As a rule, most people are afraid of silence. That’s our major barrier to prayer and to depth. Silence and words are related. Words that don’t come out of silence probably don’t say much. They probably are more an unloading than a communicating.
29 July 2010
Richard Rohr on Words
28 July 2010
Heavy
What a heart-heavy week. Among people for whom I care deeply,
someone is sitting beside her tiny son in an NICU, struggling to infuse him with life.
someone is having a long, difficult labor, for days and days and days, and is suffering.
someone's daughter, a little younger than I am, died of breast cancer this morning.
someone is sick.
someone is tired.
Sometimes it truly feels that there is so very little that we can do for each other. So terribly, terribly little.
someone is sitting beside her tiny son in an NICU, struggling to infuse him with life.
someone is having a long, difficult labor, for days and days and days, and is suffering.
someone's daughter, a little younger than I am, died of breast cancer this morning.
someone is sick.
someone is tired.
Sometimes it truly feels that there is so very little that we can do for each other. So terribly, terribly little.
26 July 2010
Whoa, Baby
Today, I found a primary care physician, in my insurance network, who told me that, if my pregnancies are healthy and low-risk, it makes absolutely no sense to deliver my babies in a hospital or even visit a doctor simply because I'm pregnant.
In other news, the world may end tonight.
In other news, the world may end tonight.
Prayers Please
If you all would send prayers and loving thoughts for my friend Christi, a lot of people would really appreciate it. Christi's been in labor (not active, but still intense) for more than a week now, and no one can figure out why the baby isn't coming. She's holding out to birth vaginally, and she's being so strong, but she's suffering, exhausted, and feeling defeated. They've tried every known natural means of helping labor to progress, to no avail. I know I can count on you all to surround a momma with your love and prayers.
Thanks guys.
Thanks guys.
22 July 2010
Sometimes Yoga Is Cheeseburger in a Bar
Tonight, my yoga teacher flew me. As in, she lifted me up by my hips with her feet and held me in the air while I hovered over her. For about five minutes. She held me in the air with her legs for five minutes. It was incredible.
All week I've been very, very tired. I stopped progesterone on Monday, and my energy levels have been sharply sliding down ever since. I've also been craving a cheeseburger like a drowning person craves air. Nothing else could possibly do. A cheeseburger. Aaaaaall week.
I had a very significant conversation this afternoon. The voice of the spirit, tender and persistent, finally took root: you are okay. I am okay. There's nothing wrong with me. I've been toiling tirelessly for nearly a year to find out, really and truly, I'm not messed up. I'm fine.
And I had planned to go to a group class after my private yoga class tonight. But my body was begging for rest and a cheeseburger. So my yoga, my union of body and spirit, tonight was sitting in a bar, alone, eating an organic chili cheeseburger with a locally grown organic salad, listening to indie rock and people watching. It was the first time in my thirty years that I've ever sat in a restaurant alone for a meal. And I was okay. I was happy to be alone there, resting, feeding my body. I felt so utterly not-alone: My husband was waiting at home for me. I'm making a beautiful new friend. I have all the old friends; I carry them with me everywhere. And the spirit, she just keeps breathing me, holding me, holding me until I hear her, holding me until I know.
Something is happening to me, I think.
P.S. In a few weeks, I'm going to a workshop to learn to do the yoga-flying thing. Anybody wanna come?
All week I've been very, very tired. I stopped progesterone on Monday, and my energy levels have been sharply sliding down ever since. I've also been craving a cheeseburger like a drowning person craves air. Nothing else could possibly do. A cheeseburger. Aaaaaall week.
I had a very significant conversation this afternoon. The voice of the spirit, tender and persistent, finally took root: you are okay. I am okay. There's nothing wrong with me. I've been toiling tirelessly for nearly a year to find out, really and truly, I'm not messed up. I'm fine.
And I had planned to go to a group class after my private yoga class tonight. But my body was begging for rest and a cheeseburger. So my yoga, my union of body and spirit, tonight was sitting in a bar, alone, eating an organic chili cheeseburger with a locally grown organic salad, listening to indie rock and people watching. It was the first time in my thirty years that I've ever sat in a restaurant alone for a meal. And I was okay. I was happy to be alone there, resting, feeding my body. I felt so utterly not-alone: My husband was waiting at home for me. I'm making a beautiful new friend. I have all the old friends; I carry them with me everywhere. And the spirit, she just keeps breathing me, holding me, holding me until I hear her, holding me until I know.
Something is happening to me, I think.
P.S. In a few weeks, I'm going to a workshop to learn to do the yoga-flying thing. Anybody wanna come?
19 July 2010
To Survive
"All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story, to vomit the anguish up."
—James Baldwin
—James Baldwin
This weekend, I
was wisely and kindly guided toward the next leg of my spiritual journey by a mentor I trust- drove for two hours while cranking Spearhead, twice
- cheated on my diet majorly and enjoyed it sooooo much
- confessed
- collected myself
- gave
- received
- meditated
- prayed
- taught
- learned
- made tea for a friend
- spent most of a day hiking there → with someone who also stops to bow to the miracle of fungus and ferns and fish in a stream and makes me feel okay being me
- had a higher concentration of incredibly satisfying conversations each day than I have since ... uhhh ....
- had a real hug
- laughed so hard that I inhaled my beer
- and cried when it was all over.
15 July 2010
Richard Rohr on Saint Bonaventure on Love
Why did Jesus command us to love?
We must learn to move beyond ourselves, to set limits on our own needs and somehow to meet other people's needs. We actually need to do this for our own good! That's why Jesus commanded us to love—to get us started. So love is not a feeling, but a decision, yet a decision that increases our inner freedom each time we do it. You will know this only after you act on love.
Jesus didn't say when you get healed, love; when you grow up, love; when you get it together and have dealt with all your wounds, then love. No, the commandment for all of us is quite simply, “Love!” Once we know it is not a feeling, but a grace-empowered decision, we can all do it. And each time it is a growth in freedom—and flow.
St. Bonaventure’s vision of creation could be stated in this way:
We must learn to move beyond ourselves, to set limits on our own needs and somehow to meet other people's needs. We actually need to do this for our own good! That's why Jesus commanded us to love—to get us started. So love is not a feeling, but a decision, yet a decision that increases our inner freedom each time we do it. You will know this only after you act on love.
Jesus didn't say when you get healed, love; when you grow up, love; when you get it together and have dealt with all your wounds, then love. No, the commandment for all of us is quite simply, “Love!” Once we know it is not a feeling, but a grace-empowered decision, we can all do it. And each time it is a growth in freedom—and flow.
St. Bonaventure’s vision of creation could be stated in this way:
God created in such a way that there would be free agents who could freely choose to love God in return, and thus become like God themselves—sharing in the divine perfection. The whole venture proceeds on the basis of our inner freedom to love, but we do not know we have that freedom and power until we, in fact, act on it.—Richard Rohr
12 July 2010
But for the Birds
The Holy One speaks all languages. One of her most intelligible, in my life, has been birds.When I was 16, I went to Ocean City, Maryland, with my foster family. It was a trying time for me, because I didn't fit in particularly well with this group of people, and they were brazen and chronic in reminding me of my outsider status: when the rest of the family ate steak, I had spaghetti, that sort of thing. My personality is of the sort that I need to know that I am special, wanted; feeling mediocre or insignificant or unwelcome is unbearable to me. Well, two weeks in a recreational vehicle with five of them was a perfect nightmare.
On the last day of the trip, I was feeling rather low, and I decided to walk down to the bay to hide out for a while. Even as a child, an undisturbed natural landscape was a balm to almost any of my aches. This bay had a small, deserted beach where sand dollars and hermit crabs washed ashore with every wave, tall grasses and cat tails pulsed and quivered in the salted Atlantic wind, and the rhythmic whisper of the water drowned the din of the consumer wasteland and coastal highway. It faded into marshland on one side. I crouched against a log, feet jammed into the wet sand, weeping and brooding with all the artifice of a dejected adolescent bohemian, when an emissary of the divine swooped over my head and alighted in the marsh: a towering, majestic whooping crane, no more than 50 feet away. I froze, awestruck, and forgot my misery. We sat in stillness together, the crane and me, appraising each other. He preened; I tugged at my stringy hair. He plucked morsels from the water; I chewed my fingernails. He whooped; I whimpered. He watched me, and I watched him, and there we sat in stillness.
As I kept company with the crane, I was struck by my loneness, my separateness. I felt special. How many people keep company with a crane? Certainly not anyone I was with. How many teenagers would cherish such an experience as I did? I felt like the only girl in the world in that half hour. Sure, I ate spaghetti when everyone else had steak, but I kept company with a crane.
The crane never left me. I knew that, eventually, someone would come looking for me, and I knew I needed to keep our secret, the mystery of our rendezvous. So to give sanctuary to my new friend and to defend his sacred haunt, I crept away, and he watched me go.
This is not the only profound experience of company with a bird I've had. You may recall the evening I spent with a community of geese last winter. A few months ago, I was walking in the woods with a friend after a difficult experience, and a hefty blue heron mounted the air above our heads so closely that I could feel the wind of his wings on my face; and I knew that everything would be okay. There have been cardinals and bluebirds, bald eagles and baby robins, hummingbirds and wild turkeys, and birds, and birds, and birds. So many messages have come to me in encounters with birds. When I see birds, I have to watch them. I have to hear them. I'd follow them if I could, anywhere they'd take me.
I may need to take up bird watching in earnest as a means of spiritual seeking. For real.
Pondering.
I'm Listening
I've noticed that, when people don't comment on people's blogs, the authors get a little nervous. People like comments, and I feel the same way. When no one comments here for a while, I feel like posting this:
Hello-ooooooo! Is anybody out theeeeeeere-ere-ere-ere? Echo-ooo-ooo!
And I tend not to be the most vocal of blog readers. Often, I just don't know what to say. It's like a great conversation that's happening all around me; I love to listen, and if I don't think I have anything useful to say, I usually just shut up and listen. But I'm a very faithful blog reader. Very faithful. I even have one of those Google reading-thingies that tells me when people update their blogs. Sometimes, I want to leave a blank comment, just to let the author know that I'm listening, if it makes a difference. But I'm not sure that it does. And anyway, dumb Blogger won't let you do that.
All this to say, now I have a blog roll. It's not long. It's made of the blogs that I keep in the reading-thingie, of which I read every post.
So, to you on my blog roll: if it matters to you, I'm listening.
Hello-ooooooo! Is anybody out theeeeeeere-ere-ere-ere? Echo-ooo-ooo!
And I tend not to be the most vocal of blog readers. Often, I just don't know what to say. It's like a great conversation that's happening all around me; I love to listen, and if I don't think I have anything useful to say, I usually just shut up and listen. But I'm a very faithful blog reader. Very faithful. I even have one of those Google reading-thingies that tells me when people update their blogs. Sometimes, I want to leave a blank comment, just to let the author know that I'm listening, if it makes a difference. But I'm not sure that it does. And anyway, dumb Blogger won't let you do that.
All this to say, now I have a blog roll. It's not long. It's made of the blogs that I keep in the reading-thingie, of which I read every post.
So, to you on my blog roll: if it matters to you, I'm listening.
11 July 2010
The Battle Continues ...
I've officially been on progesterone for a week and a day. With the exception of day 1 (last Saturday), I've felt insanely calm and stable and on top of the world, like, what is this alien entity that has taken over my brain?
The Cyclical Week of Doom and Despair is still yet to come, and I'm shaking in my shoes about it. This is it. The test. Will it ever show its hideous face again? Has Progesterone Power vanquished the Nefarious Premenstrual Scourge of My Sanity? Or will I yet be undone?
I've not been feeling quite as skippy and light since Friday night. So I'm nervous. If you're a pray-er, I could use a few kind thoughts, I think.
Cross your fingers for me.
The Cyclical Week of Doom and Despair is still yet to come, and I'm shaking in my shoes about it. This is it. The test. Will it ever show its hideous face again? Has Progesterone Power vanquished the Nefarious Premenstrual Scourge of My Sanity? Or will I yet be undone?
I've not been feeling quite as skippy and light since Friday night. So I'm nervous. If you're a pray-er, I could use a few kind thoughts, I think.
Cross your fingers for me.
08 July 2010
You Eat What???
Kevin and I get a lot of raised-eyebrow inquiries and "but-what-about"s and "does-your-doctor-know-you-drink-raw-milk"s when we talk about our philosophy of food and how we eat.
Our philosophy of food is that we eat everything in as close to its natural state as possible. Our beef never ate grain. Our eggs come from free-wheeling local chickens, and they have yolks that are almost orange. Our milk isn't pasteurized, homogenized, skimmed, or labeled with a smiling cow. Our tomatoes are lumpy and tasty, our spices aren't irradiated, our yogurt has fat but not aspartame, our butter is butter.
We believe, with Hippocrates, that food is the first medicine. Right now, I'm treating impending diabetes with diet and supplements, and I can feel it working. What goes into our bodies matters, has a direct effect on our health, our relationships, our society, and the whole world. The violence done to us and the earth by a bag of Doritos is not worth the momentary msg high.
On Monday, I used a bookstore gift certificate that I got for Christmas to buy two books that I now recommend to you. They describe and are written from the perspective of our philosophy of food and would make valuable additions to the library of anyone who cares about these things and wants to learn to eat as nature intended. Cara dear: take note! 8) Andree: thanks!
They are
What to Eat by Marion Nestle
and
The Encyclopedia of Healing Foods by Michael Murray et al.
The first discusses things like what organic means, the difference between farmed and wild fish, bottled water, raw dairy products, rBGH, food processing, whole foods, whole grains, fair trade, country of origin labeling, supermarket layout, food politics, food safety, refining of sugar, infant formula and baby food, marketing food to children, and so on, and so on. The author teaches nutrition at NYU.
The second is a chunker, and it discuses specific foods, their chemical makeups, and the effects that those chemicals have on the body. Fans of the classic Prescription for Nutritional Healing should find it riveting. It's more up-to-date than that work, discussing glycemic index and load, and it has a friendlier, more-nuanced approach to fats.
Enjoy!
Our philosophy of food is that we eat everything in as close to its natural state as possible. Our beef never ate grain. Our eggs come from free-wheeling local chickens, and they have yolks that are almost orange. Our milk isn't pasteurized, homogenized, skimmed, or labeled with a smiling cow. Our tomatoes are lumpy and tasty, our spices aren't irradiated, our yogurt has fat but not aspartame, our butter is butter.
We believe, with Hippocrates, that food is the first medicine. Right now, I'm treating impending diabetes with diet and supplements, and I can feel it working. What goes into our bodies matters, has a direct effect on our health, our relationships, our society, and the whole world. The violence done to us and the earth by a bag of Doritos is not worth the momentary msg high.
On Monday, I used a bookstore gift certificate that I got for Christmas to buy two books that I now recommend to you. They describe and are written from the perspective of our philosophy of food and would make valuable additions to the library of anyone who cares about these things and wants to learn to eat as nature intended. Cara dear: take note! 8) Andree: thanks!
They are
What to Eat by Marion Nestle
and
The Encyclopedia of Healing Foods by Michael Murray et al.
The first discusses things like what organic means, the difference between farmed and wild fish, bottled water, raw dairy products, rBGH, food processing, whole foods, whole grains, fair trade, country of origin labeling, supermarket layout, food politics, food safety, refining of sugar, infant formula and baby food, marketing food to children, and so on, and so on. The author teaches nutrition at NYU.
The second is a chunker, and it discuses specific foods, their chemical makeups, and the effects that those chemicals have on the body. Fans of the classic Prescription for Nutritional Healing should find it riveting. It's more up-to-date than that work, discussing glycemic index and load, and it has a friendlier, more-nuanced approach to fats.
Enjoy!
06 July 2010
Everything
I guess it's kinda been a while, huh? The last few weeks have been so full and so draining. This last year has been so full and so draining. Overall, I'm feeling optimistic and excited about what's happening in my life, though, with some other things, not so much. Here is everything that's on my mind right now, most of the reasons I've been so scarce.
I'm beginning to settle into my spiritual pilgrimage. For so long, I was finding who I'm not, reacting against, rejecting, abandoning, recoiling, running away. I feel now that I'm seeing who I am, I'm opening to, embracing, standing still. I truly believe that I am good and holy, who I am made to be, and I am complete in my createdness. I'm learning how to pray, how to sit with God in stillness and be, how she comes to me, and how her voice sounds. I'm learning how wide and broad and open is her heart, that there is a place for me in it, and a place for everyone I love. I'm learning how to rest my own love for others in her love for us all and that our connectedness is perfect in that love. There is real connection, and I do have access to it, even while crying out in the loneliest of moments. I've discovered spiritual kindred in Thomas Merton and Kathleen Norris and in a few people in my life. I've become confident that grace extends beyond, around, and through us all. I've stopped fretting over my fallenness. I am free to roam, free to question, free to doubt, free to wonder, free to love how and whom I love, and I am not beyond grace or holiness or wholeness. And I am not, in fact, any more deficient or defective than any other person. I am not the chief of sinners; we are all the same, all precious in our uniqueness. I let go to the mystery.
Last night was my first class in which my new yoga studio is my home. I've been attending classes there sporadically ever since I found out how soon I'd be needing a new home, six weeks ago. I'm looking forward to knowing new people and new teachers and learning more and growing stronger, becoming more able to bend. It's a good studio, with good teachers. Something, of course, is missing there, something that was part of my practice for a time but can no longer be. How I long for that missing thing right now. Savasana last night was so hard. (And long! Oh, mercy, the relief when Angela rang the bell!) But I will hold this pose, and I will keep breathing. I've signed up for ten weeks of classes and twenty weeks of private lessons. This change of scenery seems to be bearing with it a few new friendships, which is so nice. Good friends are few around here for one who doesn't fit in with the Bible-conservative crowd. And I need more friends.
Two friends who are very dear to me moved away last week. My heart doesn't privilege blood relations like most people's do, and my friends are my family, especially friends who live nearby and share life with me. You know, the cup-of-sugar-(or, in this case, beans)-borrowing friends. I feel the absence of a sister and brother, and I'm hurting. But I do know that I haven't really lost anything, and they're gaining so much, and I'm truly thrilled for them, and this too shall pass. Helping them prepare to move was a very sweet blessing to me, and I'm thankful.
And then there's the ol' bod. Readers, you may have noticed that sometimes my blog is a bit of a downer. It's because, sometimes, I can be a bit of a downer. But there's hope now that my downer days are numbered. A month ago, through a series of referrals (that is, "I can't help you, but here's a business card for someone who might"), I ended up in the office of a group of naturopathic doctors, one of whom, Kelly, specializes in hormonal disorders. See, for as long as I can remember, I've had all these weird symptoms, like acne and insomnia and low energy and mood swings. They've all gotten more and more severe in the last seven or so months, and the worst is intense depression and anxiety in the second half of my cycle. Friends, I just can't begin to describe how awful it feels. I can't eat, I can't sleep, I can't concentrate on anything, I have no energy, I feel like all of my friends must hate me, I can't stop thinking all these dark, tragic thoughts. I'm too exhausted to move, but I'm so nervous and restless that not moving is torture. And forget about sex. Well, in the last three months or so, it's been three quarters of my cycle. Last month, I never came out of it. I've lost 20 pounds since November. I've cried on more shoulders in that time than I have in my entire life. (You all know who you are: I'd have lost it completely without you. Thank you, thank you.)
Let me say again: my husband is a saint. I've married a saint.
God bless Kelly's kind, compassionate heart. The woman is a genius. She didn't chide me or argue with me or talk to me like I'm twelve. She honored my intelligence and what I know about myself, listened to me, reassured me. She let me keep my clothes on and didn't pressure me into an unwanted pelvic exam. And she tested my blood to find out what's actually wrong with me! It turns out that I have insulin resistance, hyperthyroidism, and polycystic ovary syndrome, which sounds like a lot, but really, it's not so bad. Because now I have something to do, something that she says should fix everything! All I have to do is cut carbohydrates and sugar completely out of my diet, eating mostly raw foods, protein sources, and healthy fats. I have to take supplements to control my blood sugar and bioidentical progesterone for half of my cycle. That's it!
I started the progesterone on Saturday. Duuuude. I feel like a completely different person. I feel like I can cope with life! And I like the diet. I don't care at all about sugar. Giving up pasta is hard, but after a few months I'll be able to cheat once in a while. This morning, I had plain full-fat organic yogurt with blueberries and a cup of black tea with raw milk for breakfast. Lunch was a salad with greens, tomatoes, a small carrot, and an avocado with olive oil and vinegar, and a small can of smoked wild sardines in mustard (yum!). Dinner will be vegetable soup with beans and a little grass-finished beef, a glass of wine, and cherries for dessert. And I munch on raw nuts all day. You may beg to differ with my sardines-in-mustard addiction (which I developed while still toddling), but doesn't the rest of it sound delicious? Since I started the diet a week ago, I've slept through the night three times. I haven't done that in months!
On Saturday night, Kevin and I and a friend of ours and her brother snuck into the yard of an under-construction lakefront property and had a perfect view of two fireworks displays. I let the water caress my feet and the laughter of my companions caress my soul. Through biting sadness, I felt hopeful, and I knew I wasn't alone.
In August, I'll be heading down to Rockville, Indiana, for a weekend to visit two friends of mine who are in state prison. I've never been to a prison before, and I'm nervous, but I love my friends, and I want to be with them.
Yesterday, we found out that a close relative of Kevin's is very sick and probably won't live more than a few years. Four other of his relatives may be moving a few states to the south very soon, including one that I had dearly hoped to get to know.
My baby sister will be 21 in a few weeks!
My mother called twice today to cuss me out because someone pissed her off and she needed to take it out on someone, and that's usually where I come in. There was a time when I didn't care so much when she treated me like this, but now I care a lot, and I don't know what to do about it. Because it's not like she's going to change, and it's not like I'm going to have another mom. I really want to call my mom and tell her about all the stuff that's going on in my body. I want to garden with my mom and go shopping with my mom and cook with my mom and watch movies with her and go for walks with her and get to know her and let her know me. I want to cry on her shoulder when I'm sad. I want her to call me "sweetheart" and listen when I talk and be proud of me. But I can't, and she won't, and I hate it. I'm the only one in the world who knows the real her, the her that's trapped beneath the monster, and I really like her. She's witty and creative and passionate and empathetic. She loves art, philosophy, history, politics, and music, and she's the most amazing cook. She taught herself to speak and read Latin. She plays tennis and paints and sculpts and reads all the time. She's a genius. (No, a real one. She's gotten perfect scores on IQ tests.) She wants to be a lawyer so she can defend people who are being hurt by more powerful people. She used to volunteer in group homes for people with cognitive disabilities. Her favorite color is blue. God, I wish the monster would just die, so I could have her.
And finally, Kevin and I have decided that, come fall, we will have been camping several times. And so we bought a tent.
I'm beginning to settle into my spiritual pilgrimage. For so long, I was finding who I'm not, reacting against, rejecting, abandoning, recoiling, running away. I feel now that I'm seeing who I am, I'm opening to, embracing, standing still. I truly believe that I am good and holy, who I am made to be, and I am complete in my createdness. I'm learning how to pray, how to sit with God in stillness and be, how she comes to me, and how her voice sounds. I'm learning how wide and broad and open is her heart, that there is a place for me in it, and a place for everyone I love. I'm learning how to rest my own love for others in her love for us all and that our connectedness is perfect in that love. There is real connection, and I do have access to it, even while crying out in the loneliest of moments. I've discovered spiritual kindred in Thomas Merton and Kathleen Norris and in a few people in my life. I've become confident that grace extends beyond, around, and through us all. I've stopped fretting over my fallenness. I am free to roam, free to question, free to doubt, free to wonder, free to love how and whom I love, and I am not beyond grace or holiness or wholeness. And I am not, in fact, any more deficient or defective than any other person. I am not the chief of sinners; we are all the same, all precious in our uniqueness. I let go to the mystery.
Last night was my first class in which my new yoga studio is my home. I've been attending classes there sporadically ever since I found out how soon I'd be needing a new home, six weeks ago. I'm looking forward to knowing new people and new teachers and learning more and growing stronger, becoming more able to bend. It's a good studio, with good teachers. Something, of course, is missing there, something that was part of my practice for a time but can no longer be. How I long for that missing thing right now. Savasana last night was so hard. (And long! Oh, mercy, the relief when Angela rang the bell!) But I will hold this pose, and I will keep breathing. I've signed up for ten weeks of classes and twenty weeks of private lessons. This change of scenery seems to be bearing with it a few new friendships, which is so nice. Good friends are few around here for one who doesn't fit in with the Bible-conservative crowd. And I need more friends.
Two friends who are very dear to me moved away last week. My heart doesn't privilege blood relations like most people's do, and my friends are my family, especially friends who live nearby and share life with me. You know, the cup-of-sugar-(or, in this case, beans)-borrowing friends. I feel the absence of a sister and brother, and I'm hurting. But I do know that I haven't really lost anything, and they're gaining so much, and I'm truly thrilled for them, and this too shall pass. Helping them prepare to move was a very sweet blessing to me, and I'm thankful.
And then there's the ol' bod. Readers, you may have noticed that sometimes my blog is a bit of a downer. It's because, sometimes, I can be a bit of a downer. But there's hope now that my downer days are numbered. A month ago, through a series of referrals (that is, "I can't help you, but here's a business card for someone who might"), I ended up in the office of a group of naturopathic doctors, one of whom, Kelly, specializes in hormonal disorders. See, for as long as I can remember, I've had all these weird symptoms, like acne and insomnia and low energy and mood swings. They've all gotten more and more severe in the last seven or so months, and the worst is intense depression and anxiety in the second half of my cycle. Friends, I just can't begin to describe how awful it feels. I can't eat, I can't sleep, I can't concentrate on anything, I have no energy, I feel like all of my friends must hate me, I can't stop thinking all these dark, tragic thoughts. I'm too exhausted to move, but I'm so nervous and restless that not moving is torture. And forget about sex. Well, in the last three months or so, it's been three quarters of my cycle. Last month, I never came out of it. I've lost 20 pounds since November. I've cried on more shoulders in that time than I have in my entire life. (You all know who you are: I'd have lost it completely without you. Thank you, thank you.)
Let me say again: my husband is a saint. I've married a saint.
God bless Kelly's kind, compassionate heart. The woman is a genius. She didn't chide me or argue with me or talk to me like I'm twelve. She honored my intelligence and what I know about myself, listened to me, reassured me. She let me keep my clothes on and didn't pressure me into an unwanted pelvic exam. And she tested my blood to find out what's actually wrong with me! It turns out that I have insulin resistance, hyperthyroidism, and polycystic ovary syndrome, which sounds like a lot, but really, it's not so bad. Because now I have something to do, something that she says should fix everything! All I have to do is cut carbohydrates and sugar completely out of my diet, eating mostly raw foods, protein sources, and healthy fats. I have to take supplements to control my blood sugar and bioidentical progesterone for half of my cycle. That's it!
I started the progesterone on Saturday. Duuuude. I feel like a completely different person. I feel like I can cope with life! And I like the diet. I don't care at all about sugar. Giving up pasta is hard, but after a few months I'll be able to cheat once in a while. This morning, I had plain full-fat organic yogurt with blueberries and a cup of black tea with raw milk for breakfast. Lunch was a salad with greens, tomatoes, a small carrot, and an avocado with olive oil and vinegar, and a small can of smoked wild sardines in mustard (yum!). Dinner will be vegetable soup with beans and a little grass-finished beef, a glass of wine, and cherries for dessert. And I munch on raw nuts all day. You may beg to differ with my sardines-in-mustard addiction (which I developed while still toddling), but doesn't the rest of it sound delicious? Since I started the diet a week ago, I've slept through the night three times. I haven't done that in months!
On Saturday night, Kevin and I and a friend of ours and her brother snuck into the yard of an under-construction lakefront property and had a perfect view of two fireworks displays. I let the water caress my feet and the laughter of my companions caress my soul. Through biting sadness, I felt hopeful, and I knew I wasn't alone.
In August, I'll be heading down to Rockville, Indiana, for a weekend to visit two friends of mine who are in state prison. I've never been to a prison before, and I'm nervous, but I love my friends, and I want to be with them.
Yesterday, we found out that a close relative of Kevin's is very sick and probably won't live more than a few years. Four other of his relatives may be moving a few states to the south very soon, including one that I had dearly hoped to get to know.
My baby sister will be 21 in a few weeks!
My mother called twice today to cuss me out because someone pissed her off and she needed to take it out on someone, and that's usually where I come in. There was a time when I didn't care so much when she treated me like this, but now I care a lot, and I don't know what to do about it. Because it's not like she's going to change, and it's not like I'm going to have another mom. I really want to call my mom and tell her about all the stuff that's going on in my body. I want to garden with my mom and go shopping with my mom and cook with my mom and watch movies with her and go for walks with her and get to know her and let her know me. I want to cry on her shoulder when I'm sad. I want her to call me "sweetheart" and listen when I talk and be proud of me. But I can't, and she won't, and I hate it. I'm the only one in the world who knows the real her, the her that's trapped beneath the monster, and I really like her. She's witty and creative and passionate and empathetic. She loves art, philosophy, history, politics, and music, and she's the most amazing cook. She taught herself to speak and read Latin. She plays tennis and paints and sculpts and reads all the time. She's a genius. (No, a real one. She's gotten perfect scores on IQ tests.) She wants to be a lawyer so she can defend people who are being hurt by more powerful people. She used to volunteer in group homes for people with cognitive disabilities. Her favorite color is blue. God, I wish the monster would just die, so I could have her.
And finally, Kevin and I have decided that, come fall, we will have been camping several times. And so we bought a tent.
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