If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.
-Emily Dickinson
Category: What I Love
About 11 years ago, when we first moved to Tyler, I was invited several wonderful places to get plugged in to the local community. One of them was Bible Study Fellowship (hereafter known as BSF). I went to a couple meetings towards the end of their year, met some lovely people, but ultimately decided to join the Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPs) group at the church I actually attended (BSF meets at another church across town), which also on Wednesday mornings.
Fast forward 11 or so years and here I am again at the end of a study, joining into a new-to-me group. But this time it’s better. Well, not BSF. BSF has always been good. I’M better now. I’ve had 11 years to find my way through life, make friends, lose friends, finally get some sleep, and to find out what’s important to me and what is not.
I went to my first real meeting this morning (last week I attended a one-on-one welcome session with the lovely lady that had been my HR director at a former job, oddly enough). It was such a good morning. I’d finished all my personal Bible study during the week and was prepared for conversation. I made my way to my classroom and found a group of women that I found delightful. It was such a nice mix of women willing to speak out and ask the kind of questions that might intimidate others (either with their incisiveness or with their apparent lack of knowledge) and women that were quiet until a specific thing they felt passionate enough about to warrant speaking and still others who, like me, just had what seemed to be the most simple of answers.
I am so glad that I stepped out of my comfort zone and made my way to this group. I think it’s going to be a very good thing in my life. 🙂
It’s National Poetry Month…and therefore I must share poetry. Some days I’ll share my own and some days I’ll share famous works and others I’ll share works of lesser fame. Who knows what the day will bring?
Today, because it’s on my mind, a poem about adoption (I’m an adoptee and a friend called tonight to ask about my experience): (click on the image to enbiggen)
Honestly, I’ve been carrying this candle around room to room with me because it is helping me breathe. Go to Essentiallynaked.com and get the Rosemary Mint or Woodland candle. They are both wonderful! (And I don’t know which one I’ve been carrying around because I took both lids off at once and the kids moved them.)
The phrase of the day is “oddly good.” I used it in reference to a weird apple fritter donut, but my family has taken it up as their own. So MANY things can be oddly good.
We are having a fancy dinner tonight! All sushi, all the time. And cocktails. Because it’s not a date without cocktails. Well, not an evening date without cocktails in any case.
We ordered WAY too much food for ourselves for one night, but sushi does not do well sitting in the car, even in this coolness, for the length of a movie, so we had to leave it behind. Woe. But then there was The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and we were all happy again.
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” –Maya Angelou
…today I’m overhauling my blogs and who knows what craziness might occur. 🙂 *hugs*
I am starting to think that what I really need is a mental health blog. Or to combine all my little blogs into one big blog so I can stop repeating myself from different angles. Who knows.
A friend of mine committed suicide this weekend. We weren’t close lately, hadn’t been for a couple years, but once upon a time I lent her all my books about depression and gave her my number and talked to her about my experiences with therapy and brain chemicals that just don’t work right . Through her, I lent her husband the book “How to Help When Someone You Love is Depressed” that I’d gotten for my husband ages ago. She still had a few books that hadn’t made it back to me. I guess they never will. These aren’t the thoughts one generally shares, I know, but somehow they are the ones my brain is holding onto right now, instead of blubbering insanely about how sad it all is and how hard I tried to help her and how I failed to keep up and how I regret it and how I am never ever the person I mean to be when it comes to other people and how I should have kept up with her when she went silent. Because once I get started with them, the tears start, they don’t stop.
THIS YEAR. I CAN’T TAKE THIS YEAR.
One of my good friends from junior high died this last year: breast cancer. My ex-boyfriend from high school was accused of sexual misconduct with a student and I can’t quite bring myself to admit that I really do think it’s something he did, because then I’d have to admit out loud to my family and other people how awful he was (in college I had girls email me out of nowhere and ask me to join their therapy group because ….) and they don’t need to hear that. Then there was my mom and the hospital last summer. And another ancient friend’s husband died unexpectedly from pneumonia. Another one’s brother died and I somehow totally missed it and I feel awful about it, but don’t know what to say now. Another friends son had a terrible car accident months ago and is only now walking. And then the husband of a girl here in town that was one of those friends-of-a-friend that you always hear about that you feel like you know even though you’ve actually never met them? The one you’ve heard dozens of stories about? Yeah. Her husband died trying to save someone after a car accident. And now this.
I told my spouse that I needed a Self Care day. He was busy, of course, because we are NEVER not busy these days, and said the wrong thing and that made me cry more. He apologized and said the right things later but I ….well… I am broken at this point. And thanking God or the Universe or Whatever I’m Believing In This Week that I asked the doctor for those anti-depressant, anti-anxiety meds way back in October. Because I don’t know what or who to believe in these days, but SCIENCE seems like a good thing. Quantifiable, you know. I don’t, I just don’t know. Nobody is available on a Saturday to talk, so I’ve been making due with a bunch of movies (The Decoy Bride I need to own and Wild Targets I’m going to rewatch and A Good Woman I’m in the middle of, but it’s kind of bland so far despite good reviews – I’m thinking I just don’t like Scarlet Johanssen) and a bottle of wine and a box of chicken quesadillas.
Thank you for listening and thinking about me. I know we don’t see/know each other in person, but you mean the world to me, you really do. *big big hugs*
More old family photos, a set on Flickr.
Most of these are from the trip we took to Europe in 1983 — I was 7 and got a camera for my birthday for the trip. My parents occasionally took photos of us, but most of the photos I took. The other one is one of our engagement pictures (the color weirdness is due to the fact that it sat in my Dad’s office window for 15 years. I think it’s the only copy we have of this picture).
Lisa Holcomb 