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If you have read any recent posts, you will know that I am dealing with alot of emotions, dealing with junk, and then we get to drop in my biological dad and his current divorce from the last wife...it's a mess, but I am muddling through. I do have a rant, and so I am climbing up on my soapbox now.
In the course of this recent divorce filing, my biological dad is needing to find someplace to live. She wants their place, and he is willing to give it to her in the divorce, but that means that he needs someplace. He is driving me nuts being extremely picky, and not wanting to take what is available...he wants a place in the country with room to roam and at a price he can afford. He refuses to budge on anything on that list. There is nothing in the county and then what there is to rent is over-priced.
The other day, I am looking through the Seymour paper and I spy an ad that says "1, 2, and 3 bedroom homes for rent, reasonable prices, must move in by June 30th", so I am thinking this might be the answer, so I call....
Me: Hello, I am wanting to get more information on the homes you have for rent
Her: They're apartments.
Me: I'm sorry, but the ad I am reading in the paper says 1, 2, and 3 bedroom homes for rent
Her: Yeah, they're apartment homes
Okay....so I just have to interject here...I am thinking that is the silliest thing I have ever heard. If you are advertising homes, it means a stand alone home, if you are advertising an apartment, that means a building with many units, and there is no such word as apartment homes, that is an oxymoron. It can't be both, it's either a home or an apartment! Please!!
But since the price was so good, I continued the conversation. I should have known better. I mean, really, if they can't figure out what they are actually renting out the rest can't get any better, right?
Her: When are you looking to move?
Me: Well, as soon as possible, and the ad says it has to be before the end of the month, and that would be fine.
her: We have a three month waiting list
Me: Excuse me??
Her: We have a two to three month waiting list on these right now.
Me: Then why do you have an ad in the paper saying you have homes available to move into before the end of the month if you do not in fact have homes or anything available before the end of the month?
her: Oh, the company just always runs that ad, they just change the date each month.
So I hang up the phone and it is all I can do to stay calm on the line with the lady. I get off the phone and I am like, what is the deal?? First off they advertise homes, when in fact they do not have any homes, second they advertise immediate move in, when in fact they have a waiting list. What happened to truth in advertising? Are they not subject to that or what?
I was livid! I thought I had heard it all. But guess what? It gets better.
You think prices in a college town are bad. A guy finally calls me back, he has a 2 bedroom home and he is wanting $625 a month for it, and I am thinking that is alot for one person to try to cover, well then he proceeds to tell me that with rent and utilities, it averages about $1000 a month! Okay...and in my mind I am really wanting to tell this guy he must be NUTS! Who is going to be able to afford that kind or rent? I mean really?! It's only 2 bedrooms, and if you think of it a rent by the bedroom, like a college town, that is $500 per bedroom. No single person could afford that, and i have no idea how a family could afford that either. And the guy wonders why he is having trouble renting this place out, and why when he does get it rented that people end up having trouble making the payments? I'm thinking maybe he needs to get a bit of education about the salaries that people in the area are making and what they can actually afford and then rethink his pricing schedule.
Okay, so now that I have ranted and raved about it, I am calmer, but it is still not making it any easier to find someplace to move him, but at least I am not ready to strangle these people on the other end of the phone.
So yesterday at church, the sermon was based on Ezekiel 36: 25-26 "I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleans your from ll your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you, I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."
So our Pastor talked about cleaning out the grunge from in our hearts that prevents us from loving the way we were designed to love, and cleaning out the grunge from our lives that prevents us from living the way we were designed to live. I turned to Bra and looked at him, and after service i asked..."Isn't that just what I talked with the doctor about on Wednesday?"
It is a never ending process, cleaning our hearts, our minds, our spirits from the grunge, or the fears, the scars and the cards that are preventing us from being the person want to be and that we were designed to be. The story our Pastor told was of a broken washing machine part, an clan out value and pump, and how at the service center he was told that this part needed to be cleaned out on a regular basis or the washing machine would have problems. Now our Pastor has drove around with this broken part in his car for awhile, thinking on it, and yesterday it made it's way into the sermon. As I think about it, we all have a clean out value on our hearts and minds, but how many of us regularly look at what we are letting build up, what are we wasting emotional energy on that really doesn't matter?
Reflecting on that question is hard, because for me, I have spent more time worrying about my own problems, my own concerns and not enough time carrying for other people. We had a tornado hit on the west side of town and in Bedford, and although I have driven through the tornado path every weekend to pick up my dad, have I done anything about it? have I stopped, or offered help or support, have I even prayed for those people....I am ashamed to say that I haven't.
As I am working on this process, the playing of the card in my hand, it is encouraging to hear a sermon on the same thing, even though no one knew that this is what I was going through. It is just another way that God proves to me that he is listening, and he knew I needed more encouragement to keep moving on this path, and Sunday's sermon was that encouragement. It was encouragement to everyone that we all need to look inward from time to time to see if we are letting things build up that are preventing us from loving the way we were deigned to loved, or from being the person that god has in mind for us to be.
I am still working on my hand of cards, and it feels like I might be working on that first card for a little while loner because I realized a number of things this weekend that my holding onto that card allowed me or caused me to do, and I need to own up to those things, ask forgiveness and move on. And i will, but that seems to be a entry for another day. This connection to the sermon is more important to think about an reflect on and build on today.
I can do this, and I see the encouragement from all sides, not in words, but in connections....things people say or do, without knowing what i am going through that just reinforce the idea that this is what i need to be doing, not just now but should have been doing before. But I am starting now, and I am moving on. It feels good, and in fact.....i haven't felt half the fatigue that I was feeling since I started being open and dealing with the cards! More encouragement that this is the right thing to be doing!
I've been dealt my hand, now it's time to deal with it.
First card, the "Ace of Spades", the divorce.....yeah, it's a pretty typical card anymore, but it can do more damage than anyone believes or gives it credit for. I always thought that i had dealt well with that card. I took my time, waited until later to get married, dated for four years before we got married and I was doing well.
I underestimated the power that it had, and it wasn't on the level i was thinking, but going down another level and we find the root, unworthy. When the divorce occurred, I was in 3rd grade going into 4th grade. I don't remember anything about 4th grade. Now I can tell you my teachers name from 3rd grade, my friends in 3rd and 5th grads, but I remember nothing of 4th grade. The divorce left me feeling unworthy, because my Dad was the one who walked out and moved on. He left so it had to be my fault, I had to have done something wrong. As I got older I realized it wasn't my fault, i did nothing to cause it, but the feelings of being unworthy of love lingered.
My Mom remarried, and I had a wonderful life. I have a step-father that i haven't called that in more years than I can remember. He loved me no matter what, I didn't have to prove myself to him to be worthy of his love, and I can never be worthy of God's love, but yet he loves me anyway.
For me, I dealt with the top layers, the most superficial hurts of the divorce the ones everyone thinks about, but I never lifted the layers, I never went down to the root of the problem, and so it has festered and grown and caused more and more problems.
I have done things that have made my husband mad, and I just expected him to leave because in reality I felt I wasn't worthy of his love. How could I be worthy of his love? I mean, I wasn't even worthy of my own father's love was I, because if I had been then surely he would have stayed around, he wouldn't have went looking for a new family somewhere else, right?
All these years I have pretended to be fine, to have dealt with the emotional scares of the divorce, but I was playing a game with myself. I was looking at the top layer and dealing with it, all the while knowing in the back that there was another layer without ever dealing with it. Th problems centered on my feeling unworthy....unworthy of being loved, unworthy of being happy, unworthy of anything good. How did I let it grow so big that I felt unworthy of everything? Because I chose not to deal with it.
I know this card is tied to some of the other cards, but this is going to be a long process, and so step one is this card only, this Ace of Spades that made me miserable. This card that I took to mean I was unworthy, and that I let grow until i let it color everything in my life. I am 43 years old, and only now do I feel capable or even ready to deal with this card. It gut deep, very deep!
The thing is, I will never be worthy of God's love, but then again, no one is. God give's his love unconditionally to us, we don't have to be worthy of it. I have my dad (step-dad)'s love and it was given unconditionally too, he didn't ask me to be worthy of his love, he loved me in spite of my flaws. I did nothing to be worthy of my husband's love, he has loved me through my flaws and seen me in my darkest times, and loved me anyway. My children have always given me their love, nevr asking me for anything in return, that is the beauty of children, their love knows no boundaries.
I was not to blame for my parent's divorce, that lays squarely on the shoulders of another card, but it was not me. My father' demon's are not my demon's and just because he took off to face them and fight them, losing alot of the time nd winning just enough to keep hope alive, had nothing to do with me. It didn't make me unworthy of love....but Satan slipped in and told me it was, and he planted the seeds of unworthiness, and i let it grow. I let it stay.
Today, I play the Ace of Spades, I lay it face up on the table for all to see, because if all can see it then there is nothing to hide anymore. I don't have to cover it in shame, it has been faced. And I am not going to sneak it back into my hand to grow in the darkness and become a problem again, I have layed if face up on the table, and I am going to slap this big old Bible of mine on top of it so that it has to stay on the table...because the Bible is what gives me the power to face it, because God loves me, he thinks I am worthy of his love, through nothing I have done...
I AM .....WORTHY
I AM .....SPECIAL
I AM .....BEAUTIFUL
I AM .....LOVED
I may have to say that each and every day, but I am, and I will say it until i believe it because I am worthy, I am not to blame and I can be happy!
One card played, the rest of the hand to go......
Throughout my life, there have come times when I have had to do some self-reflection and soul-searching to figure out why I have done some things or why things have happen. Recently this was speared on by the changes in my body over the years from fertility drugs and then the hysteroctomy. I thought everything would be wonderful after the surgery, and the past year of it not being anything clos to normal, let alone wonderful has encouraged even more searching and changing doctors and finally some answers of sorts.
I have come to a theology of my own. Each and every person is dealt a hand of cards. Now this isn't poker, this is a big old hand full of cards, but the dealer isn't dealing them blind, the Lord is the card dealer and he knows what he is dealing into every hand. They are not put there to test you or to make life hard but to make you the wonderful, beautiful person he has in store for you to be.
The hard cards are not tests, they are not punishments, they are not things that you can blame for the rest of your life...."Oh, I am overweight because that is the card I was dealt, there is no use trying to lose weight", you might have been dealt an overweight card, but it's not something to blame, it is something to use as a step, as a climbing tool. These hard cards are meant to make us look inward, to find our strengths, to embrace the challenge and to grow into the person we are suppose to be.
Maybe you were dealt a divorce card, well that is no reason to think you are unworthy of love, maybe it was dealt you to show you how strong you can be, maybe it was to show you that you have to put your faith and trust into God and not man for the love that you deserve.
I have struggled with my own parents divorce when I was young, I have struggled with my father's battles with alcohol, my own infertility problems and then my weight. Finally I have realized that I can't blame anything on those struggles. They were not cards dealt to allow me to blame them and just go on as if the struggles of the past should explain my issues now. As if you should accept me as I am and if I should be content to be overweight and insecure. The cards were dealt me to force me to turn to God, to ask for his help, to ask him to show me how to deal with them and how to use them to make me into the strong capable person I know i can be.
For so long I have let those cards lay there in the background. I have let them stop me from doing something I wanted or desired, or keep me from feeling worthy of the love that has been given me. For so long, I have not dealt with the card, I have just let them sit there, thinking I was doing what i needed to do, but never really facing them. Just allowing them to lay there in the background, to fester an grow was not dealing with them. Now i realize that I have to deal with the cards, I have to play those cards and change my life, my thoughts, my beliefs and my goals.
Today I start playing those rough cards. I start dealing with the struggles, but instead of hiding them back in my hand and letting them fester and cause problems again in a year or later, i am going to play them. Really play them, take them out of my hand an lay them on the table for all to see. I am going to completely take them out of my hand and let them go, never to rear their heads again, never to take away what i deserve again. I will not lie and say this is going to be easy, it is not, but it has to be done. Letting someone ls see your hard cards or your demons or your faults if you want is probably the hardest thing in the world, but if i don't play them, don't lay them on the table, don't admit to them and how they have effected me up to this point, then what good is it.
I am wonderfully and fearfully made in God's image. He has only the best in store for me, I am his and he loves me no matter what....it is time that I embraced that fully, and allowed him to love me in spite of my flaws and through my flaws, to mold me and make me the wonderful person he has had in mind for me from before I was born. Today i take charge and release those cards, they can no longer hurt me or allow me to feel unworthy....I am worthy of God's love! I am worthy of a full life, unimpended by those cards.
I am woman, hear me roar!
Did you ever know one of those people who just can't make a relationship work? Ii mean, they try and try, but it never works out and they end up alone and needing someone to help them pick up the pieces. And why do i have to be that person? Is it something about me that makes people younger and older think I have all the answers?
So I am used to this. I have been picking up the pieces after every relationship ends, and I have been taking care of two people all my life, but I just wonder if it will ever end, or will I spend the rest of my life taking care of them? One is my younger brother and I don't mind that. I am suppose to take care of him, but the other is my father, and isn't he suppose to be there for me instead of me picking up his pieces?
My brother called me today crying. He was all upset. My Dad's latest wife had left him. So I spent some time talking my brother down and getting him calmed down. Got him to a better place and so I had one crisis down, but another left to go.
So I suck it up and make the call to my Dad, and it actually went better than I thought. He talked to me for a bit. She rally did leave and it was over, and i guess he saw it coming because he sounded better than I expected. He is working and taking care of the farm. He swore to me that he isn't drinking, and he didn't sound like he had been, so I am hopeful.
I love my Dad, but I have known for years that he has problems, namely he is an alcoholic although he has been sober for years at a time, anything can set him off on a binge an usually the breakdown of a relationship is one of those things. And my grandparents ha always been there to me talk to him and keep him sober, or pull him out of a binge. Grandma's been gone for 7 years now, and he had his last binge not longer after her passing, and grandpa an I pulled him out of that, an then he met his latest wife. He did really good in that she kept him sober, and even when grandpa passed he didn't go on a binge.
This is the first time I am going to be on my own to keep him on the right road! I am actually scared, but at the same time, i am going through so much in my own life, I don't know how I can handle this. Of course my first thought, my first instinct is to push my problems aside and deal with this other crisis first, because it's my "duty". I hope i never leave my kids feeling like they have to clean up after me, or take care of me, or that my crisis are more important than their lifes.
Lord give me wisdom!!!
I get up as usual this morning to get the kids off and on the bus. Maeve is begging me to drive her to school. She made a present for her classes student teacher, her last day is today and they are having a party, and she didn't feel like she could get it on the bus.
So I got dressed and took Maeve to school. Of course we had to stop at Circle K for a Polar Pop on the way, but I dropped her off and then went over to CVS. I had some stuff i needed to pick up, and then while i was there i noticed that the gardening stuff was 25% off, so of course I had to look at that.
I stopped at two garage sales on the way home. The first one has this really nice white ornate shelf that i like an would look great against the walls in my living room, there are a tan color called "Moose Tracks" and white picture frames and shelves really stand out against it and look crisp and clean, and the shelf was priced at $3 but they said to make an offer, but it was just so heavy! My walls have trouble holing really heavy things even with anchors, so I just wasn't sure. I ended up passing on the shelf.
The second garage sell didn't have much, but i did find a nice top for Maeve, but I wasn't as pleased that i stopped at it as I was the first. It looked good from the street but once you got into the garage it was a bunch of knick-knacks and Christmas stuff and I was not in the mood for that. So I headed home.
I hung a new wind chime I got at CVS on my porch, and then decided to finally finish planting the flowers I got for Mother's day. each year a couple in our church that owns a nursery donates flowers to be given to all the mothers in the church, and they are always good quality flowers. Somehow this year, the flowers the kids gave me are all full sun flowers, and then my mother-in=law gives me her flowers. She says she doesn't have anywhere to plant them, but i plant mine in containers and she could do, but I don't push the issue, it's not worth it.
So now have four containers with flowers on my front lawn just beside my sidewalk. I am loving the way it looks, but now, here it is only 10am, and I am exhausted. I am ready for a nap!
i can't wait till all my blood work comes back and I go back to the doctor. I have been feeling this tired and lack of energy since the surgery last year, and this is not normal. I mean the whole time Brad and i were dating and until we had Tiernan I worked a full-time job and a part-time job, so this is not like me to be so tired and not able to do much! Sometimes I think it is the biggest problem, but then I also think it feeds some of the other issues, so i am looking forward to finding something.
I just want to feel like me again, not working two jobs, but having the energy to take care of my family would be nice.
For years now, I have been so in tune with my own body. I could tell you when I was starting to get sick, I could tell you what each and every little pain was and when I was going to get a headache. I knew it. I understood it, and I had to. Starting at age 21, I was diagnosed with PCOS (poly cystic ovarian syndrome) which is basically just a big pain in the butt, but it effects every woman who has it just a little bit differently so we had to learn, as women with it, to understand our bodies. To understand how the differences in hormone levels effected us each and how to make it all work better, or at least closer to normal.
2009 was a rough year, first emotionally because I lost my grandfather, and second physically because things started changing, and although it was acting different and causing me more problems, I could still explain them to you and tell you what was going on, why I was in pain and about how long it would last. I knew there was going to come a time that I would have to consider the hysterectomy, I had known that for a long time, probably since the first diagnose, and I was fine with that, I just expected it to be a simple fix. Take out the parts causing all the problems and I will be up and felling great in no time at all! Right?
WRONG!!!
Here it is a little over a year after the surgery, and I feel completely upside-down! I no longer understand my own body! I have no clue what it is doing! Everything I have known for so many years is gone and I am floundering in the same body but without the instructions!
Ever since the surgery I have been dealing with horrible headaches. I went back to the OB/GYN and she gave me estrogen, which is normal for most patients, and without thinking I acceped because I expected that, but then I had to remember that my body isn't normal, it has PCOS....which by the way, never goes away, yes I no longer have my ovaries, but everything else associated with PCOS still exists in my body, so they change the name to Androgen Deficiency or something else, but it all mean the same thing. So for me, the estrogen just made them worse, and so we added more estrogen and more thinking I was too low, which seemed only natural since my body has never had a normal level of any hormone, but it just made it worse and finally it came to a point that I lost it....I bottomed out!
I got so depressed from the headaches and the general not feeling right that I took to my bed for three days, and in that I forgot to take any medicine. At three days, I guess the estrogen was out of my system and I started feeling better. The lack of estrogen allowed my mind to clear enough for me to realize that something needed to change. I decided that I had to start taking charge again. I found a family doctor that I like and we are starting the process all over again from the beginning. We have discovered that the headaches are related to my blood pressure. I had preeclampsia with all three kids, so the effects of that are that I might start running high blood pressure now. Although my blood pressure still mainly stays in the normal range, when it does rise, I have headaches. So I am taking blood pressure medicine, although only a small dose, and I still have the k from the doctor to monitor it myself, to take an extra pill it it is high, to skip a pill if it is getting too low.
The problem for me is that this is a re-learning experience. I am having to re-learn my body, and it is not easy. I am still trying to figure out what high blood pressure feels like beside the headaches and what low blood pressure feels like so that I can get the medicine regulated. I have a home blood pressure cuff, and i take my blood pressure daily and multiple times a day, and slowly I am getting to understand it, and this is just the first step. There are still so many other issues to deal with, but taking one issue at a time, instead of dumping 50 medicines into my body for each issue at one time is much nicer.
The trouble is that I feel like I wasted a year...I should have been better prepared for this and I should have taken control sooner, but I didn't. I feel guilty about that, at the same time, I feel like everything is upside-down because I can't understand this new body yet, and it is not a pretty sight!
I must have a saint for a husband and cherubs for children, because how they have put up with all this, I have no idea! And it's not over yet!
