Hello Again

It's been a long time!

I have meant to post on numerous occasions and and a wide variety of topics, but it's been a busy month. After taking off in June, we began again the beginning of this month, and there has been much I've wanted to say on that note, but have needed more time. Perhaps I'll get around to it soon. The first half of the month, Dave was still working out of town, and while we were all still very grateful for God's provision of work for him, his prolonged absences were beginning to wear on us all. I was just beginning to think that I would rather lose our car, if it meant having him home, than spend another week as a single parent. That said, we were also just beginning to get a real rhythm, so that the last couple of weeks, he would actually come home to a fairly clean house. But he was informed late one week that he wouldn't be needed down in Charleston anymore, and that was that. Unfortunately, we are finally faced with the problem that we have eluded all these months - there is simply not enough work locally. The past two weeks, it hasn't mattered so much, but we will be feeling it soon enough. When he arrived home yesterday morning, with an unpaid day off ahead of him, I was happy, on the one hand, that we could enjoy some time with him, but on the other hand, warding off feelings of anxiety and despair. We've been able to maintain an "emergency fund," for which I am so thankful (we won't starve, at any rate!), but it is hardly enough to keep us afloat while his work hours are cut in half. No, indeed. So August may be a trying month for us, during which we learn complete trust in our God who provides.

I am immensely grateful, though, that I am able to approach this storm in a state of relative happiness - i.e., in a state "I'm not feeling crazy" kind of stability. I have, in the words of my therapist when first assessing things for me last year, "a severe anxiety disorder," which I learned to cope with (often in fairly healthy ways) from childhood - and I wouldn't dare to underestimate the victory the Lord has given me in it. I've had a few dark episodes over the course of my life, but overall, I've generally been able to function without outside help. After Chase was born, however, a variety of factors, one of which was probably postpartum depression, pushed me into the longest "episode" I've ever had. So I've been struggling with this for the past couple of years, sometimes grappling with almost debilitating anxiety. (Last fall I had such a bad episode that when I emailed my therapist, she wanted to see me immediately, for free, which seems almost funny now) I haven't mentioned it often, and sometimes people are surprised to hear it - because I have learned to hide it without even thinking, as well as to cope - and I only mention it now to highlight the exhilarating difference. The abnormal (which I won't even begin to describe for you) was beginning to become my personal normal - even though I did my very best, and usually succeeded for the most part, in rising above it for my children's' sake - when somewhere in the last few months, I came out of the very long tunnel. Some of the OCD traits (and I don't mean the amusing TV variety, or the kind that everyone says they have when in fact they just like to be organized or clean) that have just become a part of who I am are still with me, but those I can handle, and in fact, I think it's more relaxing for me to embrace them rather than fight them. But I am free at the moment from the suffocating darkness that often made daily life exhausting at the least. Since those kind of episodes are recurring for me, I know I may have to face them again at some point - but hopefully there will not be another one so long, and I do pray, as always for God's grace and mercy in battling them. He is, and has always been, faithful in those times.

Forgive me for sharing so personal a topic, but I did so to emphasize the significance of "happiness" for me now. My creative juices are flowing so much freer, and every part of our family life is moving forward with a lighter, faster beat, which I am sure everyone is glad of. Even with trying time in our very near future, I do not feel that I will be overwhelmed by it, and that it saying something!

I have been here too long already, far longer than I had intended, and some little boys are getting eager for breakfast. But I don't think it will be another month before I post again!

Pretty

I don't think I'll have a point to this story. No witticisms, no thoughtful observations. I will not pretend to know the answer to this mystery. (And I would love to include a picture, but my camera is broken, so I can't take any new ones right now!)

Several days ago, I made a remark to Aimee about how pretty she was, and she wrinkled up her nose and said, with a self-consiousness I remember from my own girlhood but which I had never before heard from her, "No, I'm not."

What? I was shocked and more than a little bewildered. I certainly remember always thinking of that of myself, but I also always assumed that those girls who actually WERE pretty wouldn't have any trouble believing it of themselves. I always wanted to be incredibly thin, with locks of gold and eyes of sparkling blue. If a girl had all that, what else could she want? Besides the fact that she's my daughter who would be beautiful no matter what shape or hair color, I confess I have always seen in her what I always wished for myself, and have been happy for her that it has been her lot.

Ah... so it seems this tale says at least as much about myself as it does my daughter's newly wavering self image. Still, I'm at a loss. I guess I assumed that Aimee would always possess a graceful balance of modesty and a healthy self image (i.e. realizing how beatiful she is!), because, well... because, how could she not?