Hopeful, Happy, Helpful

I keep waiting for the perfect time to write this post. When I have enough time, enough energy to be able to convey what is in my heart. But the time has come when I can't afford conditions to be perfect.

I have a new love in my life. Her name is Yogalaxmi. She is a beautiful, talented, sweet girl. She also happens to be eastern Indian. She also happens to be orphaned. She also happens to suffer from the virus which took her parents from her. An AIDS orphan in a very impoverished region of India doesn't always get the help she needs. Luckily for Yogalaxmi, an amazing person named Sister Daisy has taken it upon herself to care for a group of these orphans, providing them with a home, with nourshement, and with love.

Luckily for ME, another amazing person, my cousin Melanie, came in contact with Sister Daisy and this group of kids. Many of us in Melanie's situation would feel heartbroken about it, would go home wishing there were something we could do, and maybe be a little more aware of our blessed lives. Melanie did all of those things. But she did something more. She decided to act. She, her family, and some friends in India created a non-profit charity called Gingham Project. And that is how I came to learn of Yogalaxmi, and was given the opportunity to support her personally.

The goals of Gingham Project, if I may be so bold, are these:

#1. to provide support for the orphans in Sister Daisy's care

and

#2. to help those and other children in the area of Tamil Nadu have the opportunity to get an education.

That second goal seems vast. I had not been previously aware that in many countries such as India, the government provides education to all kids, BUT in order to attend school a uniform is necessary. This policy effectively keeps the very poor from sending their children. So what do kids need? Uniforms. It's pretty simple, in reality. Uniforms and necessary school supplies are relatively cheap for our American budgets, about $20. For poor families in India, however, that may be months worth of their household income. In the aftermath of Cyclone Thane, which hit in early January, it's harder than ever for these families to provide uniforms.

Gingham Project is currently running a fund drive for uniforms. Their goal is to send 100 children to school this June ... the beginning of their school year. That's $2,000.00. They are about half-way there. Funds need to be raised by April 15. Is there some amount you can give? Is there some way to get your kids involved?

One personal plug for this organization ... Sometimes it can be scary to donate when you aren't sure what your money is really paying for. Melanie and her family and their associates in India don't recieve anything for their efforts. Heck, Mel's travel expenses come out of her pocket! And why travel expenses? Because everything that goes to these kids is hand delivered. No middle men. Melanie is planning a trip in May to deliver the uniforms and school supplies to the kids. In fact, it is a dear dream of mine to go with her. To see the area for myself, to meet the people we're serving. To wrap my arms around that darling Indian girl of mine.

Hopeful, happy, helpful. They are the words that Melanie uses to describe these kids. Poor beyond my comprehension, and yet radiant, inspirational. They have certainly inspired me from the other side of the world. Will they inspire you, too?

Be Mine, Valentine

My mom was the queen of construction paper cut-outs. In fact, it's a craft I inherited from her at a young age.

I remember these posters she made for the kitchen at our church when I was little. Basically a reminder to wash and put away all dishes, and another reminder not to leave food in the refrigerator. She'd made little rhymes for each, and cut-out "graphics" of plates and glasses on one and ketchup, mustard bottles and a pickle jar on the other. They hung in there for years, getting all faded the way that only construction paper fades. (In spite of those posters, there was a bottle of Tabasco sauce in that fridge for at least a year. Our Sunday School teacher would start every lesson off by passing that around our class and having us "take a whiff." He was a college kid.)

One of my mother's construction paper masterpieces was a box covered in red and decorated with intricately cut out white and pink hearts. It had "Be Mine, Valentine" written in beautiful script with a red maker. We had the same one every year. (Mom was nothing if not thrifty!) But it was kept well and gorgeous. Inside were a couple of Hershey bars, broken into their little lettered squares, each placed in brown candy papers. It was probably an inexpensive way to give my brother and I our Valentines, but I always thought of it as quite elegant, even as the critical teen-aged girl that I was.

The chocolates were not all. Every year Mom created new bright and colorful cards. They usually contained some poem she'd written on the theme, of course, of how perfect and wonderful we were. That's how she generally saw us. She loved my brother and I more than anything else in this world, and she made sure we knew that.

Cards creations continued for her grandchildren. They were usually included in a mailed box full of heart-shaped cookies. I found one set of those hand-made Valentines, from the year that #4 was a newborn. A poem for each child, in construction paper and marker. I put them into the kids' grandma memory boxes.

I wish I'd kept more of those cards over the years. Hopefully more will turn up over time.

Ready or Not ...

There is no way possible to prepare a toddler for the birth of their younger sibling. We all try. We buy books and videos (I suppose they are DVDs now) all about new babies and big brothers and sisters. We talk about the baby. We train the older child to point out where the baby is in mommy's tummy, to even kiss the tummy, and to talk about how excited they are for the new baby to come.

But let's face it. Toddlers have absolutely NO idea, really, what is coming. No matter how well they answer all the questions. No matter how often they kiss that belly. A baby comes, and it takes mommy's time, and toddler's old car seat and crib. It cries, and needs attention 24 hours a day. The big sister or brother's routine is turned on it's head ... just like the entire household. My #1 reacted by loving #2 to death, but acting out towards Larry and I. #2 tried very hard to pretend that #3 simply was not there. #3? Poor #3's life fell apart. She cried and was sad constantly. I thought we'd ruined her previously insanely cheerful disposition. (I've long since figured out that #3 will react strongly no matter which way her feelings lean. She'd just never before had reason to be so distraught.) #4, being the caboose, just chugged along, asserting his preferred position as the big black engine.

I find myself similarly blind-sided. I thought I'd had a handle on grief, that I understood what it would be like. With my husband's poor health for nearly our entire marriage, I've imagined more often than I care to admit what it would be like to lose him. I thank God that I haven't, and that he seems to be getting a handle on his immune system. Losing a parent can't be more traumatic than losing a spouse, right? And in the past two years, I of course had contemplated losing my mother. In some ways, I'd lost parts of having a mother when I became the caregiver. So when she passed, I had it all mapped out: get through the funeral, get through my grandmother's funeral, get through Christmas and the school holiday, and then I could mourn properly. I think I imagined needing a good week or two to earnestly fall apart, and then I could slowly rebuild back into normal life.

I didn't anticipate that holding in pain for several weeks would make me scared to finally let go. And I'm scared of mourning too much. It feels like it might drown me. I didn't anticipate that I'd feel such let down from all of my care giving duties. Or that, being a home-body sort of girl, I'd hate to be home. Or that when I'd then try to fill up my time with being out of the house, I'd become exhausted. That church would be one of the most difficult places to be. That trying to get back into a diet that I gave up on during the hospice phase would induce major emotional stress. I didn't think that I would just not be able to bring myself to start working on all of the projects I've not had time for over the past years.

When I do start to let go, to cry, to feel sad, there emerges the presence of this obstacle that I can't even name. It's something that I need to get over, get through ... I'm not sure. I can't decide what it is. It must be loss. But it feels like something more sinister than that. Something nebulous and concrete all at the same time. I have no idea how to defeat it. I had truly thought that when my mom died, the hard part was over. I'm starting to wonder if I was wrong about that.

In an effort to gain some control, I imagine that it would be helpful to go on a trip somewhere entirely unremarkable. All by myself. For several days, maybe even a week. I would cry and read and watch harmless movies and just lay there. I almost feel that if I could do that, then maybe I could be done and move on. But not only do I not have the opportunity for such an indulgence, I fear it would probably work out as well as my original grief schedule did. It's frustrating to be a rather self-aware person who finds herself unsure of how to proceed, of how to help myself through this. Nothing seems right. No course seems like the one I want to take.

To be honest, much of the time, I'm doing alright. In those moments, when I start to worry about all of this grief work, I wonder if I'm making a bigger deal out of it than I need or ought. I have always had a tendency to over-think things. But then a bad day will hit, and I'm pretty sure that I'm not just being dramatic.

I tried to enlist the aid of Elmo and Mr. Snuffleupagus in my kids' transitions from baby to big sister. They were entertaining, but ultimately ineffective. There's surely a plethora of resources out there to help in this transition of mine as well. I imagine they'll be more helpful than Sesame Street was with my two-year-olds. Eventually I may have to put on some big-girl pants and seek them out.

My New Best Friend

Did you ever read a book, and were just certain that if only the hero could meet YOU instead of the heroine, that filmmakers would have a much more interesting main character to work with than Bella Swan? Or watch TV, knowing that the only reason Jack Bauer wasn't knocking down YOUR door is because he was simply too darn busy saving America from terrorist-driven nuclear disaster to notice how hot you are?

Yeah, me neither. So the following is a totally new and different experience for me ...

I just finished reading "Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?" by Mindy Kaling of The Office fame, and I am pretty sure that if she ever met me, or even just happened once to be one of the 9 folks who stumble across my blog on a daily basis, that we would be best friends. Instantly. In fact, I'm so sure of it, that if I were technologically savvy enough, I'd find a pic of her and one of her college roommates and totally photoshop my face onto the face of her roommate, just to prove my point. (I'd enlist the aid of my virtual friend Kristina, but she's too busy preparing her Sunbeam handouts for Sunday. And asking my 15 year old for help seems too um, what's the word?, loser-y.)

I know, I know, you think we come from totally separate worlds. You're correct. Mindy's in Hollywood, I'm in Boise. She's 5 years younger than me. I'm a stay-at-home Mormon mom of four, she's a single working woman, who doesn't sound like she's ever been religious. She loves to shop, I hate to shop. She's a comedy writer, and I'm more of an introspective, commentary-on-daily-life-experiences writer. Plus, she gets paid to write, and I'd probably have to shell out good money to get broader readership. (Which currently consists almost entirely of my dad. And Kristina.) And, as I probably should have mentioned first, Mindy grew up in Eastern Mass, I grew up in Western Mass. That's right. Night and Day.

So what am I thinking? Well, it's really pretty straightforward. Mindy is really funny. I am a comedy connoisseur. I love intellectual, subtle humor. So she'd tell jokes, and I'd laugh hysterically. That right there is a basis of a great relationship. She'd never feel threatened by my success, which I think is another big plus in my favor.

Reading Mindy's memoir felt like staying up all night at a sleep-over or at Girls' Camp and hearing all about her life. We really connected. I get all of her ironies and sarcastic asides. I identify with her thinly veiled insecurities. She has a brother, I have a brother. She had 2 girlfriends in college, I had 2 in high school ... one of whom is named Kelly (just like Mindy's character on The Office). She thinks married people should be pals ... my husband and I are totally pals. She loves romantic comedies, I love romantic comedies. And we both note the disturbing trend of female romantic leads with BMIs of 4 who eat like linebackers. Crazy, huh?! We're practically twins.

Of course, the problem is social circles. We don't run in the same ones. So meeting is going to be hard. My idea is this: Mindy seems to be the sort of girl who'd make a habit out of googling herself now and then. If she does it soon, this post might pop up. After reading it, then browsing around my blog, reading all of my deep and thoughtful posts, intermixed with touches of humor, she will leave me a comment with her cell number, we start texting, and the rest, as they say, is history. I'm so excited, I can hardly breathe.

I better get back on that diet. I want to look great when I'm her guest at the next Emmys.

Product Review, Eastwood-style

Ritter Sport
Dark Chocolate with Whole Hazelnuts

THE GOOD: Super tasty dark chocolate & hazelnuts ... plenty of antioxidants, flavonoids, omega-3 fatty acids, protein, fiber, plant sterols and a lower glycemic index. Perfectly acceptable treat for someone watching her health.

THE BAD: The 3.5 oz bar qualifies as "about" 3 servings. (I'm not sure I even want to know what that implies.)

THE UGLY: Unless I happen to have two other people who enjoy dark chocolate and nuts with me at the moment, I am going to eat 3 servings. And it won't even take me super long to do. That's about 1/3 of my allotted calories for the day in a 20 minute sitting with an incredibly low food volume. Not my smartest move of the day.

Lost

For the past 21 months, my life has been consumed, and I haven't felt at liberty to discuss any of it on this blog, until now.

In February 2010, my mother was diagnosed with stage 3C endometrial cancer. We almost lost her then. I brought her home to live with me in Idaho, where she began aggressive treatment. By the summer, her cancer had metastasized. Stage 4. Still, the treatment was effective in containing and killing her cancer, and hormone treatments kept the tumors in her liver from growing. Unfortunately, that treatment was so aggressive that it finally killed her as well as her disease. She passed away November 30th.

My mom was a good, kind, hard working, faithful woman. Yet she and I had a complicated relationship ... at least from my perspective. We weren't very alike, we two, and those differences in our personalities and even, ironically, our upbringings made it difficult for us to really communicate or connect about anything deeply significant. Add to this having to take on the role of caregiver, and I spent two years in emotional conflict. I frequently had less than kind feelings toward my mother, and that always then made me also feel guilty. What kind of daughter, after all, would be angry at a mother who was suffering the way that she was? To cope, I became emotionally detached at a time when my mother needed emotional support more than ever.

The last two months of her life I was able to let go. It wasn't very noble of me. My mom had become so weakened, so sick, so dependent, so frankly pitiful, that it was now impossible to continue to harbor resentments. She'd had surgery and was in the hospital for a total of 7 1/2 weeks. She then came home with hospice care and was only home for 3 weeks before she was gone. The last week, she wasn't able to speak to me. Saturday and Sunday she'd been more alert, and though unable to answer back, she was looking at me with an intensity that I was certain she understood what I was saying. I told her how much I loved her, what a great mom she'd been. I told her about the things I admired about how she'd lived her life. The great teacher she was, the kind neighbor, the caring daughter. Without actually saying the words, I was able to say goodbye. That Sunday night she fell asleep and never woke up. On Wednesday morning she passed away.

It's been two weeks. Two weeks and one day as of this publishing. It's funny, I find myself counting the time as I did the ages of my newborns. I don't plan to, it's just how I am thinking about this. In some ways don't miss her yet, as if she's not really dead but only away. I'm used to being without my mother. For years we lived 3,000 miles apart and only saw each other for 10 days every year. But for the past nearly two, she's been right in my home, needing attention and care. So in other ways I feel a little lost, like I'm not quite sure what I'm supposed to be doing.

I assume that after the holidays, when the kids are back in school, my time will fill back up with whatever it is my time gets filled with. In the meantime, it's hard to go to bed when I should, and it's hard to want to stay awake during the day. It's hard to try to wrap my brain around this new motherless reality of mine, especially since, to be honest, I'm trying to avoid thinking of it as much as I can. There is a holiday to put on for my kids, and I can't seem to manage preparing for that and thinking about my mom at the same time. Processing may need to wait.

I keep thinking of the original lyrics to "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas:"

Someday soon we all will be together, if the fates allow.
Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow,
And have ourselves a merry little Christmas now.

Clearly, the fates didn't allow for one last Christmas with my mother. But I assume that as time passes that fact will seem less tragic. Perhaps even next year I won't feel like I'm muddling through. It may take longer.

Merry Christmas, dear friends.

In the Quiet Heart

I had a three distinct, consecutive experiences the other day that got me thinking about tolerance, understanding, and compassion.

#2 has had her learner's permit for two weeks. She is doing very, very well. However, she is still learning. It's why they don't just hand out licenses to kids on their birthdays. One of the things that is hard to do is to determine how much time you have to merge or turn into traffic. Because #2 is also still figuring out how much and when to accelerate, we are leaving very large buffers in car lengths when merging onto a busy road. That day we were sitting at a yield sign waiting for enough space when the guy behind us apparently decided that she'd missed some opportunities to go and honked. That sort of impatience is hard enough for me to blow off when I'm the driver, but when it's my kid, mama-bear began to emerge. I really wanted to let this guy have a piece of my mind. "Give my kid a break! She's been driving for two weeks! Come and see me in 7 years when your kid there starts to drive!" Of course, I couldn't do it. But man, did I ever want to.

We got to our destination, which was a frozen yogurt place, and ordered our last-day-of-summer treats. When #3 finished hers, she dumped her trash into a very small waste bin that was clearly intended for sample cups. Not the end of the world, but to avoid having my family fill the bin unnecessarily I mentioned to #1 that when she was finished she ought to use the bigger bin by the door. In response #1 threw a fit. She started yelling that she never used small trash cans and why was I telling her to use the big one--it was #3 who used the wrong can. She went on, and I tried to calm her down a little, but it's sometimes best just to drop it and let her tirade run it's course. As frequently happens in these cases, we got stared at by a woman who was also there with her teenage kids. It's not obvious by looking at #1 that she is mentally handicapped. And the sight of an almost 17 year old throwing a toddler-style fit is not pretty. I get that. But I always feel torn between wishing I could explain and feeling resentful that I should have to explain in order to have some grace extended to my child. So I (not very maturely) stared right back at the woman until she turned back around.

After dropping the kids home I needed to run to the store for school lunch supplies for the next morning. (I firmly believe in getting things done waaay in advance.) On the way, my gas started acting weirdly. I was loosing momentum and was getting ready to pull over to the shoulder just past a 4-way stop when my (11 month old) car died entirely. This left me without steering, so all I could do was coast to the stop-sign. I immediately turned on my hazards and literally within about 20 seconds two guys had each hopped out of their vehicles to help me push the car to the side of the road. I called Larry for help, and while I waited for him to arrive about every 5th car to pass during this rush-hour time asked if I needed help or a phone or gas or if help was on it's way. It was exceptional. Most of these folks were probably on their way home from being gone all day and yet were willing to take time to potentially give more time to help a stranger.

Standing there on the side of the road, I started to think about the difference between these situations and how others responded to my family and I. It wasn't hard to pinpoint. It all came down to the hazard lights. People instantly knew that I was in distress. They responded as I believe most of us would. There's no 14-year-old-new-driver light for my car. There's no severe-mental-retardation light for my daughter. And it didn't take long for me to think of the fact that perhaps there was a light that the impatient driver behind me was wishing he could flash, so that I could understand his mood or sense of urgency. Sure, he could have extended some compassion, but then so could have I toward him in return.

We never know who's husband is chronically ill, or who is care-giving a mother with cancer. Who battles anxiety, or who has kids with special needs. It might be me. But it might be the woman eating yogurt at the table next to me, or the guy driving a car behind me. And if it's not any of those concerns, it could very well be something else.

I love the LDS hymn "Lord, I Would Follow Thee." One of the verses sings,

Who am I to judge another when I walk imperfectly?
In the quiet heart is hidden sorrow that the eye can't see.

And in the next,

I would be my brother's keeper; I would learn the healer's art.
To the wounded and the weary, I would show a gentle heart.

It's that gentle heart that all of us yearn for as we muddle through life. And it's the gentle heart that many of us, myself most definitely included, need to practice giving more freely.

Happy New Year

The following post was originally posted by myself on my friend Chris's blog in September 2009. I thought it was worth reposting here.

---

My father was a university student when I was born. I was in the third grade when he received his PhD. I went straight to college myself after graduating high school, and got married during my junior year. My husband started a master's program as I was finishing my bachelor's degree. And my two oldest children were in school when he finally decided not to pay to write a dissertation for a doctorate in history that he no longer planned to use. My oldest child is about to start ninth grade and my baby, second.

My entire life has revolved around the traditional school calendar.

I guess it makes sense then that I always feel a greater sense of renewal and starting afresh on September 1st than I do in January. In September we start new routines, we advance grades, we buy new clothes, new backpacks, and new supplies. In September we make new friends and reacquaint ourselves with old ones. We start new sport seasons in new, larger cleats. We are assigned new teachers and occasionally adjust to a whole new school. In January we merely pick up where we left off before the Christmas Holidays. And occasionally make resolutions that have generally been forgotten by February.

Last year was a stressful one for my family. We moved 900 miles away, built a house and a warehouse, faced a family tragedy and business and personal financial struggles. Many good things happened, too, and overall I feel blessed. But I approach this new school year ready to move on. I look forward to a year where we are settled into our surrounding environs and routines. Where the stressors we encounter are every-day, garden variety stresses. Where we have only one house payment and our business is all located in one state under one enormous roof. I look forward to getting more involved again at my kids' schools. As the four of them will be spread among three campuses, this should keep me plenty busy.

Just for good measure, I'll throw in here that I look forward to weighing about 15 pounds less than I currently do. But I'm sure that effort will be abandoned by October.

I Simply Remember My Favorite Things ...

I really want to get back to posting more. Unfortunately, much of what goes through my head these days is a little bit of a downer. (See my last post ...) So, in an effort to show that I do in fact appreciate that my life is not absolutely horrible, I am posting a list of some of my biggest blessings at the moment. It's not the sort of thing I usually do. I run the risk of sounding cheesy, or worse, braggy. Today it's a risk I'll take. With a smile on my face.

I am so excited for #3. She is starting middle school next week, and with it, orchestra. Being a former band-geek myself, I love when my kids are involved with music, especially at school. She's been taking guitar for about 5 years now, and is adding violin. Her guitar teacher also teaches violin, and so their focus is shifting for a while until she starts to get the new instrument down. She's had 3 violin lessons now, and is doing really well. YAY, #3!

We've jokingly called this summer "the summer of #2." It's not entirely true, but a great deal of time has been spent by me on the road taking #2 to drivers' ed and soccer. The great news is that she's passed drivers' ed and is now in possession of a learner's permit. That's also the scary news. But honestly, it's not too bad. She does pretty well. And come late February, we will have another driver at our disposal, which will be cause for much rejoicing. The greatest news is that #2 made her high school JV soccer team. After being cut last year, she worked her little tail off, improved vastly, and is so excited to be part of the team. They are a great team, too. It's so much fun to watch her play in a stadium.

Along similar lines, #4 is taking a break from soccer. This is really a huge relief. It's a break for our schedule, and it will be good for him, as well. #4 likes sports on a recreational kind of level, but his true interests lie elsewhere. It will be good to pursue things like music and drama.

I am taking a vacation in a couple of weeks. It won't be long, but I'll be with a couple of my favorite people in a beautiful city, and I cannot wait.

It's almost fall. My favorite season. I'm really having to hold back pulling out the autumn decor. Sweater weather for me is as comforting as cocoa. Apples and pumpkins, rusty foliage and chrysanthemums. I hope the weather this year doesn't skip from summer to winter. I'll be crossing my fingers.

Then there is Yogalaxmi. She deserves her very own post. Be watching for more on her ...

Finally, no list of my blessings is ever complete without a little bit on my life partner. I would love to say that I got such a great husband because I knew what I was doing when I picked Larry. But let's face it--I was only 19. All I knew was that I couldn't stand the thought of continuing on with life without him. I lucked out. I got a talented, intelligent, hard-working, funny, responsible guy. There is no one on this planet who I'd rather spend time with. He is incredibly supportive of me, and he needs my support as well. He has also taken on responsibility for my mother. He does it willingly and patiently and selflessly. Today I am thankful that he was born 41 years ago. Here's to another 41, at least!

Paralysis

Since I can remember (or at least since I've been old enough to have deadlines) there has existed for me a threshold of busy-ness beyond which I am unable to continue to function. Past that level I become virtually paralyzed by an overwhelming fear that nothing on my list can possibly be accomplished on time. And I do nothing. I am aware that this response is entirely self-defeating and ultimately self-fulfilling. Nothing will get done if I am not moving forward. The only reasonable course of action in these situations is to get to work. But it is crushingly difficult for me to do that when the list is too long. Some readers will not understand this at all. Others will totally get it. Brains are wired differently, and I believe this issue may be a symptom more on the anxiety-depression/functional acceptance spectrum rather than the hard-working/laziness spectrum.

Recently, I have become aware that this tendency of mine spills into other areas of my life beyond the "to do" lists. In fact, this post, which has been brewing and evolving in my brain for weeks now, was originally going to be about this sort of paralysis in relation to my body-image issues. Exciting, I know. To my credit, however, I did have a clever title and lots of little self-deprecating one-liners all ready to go. It may have been entertaining after all ...

I digress. As I pre-composed this post in my mind, I realized that at the moment my lack of inner peace involves SO much more than the number on the scale. I see areas everywhere where I am lacking, and where I'm really not headed in any sort of direction to improve, and I find it depressing. I am a Wife, a Mother, a Caregiver-Daughter, a Young Women President, a Dog Owner, a Gardener, an Amateur Artist/Musician/Seamstress, a Visiting Teacher, a Friend, a Blogger, a Reader, a Homemaker, a Chicken-Keeper, a Daughter of God, a Person with a Body. Without getting in the boring minutia of my pitiful life, I will simply say that the only role that I am not performing at a sub-par level is Reader. I am 6 books, or 11%, ahead of schedule to complete my goal of reading 52 books this year. Yay for me. Everywhere else my performance leaves much to be desired.

The list is too big. I am overwhelmed. And paralyzed.

In regards to my weight, I've been toying with the idea of how to *gasp* learn to be happy with the weight I am. I seriously don't know where to begin with that, but I feel like something has to give, and this is the only thing I see that can. Really though, it's a similar problem with the "everything else" part of my list. Is there a way for me to be at peace with who I am without giving up? I believe that we constantly need to be growing ... striving to be better. But for me, this comes with a super-sized side order of guilt and stress.

I am more than vaguely aware that the answer to this question has it's roots in prayer, in spiritual study, in service. Yet that awareness is easier for me to come by than to follow through on at this stage. The list is too big. I am overwhelmed. And paralyzed.

Ironically, it's the to-do-list type of activities which often overwhelm me that are keeping me from crawling under a rock at the moment. None of them takes emotional energy to perform. Drive to driver's ed? Check. Do the laundry? Check. Organize another YW activity? Check. And of course: Read? Check, check, check.

As I imagine comments to this post, I am tempted to turn them off. But instead of doing that (which frequently seems a little dramatic to me) I will just say that I'm not really looking for pity, or for solutions (unless they involve books and/or chocolate). If there's anything I need at the moment, it's camaraderie. Just so I know I'm not crazy. Or if I am crazy, to know that I'll have a lot of friends with me in the asylum.