cases even their cognitive function.  She's come home from work telling me about her newfound appreciation for being able to get out of bed, get dressed, walk, and go to the bathroom without needing anyone's help.  I think it's been good for her.

She's grown up quite a bit in the few months she's had this job.  She's more compassionate toward others, more outwardly focused, more considerate--not that she was horrible before, but there's been a decided change in her perspective and attitude.  I like it.

Having said that, health care is difficult and often unpleasant, and I salute and appreciate those who are called to it, and that number currently includes my daughter, of whom I'm proud.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

The Filler Post

Happy Monday, friends.

It was honestly a pretty full week between family and work responsibilities and commitments, and this is all I have for you this morning.

I will tell you that I saw a little boy in Wal-Mart, probably around a year and a half, being carried around by his dad and just jabbering away at everybody and everything.  We passed each other in the aisle and he looked right at me and said "Awangle bokeepum buba.  Buba!"

And I just returned his gaze and said "Oh, really?"

I wasn't expecting this, but it shut him right up.  Mouth closed, eyes wide, staring at me.  He had NO IDEA how to deal with a grownup who answered him back.

Okay, that's it.  That's all I have.

There'll be actual content next time, I promise.

If you meet somebody who needs a reason to smile, try to help them find one, okay?

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Weight Loss Ups and Downs

About two years ago I was at the heaviest I've ever been in my life, 235 pounds.  I'm a big guy and I can carry some extra weight with no trouble, but that's still thirty to forty pounds more than I ought to be lugging around.  Plus, I was having a few health troubles, so I actually broke down and saw a doctor.

The doc gave me a compassionate but straightforward lecture and my blood tests woke me up.  I wasn't in the diabetic range but I was solidly in the "prediabetic" category and that was a trend that needed to be reversed, asap.

So I turned over a new leaf and started behaving myself.  I lost twenty pounds in three months and kind of plateaued there.  The doctor was pleased with the weight loss, my numbers looked MUCH better, and I felt a lot better.

I could have benefited a lot from losing at least fifteen more pounds.  Instead, I got lazy and self-indulgent and wound up putting most of it back on.

It's not lack of exercise, honestly.  I've never been an athlete, but I've always had a moderately active life and my typical week involves a fair amount of physical activity.

It's the food.  I would eat when I was bored, or stressed, or tired, or because of the pleasure of the taste.  It was gluttony and making a god out of my stomach.  (Stomach-olatry?)  I would turn to food when I should have, to be frank, been turning to the Lord to meet my emotional needs.

The weight started to come back, and I started to feel unwell again.

I've had to do some repenting and life examining.  By the grace of God, I'm heading back in the right direction.  I'm back down to 220, and I already feel better and have more energy.  This time, I'm promising myself that I'm not going to slack off.  I'm heading to 200 pounds.  That may be a healthy weight for my frame; as I said, I'm a big guy.  I'll have to see how I look and feel when I get there.

But I will get there.  I crave your prayers and support.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

How We Spent a Sunday

Social Hurricane was in bed most of the daylight hours--she's on a third shift sleeping schedule.  She had the night off and, after a few household chores, went to spend a sleepover with a girlfriend.

The rest of us made it to church, and three of us made it to a theater friend's birthday party in the evening.

Basement Artist, after church, did some household chores and some introverted things in her room, then enjoyed the party, then came home introverted out and went for some alone time.

Graphics Magician spent most of the afternoon playing with neighborhood friends working on a fort in the backyard.  He didn't want to go to the party and with our permission and their invitation ran a few errands and had supper with the neighbor kids and their parents.

Adored Wife was, sadly, having anxiety issues all day but bulled her way through them.  She did some cooking, took care of some theater business, and had fun at the party, then came home absolutely worn out and in pain and needing to lie down.  It was a pretty good day for her, honestly.

I went to a brief call-back audition in the afternoon and got offered a role in an upcoming play.  I'm pretty excited about it--it's been almost a year since I've done anything onstage.  The party was fun but I didn't stay long.  I came home, did some exercise and chores, and wrote this blog post.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Accustomed to Abnormal

I came up with a metaphor for my crazy life.

It goes like this.  I'm a terrible plumber.  I'm a halfway decent carpenter and I can do basic wiring and some other household maintenance odds and ends, but my plumbing jobs are usually stressful, expensive, and leaky.  I've just never had the knack for it.

So the other day when I replaced a sink faucet without too much trouble and it's no longer dripping and nothing appears to be leaking, I was caught a little off guard.  Honestly, it's not that I miss the drip, but it's an oddly buoyant feeling that it's not an issue any more.  I'm kind of weirded out; I don't know how to think about it.  I keep checking under the sink expecting a leak--it's like waiting for the other shoe to drop.  (This only relates to plumbing--I can swap out a light switch and not think about it any more.)

But it occurred to me sometime after the fact that this could be a metaphor for my family's life and the lives of a lot of people dealing with chronic health and personal issues.

What if everything were all of a sudden "normal" tomorrow?  What if Adored Wife and Social Hurricane were abruptly perfectly healthy, what if Basement Artist and I weren't dealing with our various psychological quirks (and, heck with it, what if my bad knee was okay) and what if Graphics Magician wasn't trying to survive adolescence AND middle school?

We wouldn't know what to do with ourselves.  It would be a complete change in our lives, one we weren't prepared for and wouldn't know how to handle.  We've had VERY difficult times in our lives here and there, when hoping for an uninterrupted night's sleep or fifteen peaceful minutes to sit down and decompress was wishful thinking.  Things aren't anywhere nearly that chaotic now, and I don't miss the really bad times, but you got accustomed to them.

What would it be like for you, friends, if you woke up tomorrow and things were "normal?"

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Thinking of Others

It's easy to get bogged down focusing on your own troubles.

At this writing thousands of people, including a number I know personally, are being inconvenienced, imperiled, endangered, and traumatized by Hurricane Matthew.

I visited a lady in the hospital today who's miserably ill, to the point she can't eat or drink, stand up unassisted, or concentrate on anything.

I know a man who's bedridden, mute, quadriplegic, and afflicted with memory and cognitive issues.

Other friends are dealing with grief, loss, illness, surgery, financial and family issues.

Millions in the world face famine, illness, persecution, deprivation, ignorance, hopelessness, and poverty on a daily basis.

My brother the nurse sometimes says "my job makes it very easy to count my blessings."

Sometimes I just need to stop and count mine.  There are a lot of them.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

My Facebook Friend Should See a Doctor

The joke goes like this:  "When does the typical man go to see the doctor?"  "When he can't get the bleeding stopped himself."

I have a Facebook friend who needs to go see a doctor for his depression.  He won't go, more than likely.  He's got coping techniques and he'll get through this.  Plus, you know, he's a guy.  Which by definition means stubborn (not to say stupid.)

But he's having significant symptoms of depression, and says he's "never been diagnosed with clinical depression" but he's having a tough time and the "usual techniques" aren't working.  He doesn't want to leave his house and doesn't want to interact with people and a few other things that are sounding off alarms in my head.

I've encouraged him to go see a doctor, of course, and a few other friends have done so, as well.  Hopefully he'll do it--I'm a little worried about him.  We don't live anywhere near each other; fortunately he does have a small circle of friends who will keep up with him.

But one of the really nasty things about depression is the sense of hopelessness: there's no point seeing a doctor because there's no point to anything.

I take St. John's Wort, a proven natural antidepressant, on a daily basis on my doctor's recommendation.  My last real dysthymic episode, which I talked about here, was the most intense one I've ever had in my life.  If it had gone on two days longer than it did I would have been at my doctor asking for something stronger, and I'm going to bring it up at my next physical.  And I am very much a guy, but it was pretty bad.

The upshot, though, is that even in all my guyness I do endorse talking to a doctor about depression.

And I really hope and pray my friend goes.

God bless, friends.

Not Much Family Time Lately

Sigh.

We've kind of fallen down a little with the "intentional family time" the past week or two.

Adored Wife and I have to get back on the stick and make it happen.

There are some excuses we could throw out, of course, mostly having to do with the girls' crazy work schedules, but there have been a few other things going on here and there with personal lives that have complicated the whole "getting together" thing.

But the fact of the matter is that we haven't had family time because we haven't prioritized it as a family.  It doesn't HAVE to be a sit-down meal, although those are preferable.  We could have made time for soda and snacks and conversation in the kitchen on an occasion or two.

It's going to happen.  Thus sayeth dadeth.  I'm going to talk with AW today and we're going to MAKE some family time.

I don't know when--it won't be today.  Social Hurricane worked third shift last night and is asleep, and by the time she's awake Basement Artist will be at work, and by the time SHE gets back home I'LL have had to go to bed.

But it's going to happen, mark my words.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.