- spending the entire morning (including eating breakfast!) in bed
- watching lots and lots of Grey's Anatomy on dvd
- an afternoon of quiet and alone time
- taking a bath and revisiting my favorite former Friday evening pasttime (on a Friday afternoon) by watching Grey's while relaxing in the tub
- after six months of living half-way in and out of being settled in grandma's house because of various uncertainties, I decided tonight to set up a table and chairs in my space. I decided I needed a place to sit and work and pray and think, and started the process of doing that by moving my table and chairs into a space that will work for them. I don't have a couch anymore, or I'd have moved my coffee table and that in instead, but the table and chairs will work for now, and it's something - a place to settle and think and pray. A place to sit that is not my bed (though I think that will always remain my preferred spot!)
- I also used my dvd player for the first time tonight, and settled for the first time into the chair and sitting spot I set up when I moved in six months ago. To be fair, I did this partly because the dvd player in my laptop is slowly dieing and is scratching my dvds in the process, but sitting in a spot to watch a dvd on a normal screen feels good. Like a little bit of sanity in my very bizarre life at grandma's, don't even have a bedroom door world.
- I lit candles everywhere to combat the smell of musty basement (and other odd house smells that have been happening here at grandma's lately) and to warm up my cold space
- wearing a twirly skirt, and a scarf, even though it was a cooler day and that wouldn't be my normal impulse on cooler days
- finding out that the process of getting an American passport is going to take way less legwork than I thought, thanks to some work my parents did to get each of us a document certifying our American citizenship when we were born
- The simple process of applying myself to a task was helpful tonight in refocusing myself after a very hard day. So I cleaned, and I unpacked my suitcase from my trip and put things away, and I created a new space to sit and think.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Daily 5 - Year 2, Day 40
Today's Daily 5:
Today
Today:
- I'm feeling lonely. I always feel lonely after trips where I get to spend time with the people who know me best.
- I'm having a hard time shaking off the morning oppression and fear and general sense of disconcertion that so often comes.
- I'm talking to myself. A lot.
- And working on paying attention to stopping the really negative self-talk.
- And remembering how funny it was last week when I was in California and either my friend or I would talk out loud to ourselves, and then realize that calling oneself by name when there is a friend with the same name sitting across the room creates a general sense of hilarity and confusion.
- I'm reminding myself that part of the reason I'm struggling today is medicinal. In the crazyness of a transition home, I realized late yesterday that it had been three full days since I'd taken any of the natural supplements I normally take at least three times a day. Including the one that I know makes a difference with anxiety. Ooops.
- Because of my supplement misstep, I'm also reminding myself that I can't expect to feel 100% today.
- I'm praying for a few different friends who are going through some really challenging things.
- I'm obsessing, and thus failing to enjoy a rare opportunity for solitude in a place where I actually feel comfortable
- I'm pondering a bunch of thoughts that will eventually become blog posts
- I'm watching lots and lots of Grey's Anatomy, working on finishing up last season on DVD so that I can watch last night's season premiere on the internet later
- I'm doing some of the little items on my "to do" list
- I'm pondering ways to make certain parts of my life more "liveable"
- I'm needing to stop, and be really honest with myself.
- I'm procrastinating about some other items on my "to do"list
- I'm listening for God whispers, and hearing them oddly, partly in the last four words of the statement "love others as you love yourself"
- I'm thinking about honesty and vulnerability, and how I'm usually glad for the moments I make it to that point, but how long I avoid them and obsess over them, and fear them, leading up to them
- I'm wearing a skirt, just because I needed to wear a twirly skirt. I have three quarter length tights under it, and am wearing a scarf and hoodie over my t-shirt, but I'm wearing a bright green twirly skirt, just because it reminds me of freedom and joy.
At the Airport
Here's the piece of information only a very few people knew about my trip last week. I'd never met the person on the other end that I was planning to spend a week with. We'd never talked by phone or skype. We'd never seen each other's faces in anything other than pictures.
A little over two years ago I posted this on my blog, and came home later that night to find an email waiting for me from a woman who shared my first name and last initial, telling me that she'd been reading my blog for quite some time, and that it seemed we shared oddly parallel lives and that the post on Papua New Guinea tipped the scales and pushed her into writing. She closed her note by saying she'd thought it was finally time to introduce herself, and that she'd been praying for me, even though she didn't even "know" me.
I remember feeling pleasantly surprised, and slightly wary - it is the internet after all, who knows who it was that was writing me? But I replied, and we slowly started to trade regular emails, every few weeks, then weekly, then, by the time I was needing to find an escape after finishing my crazy summer of school and other things, nearly daily.
We'd been talking for quite some time about getting together in person, and since neither of us is particularly shy about hopping on airplanes and going, we knew it would eventually happen, we just didn't know when. Her coming to me is limited by the fact that she is Californian and doesn't "do" winter - an admittedly complicating factor since I live in a place that really does seem to have winter or threaten the coming of winter at least nine months a year! And me going there? Well, it always sort of seemed like a pipe dream in my head, one of those "that's a fun dream for a long way down the road" sorts of things.
And then I had this crazy summer. The summer that came after months and months of everything in my life deconstructing itself. And some complicating factors in the month of September that left me knowing that I was in desperate need of a temporary relocation and break, preferably with a friend that had become dear.
After two years of trading emails, blog posts and comment, and facebook comments, I was comfortable that I probably wasn't flying into some sort of crazy abduction situation and sent her a message "so, do you want a visitor?" and got an enthusiastic "are you serious? yes!" in response. I booked tickets using rewards points, and hopped on a plane to meet in person the person that knew all kinds of things about me that even my family doesn't know.
I'd have normally probably tried to at least talk by phone or skype before getting on a plane to meet a total stranger, but we both have lives that tend to get crazy, and neither of our lives disappointed in the two weeks between when I booked tickets and when I got on the plane early one Tuesday morning. I really was going to meet and hear her voice for the first time upon landing (a fact, which, by the way, was causing a bit of consternation for a few of those who knew what I'd planned!)
We debated back and forth by email about what story we'd use to explain how we'd met, knowing that since I was from out of country (as it seems that so many of both of our friends are!), we'd be asked where we'd met. After throwing around some perfectly ridiculous options (I think her favorite was "we met when our fathers were both in the CIA") and knowing that neither one of us would make it through them with a straight face, we settled on the truth, "we met at the airport on Tuesday", and I began anxiously anticipating the startled and confused looks we'd get while explaining this to her friends.
They didn't disappoint. We used our story within hours of my arrival and the confusion was fabulous. "Wait, you only met this morning?" As the week went on, we began to naturally take turns with the line, and then the explanation, "well, I have this blog, and she was reading it, and then she emailed me, and we've been emailing regularly for several years, but we really did meet for the first time at the airport on Tuesday."
When I walked off a plane last week in San Diego and into a hug, all I knew was that I was looking forward to a week of putting a face and personality to the emails and stories we'd shared for years. And, it was fabulous. I'll share more in the coming days, but thought I'd close this post with a picture of my new but totally not new dear friend. This is us, affectionately known as LP/CA and the other LP/CA (the way we've signed emails for ages, a reference to our shared name, and the shared initials of our locations of residence).
A little over two years ago I posted this on my blog, and came home later that night to find an email waiting for me from a woman who shared my first name and last initial, telling me that she'd been reading my blog for quite some time, and that it seemed we shared oddly parallel lives and that the post on Papua New Guinea tipped the scales and pushed her into writing. She closed her note by saying she'd thought it was finally time to introduce herself, and that she'd been praying for me, even though she didn't even "know" me.
I remember feeling pleasantly surprised, and slightly wary - it is the internet after all, who knows who it was that was writing me? But I replied, and we slowly started to trade regular emails, every few weeks, then weekly, then, by the time I was needing to find an escape after finishing my crazy summer of school and other things, nearly daily.
We'd been talking for quite some time about getting together in person, and since neither of us is particularly shy about hopping on airplanes and going, we knew it would eventually happen, we just didn't know when. Her coming to me is limited by the fact that she is Californian and doesn't "do" winter - an admittedly complicating factor since I live in a place that really does seem to have winter or threaten the coming of winter at least nine months a year! And me going there? Well, it always sort of seemed like a pipe dream in my head, one of those "that's a fun dream for a long way down the road" sorts of things.
And then I had this crazy summer. The summer that came after months and months of everything in my life deconstructing itself. And some complicating factors in the month of September that left me knowing that I was in desperate need of a temporary relocation and break, preferably with a friend that had become dear.
After two years of trading emails, blog posts and comment, and facebook comments, I was comfortable that I probably wasn't flying into some sort of crazy abduction situation and sent her a message "so, do you want a visitor?" and got an enthusiastic "are you serious? yes!" in response. I booked tickets using rewards points, and hopped on a plane to meet in person the person that knew all kinds of things about me that even my family doesn't know.
I'd have normally probably tried to at least talk by phone or skype before getting on a plane to meet a total stranger, but we both have lives that tend to get crazy, and neither of our lives disappointed in the two weeks between when I booked tickets and when I got on the plane early one Tuesday morning. I really was going to meet and hear her voice for the first time upon landing (a fact, which, by the way, was causing a bit of consternation for a few of those who knew what I'd planned!)
We debated back and forth by email about what story we'd use to explain how we'd met, knowing that since I was from out of country (as it seems that so many of both of our friends are!), we'd be asked where we'd met. After throwing around some perfectly ridiculous options (I think her favorite was "we met when our fathers were both in the CIA") and knowing that neither one of us would make it through them with a straight face, we settled on the truth, "we met at the airport on Tuesday", and I began anxiously anticipating the startled and confused looks we'd get while explaining this to her friends.
They didn't disappoint. We used our story within hours of my arrival and the confusion was fabulous. "Wait, you only met this morning?" As the week went on, we began to naturally take turns with the line, and then the explanation, "well, I have this blog, and she was reading it, and then she emailed me, and we've been emailing regularly for several years, but we really did meet for the first time at the airport on Tuesday."
When I walked off a plane last week in San Diego and into a hug, all I knew was that I was looking forward to a week of putting a face and personality to the emails and stories we'd shared for years. And, it was fabulous. I'll share more in the coming days, but thought I'd close this post with a picture of my new but totally not new dear friend. This is us, affectionately known as LP/CA and the other LP/CA (the way we've signed emails for ages, a reference to our shared name, and the shared initials of our locations of residence).
And since I'm praying...
Posting last night about baby Ewan made me stop for a moment and think about some of the others I'm praying for right now...
- a friend who just lost her father to a very short, very unexpected seven week battle with cancer
- a friend overseas, "catching" babies (she's a midwife)
- a missionary friend in Costa Rica who shared on facebook last night that she narrowly avoided a mugging yesterday
- a pair of friends (siblings) and the multiple people surrounding their family who are watching as their mother fights what seems to be a losing battle with cancer
- a few different dear friends scattered across two countries who are facing big challenges in their health right now
- another friend who is part of a team that is traveling to do some training for church leaders in an area of the world that tends to be volatile (and for his wife and baby at home)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
