Taking a tour

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." 

- Aristotle

I’m not sure what he was really referring to here.  I’m no brainiac or scholar.  I just live inside my head a lot of the time.  To me this quote means we can hear others out.  We can listen with an open mind.  We can examine both sides of an issue.  We can appreciate where someone is coming from.  Even if we don’t agree.  Or change our opinion.  But we show maturity and class when we can put aside our agenda for even just a moment and listen.  Without trying to point out where they’re wrong.  Or convince them we’re right. 

It’s kind of like me walking through the IKEA showroom.  What’s not to love about the tiny living quarters, sleek cabinets, compact storage solutions?  Except I wouldn’t want most of it.  It’s not really my style.  Not to say I don’t like it for someone else’s house, it’s perfect!  Just not my level of comfort, what I want to surround myself with.   It’s dreamy taking in all the furnishings and designs.  My mom’s house is just as beautiful.  In a completely different way.  Traditional I guess.  Black and red and yellow.  But contemporary at the same time.  Classy.  Not over-done, but coordinated and warm.  Her bedrooms are French-country, cool, soft blues.  Just so comfortable and pretty and inviting.  I love her house and the way she decorates.  I just don’t want to duplicate the look in my own house.

Just as I appreciate the chance to see various decorating motifs, I like seeing how people run their households and organize their belongings.  We’ve all been in a variety of buildings and even parts of the country and world throughout our lives.  I imagine we can all appreciate the distinctive looks and feels, foods and cultures.  Not one is inherently better.  They’re all just different.  Based on where they’re coming from, what their traditions and backgrounds are, what feels natural and comfortable to them.

I even like hearing my friends talking about books they love in our book group.  I might not want to decorate like or read the same books my friends do, but I can appreciate how their personalities play into their choices.  I love our differences.  Every single person can teach me something: whether it’s exposing me to a new type of music I didn’t know I’d like or helping me see beauty through a new lens.  I love filtering through all I see and experience and then keeping what works for me and jives with where or who I am.  And I've gotten some great book recommendations over the years!

It feels like the older I get the more difficult it is to be as stuck in my opinions as I once was. It would seem that we would become even more set in our ways the older we get.  And maybe that’s true with our routines, the ways we like to do things.  And even with a few key principles.  I’ve seen enough and experienced enough years to know what I think about a few basics, ideas like most people feel better when they’re earning their own way and have some skin in the game.  Homes should be places of refuge and learning, not showcases.  Small but consistent efforts can lead to great results.   You can only change what you can control.  Just different ideas like that.  I’m sold.  You probably won’t change my mind.  But the older I get the more I can see things from your vantage point too.

I remember back in high school in economics and government.  Our teacher wrote a blackboard full of controversial topics and we were allowed to go circle one or two we wanted to tackle, that we related to.  But then he just assigned us the rest, including which side we'd argue.   Our task was to research and present an argument for that perspective in front of the class.  Simple and easy enough.  But brilliant.  Because it taught us to look at issues from a different angle.

Another teacher in my Male/Female Roles class in high school had everyone raise their hands confirming their stand on either pro-choice or pro-life.  As you would suspect, I was the only one in the class that was pro-life.  But I loved what she had us do.  We were to write an argument on the opposite stand.  At first you can’t imagine seeing another side, it’s so black and white and obvious to you.  But there is always something you can learn or understand once you let go of what you think you know and even just take a peek at another’s opinion.  I doubt it impacted many, but it was a great lesson for me.

The older I get the more I feel my ignorance.  I know so much less than I don’t know.  I imagine we’re all there.  So I don’t understand why we are so cemented in our thinking.  Even if we’re basing our opinions on principles, we can at least try to understand the emotions of someone else, open our eyes a little wider to see why her life experiences brought her to this conclusion rather than refusing to listen because we already know what we think.  There is a lot of information on both sides of any issue.  And we can’t help but be swayed by our pasts, cultures, upbringing, values and experiences.  But a good friend or mature person can easily sit back and really listen to what all that background is saying.  Why he thinks that, how he arrived at that conclusion.  Information is power.  It has the potential to shift our thinking.  But even if it doesn’t, we are still more compassionate and empathetic when we take time to look at both sides.

It’s like probably most bills or issues in politics.  It wouldn’t be hard to make decisions if there was a clear-cut right and wrong or easy solution that would satisfy everyone.  Kind of like dinner at our house. But life’s issues are messy. And people have different values and priorities and paradigms.  That’s just reality.  I loved it when I heard of a new bill proposal.  A great idea.  Until my friend explained a part of it I hadn’t ever thought of.  I was filtering it through my own experiences, not recognizing how it might work in another situation.   I completely changed my mind, glad for her insight.

Again, I’m no scholar and I can barely remember anything from my high school or college classes, but I intuitively feel that there is an innate need to be heard.  To feel respected, validated.  I know that I appreciate it when I feel someone “gets” me, they at least hear me out long enough to see where I’m coming from.  Maybe we still won’t agree, but I feel like we’re still friends.  Still agreeing to disagree but with a little more understanding.

We’ve all been in each others’ houses and a million others.  They just all have different personalities.  I love it when it’s a new move-in because inevitably they want to show you around, doesn’t matter if the house is newly built or just new to them.  Or when they’re moving out or just had a baby or surgery and you get to clean for them.  Or when you just get to that point that you just feel like it’s an extension of your own house.  What could be better than taking a peek into someone’s life, how they arrange their kitchens, noticing what they value, learning what makes them feel comfortable, what “home” is to them?  I guess it’s because I’m a voyeur at heart that I love a glimpse here and there.  And I always take away great ideas.  Clever storage, a color that pops, a way to arrange furniture I hadn’t thought of, a fun way of hanging art.  A reminder to frame my pictures I keep on my shelf.  A little nudge to create something of warmth.  And so it’s good.  I love the tours, I love our differences.  And yet I see so many more similarities than differences.  We don’t let our variances in how high we stack our books or what colors we prefer create divisions in our friendships.  How silly!

Just because I don’t want to necessary live in a different house doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy the tours.  Likewise, maybe by this point in your life you're pretty settled in your views.  Which is fine.  But we don’t hesitate to let a friend show us around her house.  We are gracious in acknowledging her way of displaying her treasures and, similarly, we can be gracious as she gives us a tour of her mind and thought processes.  Let her.  It doesn’t mean we have to re-decorate.  But it might give us something to think about.  And maybe even tweak.  

To tell you the truth

People keep asking me how I’m doing.  I’m embarrassed to even entertain the question, I hardly feel like it’s worth our conversation.  Because I feel like we’re rehashing a van repair we made last year.  It was all the way back last year, after all.  And because I feel better than most people who are sniffling through a cold, certainly way better than those dealing with stomach flu.

You all know how fast the weeks go, especially as you get further and further from the event.  Time has been my most treasured friend.  First I seemed to go from night to night.  Then to each doctor appointment, surely drains coming out was progressive.  I looked forward to week three, a vague time assigned when I’d feel Better.  But after about week eight I started losing track.  Days are spinning so fast that I hardly remember what week we’re on now.  Totally helping to relegate an intense month to a distant corner of my memory.

The only lingerings seem to be the pills I take each night (tamoxifen).  Ignoring what the potential side effects might be.  But that’s my new normal for the next 5-10 years.  That and my continuing appointments with my plastic surgeon.  And of course my scars.  Which I also try to ignore.

I tried to donate blood last week.  Who knew you needed to be cancer-free for at least a year?  I think it will be kind of funny to answer affirmatively to having had skin grafts and tattoos next time.

I’d give myself a 98% back to normal.  Still a tight band feeling around my back and chest, like I’m a Chinese infant girl’s foot.  But it’s so part of how I always feel I hardly pay attention any more.  Unless someone asks.  I guess a little discomfort is the best I can offer.  Mostly it’s when I’m turning around in my sleep that it’s even an issue.  Been sleeping on my side for weeks now, even my stomach.  But it hurts to lift up and turn to another side from my chest.  Really sore.  Surprises me because I’m not pain-filled any more any other time.  This kind wakes me up.  But other than that I really do feel pretty regular.  Been doing push-ups for the past two weeks.  I’m weak at them because I skipped out for eight weeks.  The scars on my back are still very prominent, but it’s not summer yet.  And I don’t really care anyway.  Mostly it’s nothing anyone even notices, so there’s really not much of a conversation.  Like they told me, I’m able to do all my normal activities.  

To be honest, I not-so-secretly-now feel like this was a little blessing in disguise.  A treat I’d always wanted but never dared hope aloud for.  I know how that sounds.  I know cancer just happens.  It’s not God’s way of presenting us with a new hairdo or altered body.  But I guess I just feel, if I have to go through a little surgery, why not be grateful for the silver lining?  I think of it along the lines of being able to take home a newborn at the end of a short hospital stay.  Worth the pain.  Unlike having a child, I don’t know that I would ever really opt to take this kind of drastic measure, but I have been nonetheless happy for the opportunity presented me in a round-about way.

I also can’t help but be grateful for the medical and surgical advances I’ve benefitted from.  I can’t get over my male doctors being so careful and concerned—even though it makes surgery that much more difficult—about what I, a female patient, would be dealing with for the rest of my life.  I have thanked them.  Believe me.  But I just don’t know if they know how much I appreciate the delicate care they took.  Because I’m touched that they would take my feelings into consideration when it’s of such little consequence in the grand scheme of things.

So I’m asking myself a hard question these days.  Am I any different because of it?  And since I’m being completely honest, I have to say that I really don’t know.  I don’t think I look different.  People don’t really say much.  I don’t know that I act any different.  Life is pretty normal these days, so I don’t know how else I’d be.  I can’t even tell if I think or pray any differently.  That sort of concerns me.  Because what good is a little teaching moment if I didn’t assimilate the take-home message?  I’m embarrassed to have to admit this.  And I honestly wonder how I could not be changed.

But maybe it’s because change normally occurs in slight waves across the years.  Not always—sometimes life-altering moments come in the blink of an eye—but often it’s almost imperceptible.  Like when you compare yourself in junior high and as a college grad.  Or as a son of a father and now as a father of a son.  Some years have slipped in, making all the difference, easier to tell that some things have changed.  So maybe that’s it; it’s still too soon to tell.  Maybe it’s still too fresh.  Maybe I will look back on this time in my early forties as a pivotal time.  I can’t imagine that, but perhaps.  You’d just think something with a title like this would do something more to me.  I’m ashamed to admit I haven’t noticed much difference, but I also want to be frank.

Maybe I didn’t get a big enough dose of a trial.  I think this is it more than anything.  I feel like a fraud, on the fringes of a club, not completely part of it, having cheated a bit.  I really didn’t have to look death in the eye.  Except in the beginning as I waited for test results for days and wondered if this would be it.  I imagined how humbling it would be to have chemo.  I wondered how I’d take it.  If I’d get grumpy and irritable.  If I’d curl up in a ball.  I was curious about how it would affect me.  So I still feel untested.  And not sure if I’d even pass the real test.

I wonder what the point’s been.  But, like I said, I’m not sure God just gives us cancer.  I think He allows nature to be natural, to run its course.   Including body malfunctions of course.  But I hate to think of wasting an experience, even a natural one.  I was given a glimpse—albeit a very tiny glimpse—into what other people deal with all the time.  What good was it?

I can tell you that I know Heavenly Father is very close.  And so is our Savior.  But don’t we all know that?  Don’t we know that from everything we do and see and feel?  It’s obvious.  We don’t need cancer to know that.  I’ve always known He listens to and answers prayers.  I’m not great at understanding or recognizing all the answers, and I sure wish He’d give it to me a little more straight-forward, but I know that not a single sincere prayer is offered without Him taking note.  I can’t remember if I felt that differently four months ago or not.  I can’t imagine I wouldn’t have known that.  I feel it with everything I am.

I have also learned, as I’ve learned in other ways, to try to align my will with God’s will as quickly as I can get there.  His way is the best way.  Why on earth would I try to tell an omnipotent, all-loving God of the universe what it best?  He knows.  He wants me to be happy.  As He does all of us.  So why would I not trust that?  And trust Him?  I felt that early on.  That even if I hated His decision, I knew it would make us stronger and happier as a family.  Maybe not in the short-term, but in the long-run.  And I know that obviously every bad thing is not an act of God trying to teach us something; He respects agency and laws of nature.  Yet I felt that if leaving my family would be our trial, then there is no reason to curse Him or push Him away.  I would lean on Him like we do in all of our struggles.  I can’t imagine someone needing cancer to learn that.  I think just a million hours and days of regular life teaches us that.

I can tell you that I’ve been not necessarily surprised, but overcome, witnessing the goodness and generosity of people.  And yes, now I’m remembering this is what I’ve learned and how I want to be different.  I think we all try to serve how and where we can.  We feel to do that instinctively.  But having to slow down for a bit, I see clearly the efforts people went to for me.  They taught me how to creatively serve and help in unique ways.  I saw their personalities reflected in the ways they showed love.  I saw them using their resources to bless my family—whether it was cleaning, visiting, shopping, cooking, driving, sitting with me, writing, entertaining my kids, or making me laugh.  I want to pay that all forward.  I want to be less complacent and more engaged.  To really take note of what people are struggling with, to be genuinely helpful.  Maybe—hopefully—this is part of how I will be different because of a rough couple of weeks.

I think it’s humbled me to have to be on this end of things.  I don’t know how it can’t be humbling to have your 9 year-old help you bathe, a stranger help you walk to the bathroom, to wear that useless hospital garb around the hospital halls, to need help taking pills or draining the bulbs.  I hated not being able to cook or clean very well for awhile.  I was embarrassed to notice tears out of nowhere so many mornings when it was so painful.  Or when I’d be lying still, I’d feel their hot burning on the sides of my eyes.  I still hate looking at myself.  It’s hard to know this is my new normal.  That things will never, ever be the same.  I feel broken in a way, and yet I remind myself that it’s just my shell, not who I really am.  It’s so humbling to accept that people have altered their lives for me.  It’s made me want to keep my house clean.  Just in case of an emergency.  It’s made me want to keep the connections open.  With Heavenly Father and with my friends and family.  It’s made me realize how life can change in an instant.  That we have control over our attitudes. That we can serve from a bed.  That we need each other.  That our bodies are gifts, not to complain about and compare and loathe but to embrace!  They are miracles in all their sizes and forms.  They are to help us enjoy life and to serve.  I’m convinced again and again that it’s all about love and how we treat each other in this life.

So I don’t know if I even have a report for you.  But I wanted to at least touch on how I’m doing because people have asked.  They’ve thanked me for sharing the details.  They’ve told me they’ve liked being able to be a part of it all.  I wonder why.  It’s just regular life.  But then again, that’s the kind of book I love, regular people talking about everyday life.  Maybe that’s why we’re friends.

Keep it burning

I’m so bad about starting fires.  I know the procedure, I’ve been camping maybe a million times, we’ve roasted marshmallows in our back yard for several years, we’ve had wood-burning fireplaces for the past 14 years.  I love it all.  Love it.  But I’m not great at starting fires.  I burn out quickly.  Just like my fires.  I build the teepee.  Or cabin.  We’ve got oodles of kindling.  At least the baby kind.  My problem is I go right from the tiny bits of bark and paper to wanting to put a log on.  And everyone knows that will never work.  The house is cold from us being gone all day.  And we need a little warmth.  So I start by cleaning out the ashes from yesterday or the morning.  Then the glass needs some attention too.  At the same time that I’m on and off dealing with the fireplace I’m fielding snacks and homework questions, listening to school woes, organizing evening rides, starting dinner, and letting the dog in and out.  I hope and cross my fingers that the paper and kindling will get along, that there’ll be sparks, and with the door ajar there will be just enough air to fuel the relationship that will burn bright through at least the afternoon and evening.  Inevitably I’ll go back to cutting the vegetables.  But as soon as I turn around, it’s dark and cold again in our fireplace.  Where just before the flames were abundantly dancing.  So discouraging.  So I try again.  And again.  Until I give up.  I need to use intermediate kindling—something between a log and a twig.  I know it.  Of course I know it.  And I’ll use it if it’s around; I’m just too lazy to cut more.  I try to take short cuts, I keep hoping it will work without it. 

Todd has more patience.  And it’s so nice when he builds a fire for us when he gets home.  Because men are task-oriented, focused.  Not as easily distracted.  They like a purpose, a job with a beginning and end.  A result.  Fire building is perfect.  And his fires are perfect.  But they take some time, and he stays with it, paying attention to the various sizes of kindling needed.  Even cutting some if we’re out.  His fires always work.  Always.  And he sticks with them throughout the evening, knowing just when to add another log.

I loved it early last week.  The first day back to school after Christmas vacation.  I bowed out of everything and stayed home all day Monday and Tuesday.  And took down Christmas.  The roads were icy, the temps hovered near zero.  I’d rekindled the fire that morning, which is easy when the coals from the previous night are still warm, glowing when I nudge them.  And I stayed with it, replacing log after log throughout the day.  You have to pay attention, noticing when it’s kind of winding down, making the effort—even a sacrifice—by going out to the porch even when the wind is howling.  But it’s so worth it.  The small investment.  All it takes is tiny but consistent effort, noticing when it’s not burning as brightly as you know it can.  When it’s getting a little cold.

We were huddled around it in the evening, reviewing the day.  We somehow got to talking about the fire, how nice it was to have had it all day, what it takes, how you have to kind of stay on top of it.

And then we thought of all the other things in life that are like the fires we tend.

I remember back to my post c-section days, days in the hospital and at home afterward.  I hate taking medication, even pain relievers.  Even for headaches.  I just figure my body needs me to go to bed; I’ll feel better after some sleep.  But surgery isn’t just a headache, you really do need to stay on top of the pain.  Much easier to keep the pain at bay than to wait until it’s miserable and try to catch up.  I tried to remember that with my recent surgery.  Once you have it under control it's worth staying with the pill schedule prescribed.

Same with resting.  A wise friend we knew in Illinois told me it takes your body a good six weeks to recover after a baby.  You can push it, but you’ll just have to take the time later.  I tried to remember that after subsequent babies.  To be honest, I wasn’t that great of a patient. I couldn’t figure out how to put my feet up much, and I figured if I could do it I should be able to it.  But I’ve tried to take care of myself, especially when my body is compromised.  Kids are awesome at this.  I'm learning my limits, and I know I do better with a consistent sleep schedule, an occasional nap, an early bed time.  Just like kids.  Most people do better—and even sleep better—when they are well-rested.  It’s worth investing in.

Same goes for studying and finals.  We know as adults how much easier it could’ve been.  We get it now.  How a little studying every day—even though a test might be weeks in the future—would’ve been so helpful.  Cramming never really worked that well, and it’s hard to see the kids repeating your mistakes.  Now that we know better.

Easier to stay in touch—even occasionally—with friends who have moved away.   A note or email every couple months keeps the relationship somewhat alive, whereas years and years without contact sometimes allows it to fade or even die.  It’s awkward to try to get in touch again.  How do you start?  But when we make the effort to just send a text—better yet, call—just to check in and say hi, wow, what a difference that can make in our friendships and relationships.

Todd asked if I’d shovel the driveway since I’d be home.  More snow was due later.  So much easier to take the time while the snow is light and fluffy rather than iced down from being driven on.  Heavy and difficult to move.  Smart.  Seems counter-intuitive.  But staying on top of it really does make it easier.

Winter in Montana is pretty rough on the skin, and some of our kids’ knuckles get so dry they bleed.  We try to remind them to put lotion or Vaseline or coconut oil on their hands before bed, but they are certainly old enough to handle it.  When they were little and would forget I’d sneak in their rooms after they were asleep to rub lotion or Neosporin into their little hands.  I hate seeing their little hands sore when it’s so easy to prevent it.  Just takes a little lotion so it doesn’t get to that point.

In so many ways it’s the small and simple things that we do—consistently—that make big differences.  I’ve written about this idea before, but I just can’t help but notice how it plays out in a million ways in life.  In no place is it more true or important to stay on top of things than in our own homes and with our families.  I’m not that great at this.  I know I need to talk to my kids about the big things, for instance.  It’s on my mind all the time.  It’s just that it’s been so long since we have that I’m not sure how to make the leap.  I wish I would’ve kept on it a little better.  The fire’s still there, it just needs a log a little more frequently.  

Maybe we all have little fires like this in our lives, parts we need to pay a little more attention to.  The coals are usually still warm—even if they look cool.  Most kids are forgiving, they’ll let you back in.  You can still shovel even if there’s more snow now than there would’ve been.  We can study better starting now and we can text an old friend.  We can keep our lotion handy and spend time with our spouses starting tonight with a little pillow talk.  It’s the small kindling that gets the fire burning again, easier when the coals are still warm, but not impossible even if you have to start all over.  You just can’t make the same mistake I tend to and rush through, thinking a big log will surely keep a fire going from nothing.  Like a store-bought present from an absentee mom.  It doesn’t really do anything of consequence.  But fan the smallest spark, use any residual warmth that's still there.  And start small.  Even if you're starting all over.  Stay with it.  Be patient.  And once there’s warmth, keep adding fuel.  It will last all day.

Two days before Christmas

It’s nothing I’m proud of, yet I’m not embarrassed.  I share this side of me because I’m human.  It’s probably pms.  Maybe the perfect storm.  Whatever it is, I got snippy yesterday.  Not that unusual for me late at night.  I get tired and irritable.  I’m an introvert to boot, and a whole day of being “on” and interacting pushes me to my limits come nightfall.  Especially at Christmastime.  And when we have guests.  Family.  But it was more than normal Caren being grumpy.  I felt a variety of emotions colliding and when Todd called me on it, I had to explain.

It must’ve been building throughout the day without me recognizing it.  But it surfaced when we got home after a beautiful evening of a horse-drawn carriage ride through lighted neighborhood streets.  So festive.  And freezing.  But warm huddled together under thick carriage blankets, singing carols we thought we knew all the words to.  Then a special treat, dinner out at one of our favorite Italian restaurants as a family, a Christmas tradition we didn’t anticipate making but did.  Several years back.  Just such a nice night.  I stopped by our mailbox to gather the days’ wares, and arrived home to a note and chocolates from a friend, along with two huge boxes on our doorstep.  Three packages in the mail with the usual day’s 7-8 Christmas cards sandwiched between.  Todd carried in a tower (I’m not kidding, probably 8 boxes in assorted sizes topping one another) of expensive chocolates sent from a California friend.  Not only that, but teachers at school had sent home handmade gifts and a gift card.  The librarian sent home a gift as well as a note saying she’d made a donation to Kahn Academy in my honor.  It was so much.  So overwhelming.  That’s just one day’s worth of goods.  We’ve had many others like it.  I know you’re wondering where this is all going, sounds heavenly really.  But it felt like too much to me.  I was suffocating in it all.  We are so incredibly comfortable and blessed.  I wonder why.  And I was frustrated that I was doing so little to move things forward this month, wondering why I haven’t been able to propel my family to serve more, to give more, to feel more.  I know I’ve written otherwise, and I really haven’t been that stressed or worried about it until this day.  Because it was so much all at once, a tipping point.  To me, to us, we don’t deserve this.  Granted, a few of the gifts were for my birthday.  The chocolate tower was to thank us for having our hunting friend a month or so back.  It’s Christmas.  Cards will come.  Neighbors and friends trade treats.  That’s just how great people are.  It just overwhelmed me.  You know how I get.

Couple that with two days of shopping.  Actually three, if you count Saturday.  We have enough.  More than enough.  But to keep looking for more, for whatever reason, wears on me.  I just want to be home relaxing with a cheesy movie or finding some way to serve.  I guess that was another part of it.  We tried to help two different families that morning, neither one worked out, a let-down and the start of my grumpiness because it caused confusion with our plans.  The season feels materialistic and worldly when all we do is buy and shop without stopping to give.  I felt ungrateful.  Humbled.  But in a bad way, I acted poorly.  My values sometimes conflict with reality, and I felt like I’ve failed my family by not providing more of what Christmas is really about this year.

I’m sad, also, that my kids are too old—all of a sudden this year for some reason—for all the kid traditions that have provided the framework of how we know Christmas is really here: crafting tissue snow flakes with bits littering the kitchen table, after-school sugar cookie festivities, anticipation as to what our elf will do next, cuddling for Christmas stories every night.  Even driving around to see the lights.  They’ve somehow moved on.  I am missing it.  It was here last year.  Now it’s gone.  I also feel like we’ve become a family of five instead of seven, the older two boys all but absent most of the time.  I feel like I’m hanging on to the last thread of our familiar family traditions.  I’m not looking for answers.  I’m just saying I kind of hate it.  I loved the old way.

There’s more, those are just some of the highlights.  I was snippy with a friend, how rude.  I know my mom is sad that my dad isn’t with us this year.  And I don’t know how to make it easier for her.  I’m wondering if my kids are learning anything important, if they’re getting any of it.  I don’t even know if I could pinpoint what the crux of my upset was.  Maybe just longing for more than what I’ve been able to provide.  The deeper part of Christmas.  I think I’m grieving what was, what I wish could be, and realizing I’m too human to really be all that I want me to be.  I know in my heart I’m not a failure.  I even know that on paper.  But I’ll admit in some ways this season I feel like I’m failing my family.  By not helping the kids see and know.  How to notice a need.  How to feel what it’s really about.  And yet I’m not one to wallow and give up.  I like a challenge.  A failure here and there to energize me.  To steer me.  To recognize where we can improve.

And so I’m always glad for a new day, another chance.  To love a little better.  To try again.  To be a sweeter example.  Because I know I have it in me.  It just doesn’t always show up.

And it’s been a good week in so many ways.   We have dinner together.  We talk about the prophecies of Christ’s birth most nights.  We gather together before we leave and as we get ready for bed.  We pray as a family and before each kid leaves for the day.  We’re not perfect.  Their attention span is short.  I have a lot of opinions and preferences and schedules to consider as we coordinate our days and meals and vehicles.  I’m not sure I’ve balanced the kids’ Christmas gifts, it gives me a headache to try to figure it out.  Like a math problem from high school.  I’m so far behind on thank you notes.  That I’ve been writing since October.  Every day I remember someone else I haven’t sent a Christmas letter to.  The house hasn’t been clean since I spent last Friday making it look like a Bed and Breakfast.  Especially when people come to visit spontaneously in the evening.  It’s not till after they leave that I notice what it must’ve looked like from their vantage point.  But it’s alive.  There are projects on every flat surface.  My kitchen counters are mostly full.  Most of the time.  Andrew’s knife sketches are scattered on the desk.  The oven’s on for hours with no one home and nothing in it.  His steel blades showing up in the most random spots.  My mom thrills with each new coupon and good deal she comes across at the mall, she has more stamina for shopping than anyone I’ve ever, ever met.  And she is so generous.  My sister and 16 year-old served me by vacuuming the cars and folding the laundry this afternoon.  My 13 year-old cleaned up the trash our dog scattered all over the kitchen.  My sister reminds me in small ways that simple service matters.  How putting away someone’s cart makes an impact.  My mom cleaned all the living room blinds for me.  And always seems to be doing the dishes.  All five kids are watching Home Alone 2 together, the first in their line-up of old holiday classics, a slumber party of sorts.  We’ve had the fireplace going, making it warm and cozy with our tiny lights against the darkened house.  We’ve made bread and granola, brownies and pretzels.  We’ve visited with friends and traveled back in time thanks to old Christmas favorites on Pandora.  We let our 13 year-old skip school to go shopping and to lunch with us.  I’ve squeezed in Christmas stories during breakfast and when I can get my 9 year-old to sit on the couch with me at night.  

I’ve done what I can.  I’m so limited.  In my energy and other resources.  And because this is just real life.  I know we can do more.  I feel it.  But I also feel like there is still time.  Like I’ve said before, it doesn’t all have to get done in December.  But maybe it’s because I want to show my gratitude so much, that I feel so much love at this time of year that it swells in me, propels me to want to do more and be more and to care more.  About what really matters.  And yet I’m so human and still have to think about what we’re going to eat and to ascertain if we’ve spoiled our kids or if we’ve gone the other way in our gift-giving.  I never really know.  So as I think about yesterday, I accept what I felt.  I acknowledge my frustrations.  But I’m ok.  Because I’m just so grateful for another beautiful day to enjoy the season, whatever season it happens to be, to learn from yesterday, and to embrace today.

Christmas Eves

As far back as I can remember we’d don our church dresses that early evening in anticipation of our night in the mountains.  My mom would come home from her job at the bank, I have no idea what time it was.  (Why is it that adults run their lives by clocks and kids absolutely don’t?)  Our family always ran on late.  But we made our way in our station wagon east of town, past the San Diego city limits, and out on the roads with less traffic, toward the mountains of Alpine and Descanso around dusk.  For little bodies it seemed like a trek, but it was probably only a half hour drive.  We knew it was finally Christmas when we pulled into our friends’ gravel driveway, way out in the country, smoke swirling from their chimney.  The wife worked with my mom and they’d been friends forever I think.  Mary Lou and Cecil.  He was a big soft mountain man with loads of whiskers and a gentle manner.  She was petite, Japanese descent, so warm.  How we loved these friends! They welcomed us into the quaintest of homes (to me and my two younger sisters at least, who hailed from an apartment right off a major thoroughfare back in the city).  It was like stepping into another world.  Wood burning fireplace, tiny cozy cabin-like abode, plush but oldish carpet.  Not much bigger than our upstairs living area really.  Candles burning tiny lights added to the coziness.  She’d make us a beautiful dinner.  I think I didn’t like some of it, being a kid and all.  Sometimes it was fish.  But I know it was a treat.  Especially for my mom.  I loved her tiny bathroom.  Carpeted, soft, just touching the area where the table was (dining room seems too large a word), with small lights.  An adventure to a private even cozier spot.  We’d have to leave again into the dark night to attend their Methodist church in the mountains.  Such a small and warm respite from the dark expanse and stars peeking in on us that made three little girls feel so vulnerable.  Being so high above the regular earth here in the mountains.  I loved this part of the night and the beautiful, familiar carols we’d sing standing up.  There was some talking.  I’m certain it had to do with Christmas and Jesus, but I never really paid attention to it.  It was gratefully interspersed with standing up parts where we would sing all the carols I loved.  I knew eventually the candle part would come.  Not that there weren’t already candles in every window, but this was our chance to participate, to carry our very own lights with little paper drip holders.  It was a nerve-wracking test of maturity, being able to hold it alone without burning myself.  I was always a bit apprehensive, walking down the side of the church and out to the garden area in a line, very conscientious of my little flickering light especially once the night air tickled it.  But this was also the cold part.  Back then we didn’t have boots.  We hailed from San Diego, there was no need.  So we shivered in our thin church dresses, mildly useful coats and long socks with bare knees, knocking together in church shoes.  But it was relatively short-lived, another reverent carol, probably Silent Night, that seems right.  And suddenly it was time to surrender our light sticks.  A relief alongside a pang of regret.  For that part of the night was over.  We made our way down the dark (I’d never experienced such dark as I did year after year in those mountains) back to the cozy country house.  We’d have dessert, a birthday cake for both Jesus and me, she always said.  We’d exchange our small gifts, and the adults would talk while we girls became sleepy.  Again, I have no idea what time we left for home, but it was late to us.  We were fortunate to be able to lie straight out in the back of our station wagon, in the days before rules.  We loved gazing at the stars contrasted with the dark vastness out the back windows.  It was incomprehensible for our finite minds.  Who are we kidding? Still is.

My mom and dad had been spending Christmas Eve with these friends even before we were on the scene.  In fact, one year they’d been visiting into the night together when my mom started having labor pains.  Cecil seemed a little more anxious than usual to get them on their way, helping my mom with her coat, most likely nervous about playing EMT.  I was born at 4 the next morning (in the hospital) and placed in a stocking.  That I still have.  Lucky for Cecil.

Sadly, Mary Lou passed away when I was a teenager.  I remember being 16 or 17 and still going to their house, but all of a sudden we were without our Christmas Eve.  And it really never has been quite as magical in all the years since.  We started dressing up and going out for a really nice dinner as a family, and it was always pretty and festive.  But not nearly as perfect.  We’d go home and change and then go down to the beach and walk around Hotel Del Coronado and the shore.  We’d come home and continue to open one gift on Christmas Eve, just as we had done with Mary Lou and Cecil.  A beautiful way to spend the evening but we couldn’t help but miss our friends and our time with them.  We continued that tradition for as long as I was home until I got married.

Eventually we started spending Christmases on our own.  I think mostly because we were in vet school after a couple of years, way out in Illinois.  So we didn’t make it back to San Diego for all those years.  Our first year there we had a month off so we ventured up to Minnesota with our four month-old Andrew and I got to see Todd’s family’s traditions first-hand.

We spent maybe a week with all six brothers and sisters, two spouses, and two babies joining us.  A frigid Christmas Eve, sixty below with the wind-chill.  Blankets on windows and doorways.  Mom has a way of making everything feel like home.  She made stollen (a flaky Christmas bread) and hot chocolate.  A beautiful and tasty dinner.  We acted out the Nativity with robes and lampshades.  We played games late into the night.  A warm gathering with his brothers and sisters and parents, every part of it epitomizing a homey Christmas, letting me in to another part of Todd's heart and past.

We’ve evolved over the years, taking bits and pieces from each family and creating our own traditions, as I assume most every family does.  To be honest, I wish I had the energy and creativity and that “mommy-ness” that so many women have, that desire and ability to make things magical and clever and themed.  Alas.  I just figure my kids can be that kind of mom or dad to their own kids someday, I’m just not into making myself crazy, I have so little residual energy at this time of year.

Usually we don’t put any gifts out during the month.  I hate the visual.  The kids assessing things.  But I’ve run out of room in the closet.  I can’t be bothered tucking them throughout the house this year, so I just started putting them out.  And the kids have mostly not paid any attention to them.  But in years past we’ve had to search for the boxes of presents and lay it all out.  It might look extravagant to some, but I have to remember there are ten of us, plus birthday gifts.

Stockings are hands-down the part I like least.  Actually, that’s not true.  I love the idea and the little gifts that fit inside.  I just like to know that things are kind of balanced.  The kids told me this year how much they liked finding little boxes of cereal in them.  Usually there are oranges, sometimes nuts.  Candy of course.  Play dough and bubbles when they were smaller.  Juggling balls.  Packs of gum.  Nail polish, lip stuff.  Five kids.  It’s tough for the Little Man to make sure it all comes out ok.

But we’ve never really promoted Santa.  Sure, we read the books and once in awhile the kids will leave out cookies and milk, maybe reindeer food from school once in awhile.  But we always responded with a “What do you think?” when questions came up.  We never saw any presents specifically from him.  Stockings were a surprise, but I’m not sure even now what any of the kids think or ever thought about it all.  See, such a matter-of-fact mom.  Zapping the fun out of even the most traditional traditions.

I decided many years ago to follow Todd’s mom’s idea and do a big, nice dinner on Christmas Eve rather than on Christmas Day like my mom.  We always hosted the family dinner growing up, which necessitated my mom cooking all day.  It only ever made me grouchy, I just wanted to relax on Christmas.  Anyway, we’re not fancy and definitely not original.  I try to make it beautiful and love lots of candles, a nice tablecloth, pretty napkins, our good plates and goblets, boughs and pinecones.  Like our Sunday dinners, but not over-the-top.  We have ham and potatoes, a cranberry salad, homemade rolls, you know the fare.  Dessert’s always been tricky.  I think traditional Scottish trifle sounds just about right, taking a page from my heritage.  But turns out no one but my mom and I like it.  So I go back and forth, never quite figuring out a good dessert.  I’d also like gingerbread and lemon sauce with whipped cream, which is what we used to have on New Year’s growing up.  These days I think it’s mostly sugar cookies and ice cream and whatever treats have drifted out way during the week.  Which to me is heavenly.  I’m doing a bundt cake I love this year.

Then the kids open new pajamas from Aunt Cheri.  Isn’t she so nice?  We exchange the $5 gifts we have shopped for.  (Around Thanksgiving everyone who will be here at Christmas gets a name of someone else and then we take a Monday night in December to shop as a family for each other, Todd going off in one direction with a few and me taking a couple more to a different part of the store, we love it!)  So the gifts are interesting.  The men get nuts or beef jerky or fishing lures, man stuff.  The girls might get earrings or lip gloss, chocolates or other candy.  Until just a few years ago Todd’s family carried on a decades-old tradition of exchanging homemade ornaments with each other.  So we would make seven stars for one family, six for another, etc.  For all six siblings.  I kind of love that tradition.  But I hate crafting.  So it’s nice to not do that any more.  But I miss it too.  We started adding another part last year. I wanted all of us to think of a handmade gift to give to someone else or some kind of service they would do that was more than just ordinary life stuff.  Todd made me a cutting board last year.  I hate to even use it, it’s so beautiful.  So he made me two other rough-cut ones that are easier for me to add my cuts to, and I keep the beautiful one hanging on a square nail.  Mitchell made a hedgehog chia pet out of clay for Avery.  Avery gave her hair to Locks of Love.  Bronwyn made ornaments for a friend.  Todd made bookshelves for me.  Callum  helped his dad make a charging station in the garage.  Just simple projects and acts of service here and there.  That might be my favorite gift.  After the gifts we of course read from the Bible about our Savior’s birth.  We watch a short video about Christmas or the Nativity, something spiritual and beautiful about His birth or the Spirit of Christmas.  I’ve sometimes shown them Mr. Krueger’s Christmas.  Or The Gift (when a boy during the Depression did his dad’s chores for him Christmas morning).  Or a musical video by The Piano Guys, etc.  Then we have treats and watch a fun movie as a family before the kids start fading.

Nothing fancy.  I told you that.  We don’t go out or even dress up.  We don’t have a set time we do dinner.  We’ve never acted out the Nativity.  Or sung any hymns.  I don’t know that it’s anything to write about.  We don’t do anything really thought-out or extra special.  I’m not into things that cause me stress or that are silly or that I have to remember every year.  We are a really basic family.  No frills.  Down-to-earth, old-fashioned.  But I think that’s what our Christmas Eves then and now reflect.   Just a night to be together, to celebrate family and the love we are so abundantly blessed with.  To bask in the blessing of knowing our Savior and to extend that love in small and simple commemoration.

Ready for Christmas

It’s the “So what’s your major”  and “Where are you from” kind of stuff I got as a college freshman.  It’s the seasonal small talk we run to after we’ve covered the weird weather.  Mostly among women.  Come to think of it, I can’t imagine a man ever reaching for such a cliche.  I mused to my 13 year-old daughter on our way to their program last night, What is everyone talking about, do you suppose, when they ask me if I’m ready for Christmas?  I bulleted some ideas and she just said, “Yeah, all of that.”  I just wonder if anyone ever says yes.  Is it some kind of badge of honor to be more behind than everyone else?  And what kind of checklists are we making anyway that set us up for failure?

I’ll admit it, I’m in my sweats.  Glorious comfort clothing.  Perfect for an entire day at home.  My Christmas gift to myself.  I texted five different girlfriends to see if we could get together today to either walk or just visit.  I toyed with the idea of having another luncheon.  I planned on going to the temple.  For some reason, this is where I am.  Happily, happily in the middle of a Bed and Breakfast transformation!  I’ve got laundry going, bread is cooling beside the sugar cookies, homemade potpourri’s on the stove, the tunes are swinging me, the dishwasher’s humming along, and the dog just barely woke up.  The house is basically thrashed.  And I LOVE it!  Because our house makes the best before and after—noticeable to even the kids.  I know.

So am I ready for Christmas?  I’m so literal, I never know what exactly people are referencing, which is why I probed Avery.  Like for Christmas morning?  Christmas dinner?  Generally?  Is this just to get the conversation going so we can compare woes?  But I think about it.

Shopping… I guess I have a short list.  We dropped off Todd’s parents’ gifts in July.  (But I forgot her birthday gift for her July birthday.  Lovely.)  Todd’s siblings decided on private donations to an organization we love, perfect.  We got my married sister and her family a family gift, delivered way back.  That leaves buying for my husband, the kids, then my mom and sister who join us tonight.  (I will whole-heartedly admit that stockings—along with Easter baskets—tickle me till the very day—they are possibly the hardest parts of these entire spiritual holidays, nice.) That’s the whole list.  You know me by now, I don’t do neighbor gifts.  Or friend gifts.  I occasionally will make/buy something for the ladies I visit each month, but really, what would happen if I didn’t?  We’d still be friends.  I did something tiny for the teachers back at Thanksgiving.  I’m just not able to do more.  It would drive me nuts.  I’m not Wonder Woman, not even her side-kick.  I’m just running on 24 hours a day like you.  Minus 8-9.5 because I need so much sleep.

I got a great idea from another friend years ago.  She and her family members each get to choose one family to do something for—plates of cookies or stuffed santa underwear (probably one of my favorite neighbor gifts ever)—and they deliver treats (that means 6 total) for family night.  Perfect!  So we’ve followed suit.  Random, very random.  Sometimes it’s a new family, maybe someone we just like, or maybe someone we think could use a little something.  Not everyone.  Not even close.  Anyway, that’s the extent of my gift-giving.

I’m still sitting beside a box of the rest of my Christmas letters that need to be addressed and mailed.  I don’t know why I hate that task so much.  It’s up there with thank you notes.  And I know you think I’m lying or at least kidding.  I’m not.  It’s so tedious to write the same type of thing on 150+ letters and try to sound personal.  I hate fake.  So I want to convey my love to each personally, but it’s tricky to make it sound as genuine as I feel after doing it so many times and ways.  So I skip several days and do a couple.  And I’m avoiding the Scottish ones because they require a trip to the post office for over-seas stamps.  You know I hate errands.  But I love the actual recap of the year, composing our family letter, that’s fun for me, a chore for most.

I guess people might be really asking am I ready for the company and the meals.  That’s legit.  Ummm… the short answer is how can I be until the day they’re coming?  Everyone is still sleeping in beds that will become the company’s beds until that morning.  There is no point mopping a floor or vacuuming or even cleaning the oven until the day of.  And there is really no one I’ve ever had who truly constitutes company.  It’s always been family and friends who come to visit.  It would be so hard to be friends with people who are uptight and stiff and who care about that kind of stuff.  But you know I’ll be honest with you.  I’d love to have it look like I have it all together.  Because a house looks so nice when everything is done all at the same time.  But how honest or realistic is that?  And how long can it last?  And who really cares?  It’s not.  Until the kids come home.  No one.  So yes, I try to do what I can to earn a Bed and Breakfast designation on my door, I clean and make beds.  I actually love this part.  I’ve told you before I kind of always wanted to be a hotel maid.  It’s fun to make things nice for visitors.  It doesn’t last though. 

Am I ready for the meals?  I just don’t get what the big deal is about Thanksgiving and Easter and Christmas dinners.  Does no one cook anymore?  We eat everyday.  I guess I just see holidays as Sunday dinners with a set menu that doesn’t change much from year to year.  So no, that kind of stuff doesn’t stress me out too much.  It’s probably more stressful all the other days guests are here because we do a lot of shopping and watch a lot of movies and before long everyone’s wondering where dinner is.  So I feel like I  have to be out and about as well as on the couch while at the same time snapping my fingers hoping dinner will appear.  But they like homemade food, and I like to treat them.  Since I am not Super Woman either, I will admit I get a little edgy sometimes.  But I’m getting better.  As far as food shopping, I kind of hate that any time of the year.  At least, like I said, I know what we’re supposed to be having, so that’s nice.  And my sister actually loves errands.  But I wonder if that’s what people are asking when they ask if I’m ready for Christmas.

I don’t know what else I should be doing and getting ready for.  I have a pretty easy life.  Of course I have all the normal stuff we all have at this time of year, concerts, school and church responsibilities, decorating, making fun treats and crafts for/with the kids, keeping track of The Elf, updating the gift spread-sheet, gifts for Todd’s co-workers, cookies, craft supplies, and basket contributions to remember, 3-4 parties this Saturday, etc.  But that’s to be expected.  I have a couple of girlfriends who are crazy busy.  But they are in charge of huge fund-raisers and organizations.  They are amazing, the real Wonder Women of the world.  I can’t imagine how they are making it all happen, they just blow me away.  I feel like I’m just stupefied, watching it all happen with my mouth agape, realizing they’ve got it done before it even occurs to me to ask if I can help.  I have so much to learn.

Am I ready for Christmas?  It seems like a better question should be, Are you feeling it?  Aren’t you loving it?  Isn’t this fun?  Don’t you just love Christmas?!  Isn’t this the best time of year?!  

I’ve told you before, it took me awhile to wrap myself into the Christmas Spirit this year for some reason.  Maybe because Thanksgiving was so late, maybe because it was so warm for a December in Montana, possibly because I don’t have the Hallmark channel.  I couldn’t put my finger on it.  But I do love this time of year, it’s my favorite.  I love everything about it (except driving on ice).  I love sitting by the fire with my family.   Shopping (during off-hours).  And with my family to find our perfect Christmas Eve $5 gift for each other.  Wrapping gifts. The smells of it all.  Remembering the decorations from last year.  Wondering what our little elf will think of next.  Cuddling with Todd in flannel sheets, talking late into the night.  Reading old-fashioned Christmas stories with the kids.  The tiny glow of each little light bulb on the front porch and above the cabinets and on the tree.  With all the other lights in the house off.  Getting little treats and unique creations from friends who have more energy than me.  Seeing your pictures waiting for me in the mailbox.  Having my mom and sister with me.  The yummy foods we indulge in once a year.  The feelings of peace and well-being.  Of wanting to do more and serve better.  Praying to know how.

Some of the best memories have been last year eating cinnamon rolls while Todd read us A Rifle for Christmas* one night by the fire.  Last Sunday afternoon when we knew someone was bringing us dinner but knowing we had an hour to spare.  We lounged in our church clothes by the fire and I read story after story to the family, no pictures, just words.  This past Wednesday night while the rest of the family was gone, Bronwyn and I did one Christmas word-search after another in her new book, side by side.  Making cookies and ornaments.  Shopping late Monday night and sharing popcorns and slushies in the food court as a family.  Listening to beautiful concerts and talented performers, watching my children and my friends’ children looking and doing their best.  What’s not to love about this wonderful life?

Because if we’re not enjoying the season along the way, what are we getting ready for?  And waiting for?  Do any of us really want it to only be about the hour of opening presents?  Or a fancy but stressful dinner that only gives you heartburn and a headache?  That’s a dumb way to spend a month if you ask me.

I know we only have a few days left.  I wonder what would happen if some of the list didn’t get done.  If you didn’t do neighbor/firemen/teacher gifts.  What if you just surprised them on Valentine’s Day?  What if you had them over for dinner on a cold, gray January evening instead?  Who’s to say we need to even send cards or make everything from scratch?  What we really crave is connection.  There are other ways to show we care. I think it’s less about the stuff on our lists and more about the people in our homes and in our lives.  I guess I’m just getting older and have less energy and interest in things that don’t really matter.  I just don’t have it in me.  But what I love are things that give me energy, that do matter, that strengthen relationships, that help us feel closer to one another.  And our Savior.

I wish I had the perfect list.  The way to do Christmas and get it right.  Just look at me and you know I don’t.  I’m not there.  But I’m also not in my closet crying this year.  Or even last year.  I’m learning.  So who knows if I’m ready for Christmas or not.  It will come regardless.  And it will go.  What really matters is what we felt during this season, who we were able to connect with, what we were able to do to serve in small ways, and especially what we are going to do with the Spirit of Christmas.  The rest of the year.

* A Rifle for Christmas

A favorite anecdote regarding the joy of the Christmas season.

Janet Lee, wife of the late Rex E. Lee, former president of Brigham Young University, remembers an occasion when Sister [Marjorie Pay] Hinckley's optimistic outlook changed her own perspective: 

"Several years ago, during the Christmas season, President and Sister Hinckley came to BYU for a musical event. Before the program, there was a buffet dinner, and at one point while the men were away from our table, the women began to talk about the frustrations of getting ready for Christmas. Our conversation focused on the fact that everything about the season was becoming a burden for women. We bear the responsibility of selecting gifts, organizing social events, preparing everyone's favorite food, and making certain that family, guests, and even the less fortunate have a merry Christmas. We felt overwhelmed if not resentful. Sister Hinckley listened patiently, and then without the slightest edge of criticism in her voice said, "I love Christmas. It is the most joyful of all seasons. I love seeing the eyes of little children light up on Christmas morning. I love giving gifts. I love being with my family. We just need to simplify and remember what we are celebrating." After she had spoken, something magical happened. Our attitudes shifted, and we began to talk about the birth of our Savior and the spirit of giving. In the years that have passed since those words were spoken, a burden has been lifted for me during the holidays. As I shop, prepare food, and join with friends and family to celebrate the birth of our Savior, her words nurture and calm me. "I love Christmas," I hear her say, and I let her teach me to relax and enjoy the season."

(Virginia H. Pearce, _Glimpses into the Life and Heart of Marjorie Pay Hinckley_ [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1999].)

Just over five weeks out

I’m beginning to realize that Todd was right, that my plastic surgeon must’ve been exaggerating when he said I’d feel like skiing after three weeks.  He obviously doesn’t know I will probably never feel like skiing.  Surgery doesn’t have anything to do with it.  So I guess that’s where my vision was, expecting myself to be myself by week three, to resume most of my normal life’s activities.  And maybe a bit extra what with the holidays and all.   So I went back to school, mopped, shelved, cleaned the bathrooms, swept, cooked, exercised, hosted gatherings here and there, had Thanksgiving company for a week, just regular life.  Only I’ve hated not feeling like regular.  

I hate that I’ve been able to do various activities, merely teasing myself that my body could handle them.  Because I’ve been sore the next day or two.  It’s just hard because there are no real guidelines.  And I told my navigator that.  Make a list for the next patient.  Taking it easy means all sorts of things, depending on who you are.  For some that means taking it down a notch and maybe walking rather than running your usual ten miles.  But for those who are used to lounging on the couch for the past three weeks, maybe it’s time to get up and make your own toast.  I haven’t known how to judge if the pain is normal or not because every day I’d seemingly add a new activity.  Was it that I pushed myself or is it just normal to feel tight and prickly, like a case of shingles or a bad sunburn?  Into week four.  I never got a hand-out on that.

So I’m still not sure I know.  I know I’ve been able to walk miles at a time from very early on without a problem.  My legs work fine.  I spent a good chunk of Saturday shopping after leaving the hospital on Thursday.  And it’s felt good to be with Todd on early Sunday mornings, to walk amid the Christmas decorations at the mall with various friends during the recent weeks.  It’s nice to feel a bit proactive, to combat all the sedentary days.  And treats of the season.

Sleeping is getting better.  I’ve been on my back the whole time.  Except the past week or so I’ve been trying out my sides for a few minutes at a time, which hurts still.  My torso is tender and so it’s an effort to turn over to get to my side and then the pressure of being there hurts.  So I don’t last long.  But I do eventually try the other side just to even things out.  Sometimes I wiggle a bit and lie on my wingtips just to take the pressure off my back. The first two weeks I rested propped up a bit on the couch.  Still getting up early-ish (5:30-6) mostly because I’m excited to get going again and also because by that time I’m so sore and stiff I just want to be upright.  This is still my most painful time of day.  Stiffly, I remember.  The tight band around my back is slowly easing. I wonder if I will always greet that feeling from now on.  And yet, looking back to even last week I feel a little softer, like the sharpness really is fading.

Sitting seems formal, but it kind of hurts to lean back against my incisions.  Some arrangements are better than others.  Prickly church chairs hurt more through thin blouses than my van seat with a puffy coat.  So sometimes I sit up real straight and look a little rigid.  It has felt better to sit up straight because it stretches out my tight back muscles.  So I look like some prissy girl who’s trying to fake good posture.  It’s nothing like that, but it looks like it.  It’s getting better.  I still can’t turn around that great.  I feel like a girl with a neck brace when I try to back out of our driveway.  In parking lots I look for spots I can pull all the way through in.  But you know how easy that is to find at this time of year.  I’ve been driving for the past three weeks, the truck steering wheel is a little stiff sometimes, but it’s been totally fine.

I haven’t napped much.  Of course the first week or two I would rest for an hour or so a day.  But it hurt so much to lie down, and getting up was worse.  By the third week I’d all but given them up.  I’d just try to go to bed an hour or so earlier.  I’ve tried to rest on the couch occasionally, but inevitably the kids get home before I really get to sleep.  I’m glad to give my body a little time-out even for a few minutes though.  It makes me feel like I’m taking care of myself.  But then again, I think a nap is good for everybody.  Recovering from surgery or simply a busy morning.  Like kindergarten in olden days, a little rest time is good medicine.

I’ve felt strong emotionally, completely thanks to your prayers.  I’ve occasionally cried unexpectedly though.  For a moment or two.  Because it’s frustrating to not be able to do my whole regular life.  Because even recently I’ve just hurt so much.  Just the other day I was having to deal with the triangle of insurance, doctor, and lab offices, wondering if I was the one messing everything up, and after going in circles I just started crying out of nowhere when I hung up with one gal.  This really isn’t too different from real life, I think we all have exasperating moments, times when we wonder what we’re doing, it might just overwhelm us all at once.  I get it.  I just did some cleaning to clear myself for a moment before I started calling again.  It’s no one’s fault.  I do my best to be kind to the person on the other end.  Because I know most things can be worked out if we just communicate rationally and as friends.  I think your prayers are what help me stay calm.

In some ways my family notices.  Like they’re careful when they hug me.  Occasionally I’ll ask one of them to help me with my coat sleeve or to lift a heavy box from a high shelf.  But mostly they see me doing my stuff and assume I’m the same as always.  I think they forget I’ve ever even been in the hospital.  Five weeks ago was last month.  Old news.

This would be easier to talk about if it were bone cancer maybe.  The word breast changes things.  Because they’re such a hyped-up part of society.  I walk a thin and wobbly tightrope, wanting to be frank but respectful, to be real but not inappropriate.  I’m sorry if I get it wrong.

I don’t even know how I’ve looked on the outside, I’ve just been more intent on what’s sore and what will make things hurt more or less.  Except that I’ve had to be a little careful because my t-shirts haven’t always been this tight.  My plastic surgeon doesn’t believe that I will want to remain the conservative, well-covered, middle-aged mom I am.  He and Todd laugh.  I just think it’s a mess and hope the swelling will eventually subside so I can put my arms down by my sides more naturally (the part under my arms has been so tender), it’s getting so I can.  I’m also glad it’s winter and can get away with sweatshirts and other comfy fashion statements.  I honestly think I look the basically the same as always on the outside.  Maybe my dark eye circles are more pronounced, who knows.  I do know my grays are longer than I like them.  Waiting to hear about chemo, I didn’t want to waste money on coloring when I’d most likely lose the whole color job.  You know I hate wastefulness.

This is the technical part, so close your eyes if you’re squeamish or prudish.  I meet with my plastic surgeon next week.  It’s been a month since I was in, when the last of my four drains was finally removed.  He tells me the incision lines on my back will fade.  They look the same as always to me: dried blood crusted under some kind of super glue.  Long, nasty, ugly.  Thankfully that part of me never shows.   Even in a swim suit.  Are you kidding?  He will eventually (3-6 months out?) create nipples from the skin he grafted from my back.  That I can't feel.  And then I’ll get my first tattoos.  3-D even.  Too bad that’s never been on my bucket list.  I figure if I can’t come out of the hospital with a baby, this is something I’ve always thought about, so I might as well be excited and grateful for it, but you know me and you know I’m just regular, so it’s nothing noticeable.  I’m sad for changing, to be honest.  But there is no point grieving (for long) what I can’t get back.  A quote I read today that I’m hanging onto: “Is there a more useless emotion than regret?”  Not that I have regrets exactly.  Just admitting that change can be hard.  We all know that.

I still feel that this has been a minor hiccup in my season.  So manageable and small in the grand scheme of things.  Five weeks of some sore muscles and a few incisions.  Really, does it even count? Looking back, I have felt much more acute pain.  And much longer stretches of pain.  Heart pains.  I feel what I think some survivors of 9/11 may have felt, a bit of guilt.  Over having such a small, treatable case.  Hardly qualifies in my book.  Every test has come back best case scenario.  It’s like winning every single game.

Speaking of tests, finally got the results of genetic testing, a panel of 17 genes tested.   All negative.  Which is weird since my sister and grandma both had mastectomies at 34.  My genetic counselor chalked it up to a bit of bad luck.  I was elated!  They’d also come across some “abnormal proliferation” in the right breast during the surgery that originally didn’t show anything unusual, but that came back benign.  Margins are clear, only one node had to be taken, and that was negative as well.  Onctotype test showed low chance of reoccurrence, but I will be on tamoxifen for 5-10 years.  I just found out tonight that I don’t even have to do chemo—something I’d planned for and emotionally prepared for from the onset.  Walking out of the clinic into the dark night with Todd’s hand in mine I finally let the tears out.  He thought I was happy.  It wasn’t that.  Of course I was absolutely relieved.  Of course.  But it was more than that.  It’s just not fair that it’s so easy for me when so many people around me are dealing with hard cancer.  I cried all the way home.  Guilty may be a useful word.  I don’t know for what.  So grateful.  But not sure why not me.  I thought I heard in my mind, “This isn’t your trial.”

I hardly feel like a “warrior sister” when I haven’t even seen a battle.  I feel so overwhelmingly grateful.  Just not worthy of being classified as a “survivor” when I haven’t even faced death.  I feel the same as I did getting my master’s.  Like not even attending graduation (which I didn’t). Because my program felt so chintzy compared with those receiving advanced engineering or organizational behavior degrees.  Here I am again reliving those same feelings.  I think I’ll put this experience in a box with my degrees, tucked away.  And yet, no matter how big or small the trial, we all learn some things along the way.  So I’m grateful for all the education I’ve been getting.  But that’s for another day.

Today I was admittedly edgy, not sure what the balance of the next few months would look like.  I had a headache, I was nervous, I'm not usually like that.  But I was.  All the way downtown in the dimming evening light.  I calmed myself by reminding myself we would just do what needed to be done.  If this was what it was all about, then we would move forward.  I prayed more specifically that I’d be able to have a good attitude.  That whatever needed to happen would happen.  That we and the doctor would be able to make good decisions about the future.  Like a kid praying.  I don’t know how to do it fancy.  But I also know He would rather have my raw emotion than to wait until I get it right.

I am still having trouble knowing what to pray for.  To be honest, I’ve gotten frustrated with Him and the slowness of the healing process and have asked that I can just serve without being sore the next day.  I should’ve been praying to know what I can and can’t do.  I know He would’ve told me.  But I never thought about that.  Because the only words I can get out are how grateful I am.  Overwhelmingly grateful.  To be trusted with this.  To have it be so easy.  Is that a blessing?  An easy trial.  Is it even a trial?  I haven’t talked to Him about that.  I don’t think He sees this the way I do.  I’m just so grateful for the many ways He’s shown me He’s near, that He loves us, that He will always be close.  And so while I’m not sure what exactly the point of all this has been, that’s something I’m grateful to know intently.  I’d do it all again for the reminder.