why slow trains are problematic

Remember when I said sometimes I'm not funny? Yeah. This is one of those times.

Soooo, I was in my car yesterday afternoon, for the 17th time, going to get The 15 Year Old, stuck behind the slowest train in the history of trains. And I was feeling pitiful because the afternoon wasn't going like I planned. The Man was gone. I still had to cook dinner. I didn't know what was for dinner. I was tired because I never sleep. Ever. I had ten sewing projects I couldn't get to because the baby was crying. Like constantly. I had poop on my pants (the baby's not mine). I was having a bad hair day. Pitiful. Anyway... I was reading twitter while I waited. It seems a friend of some of my tweeps (not a friend of mine) had lost her battle with breast cancer. Pause to digest that. She was young. Really young. Pause again. Anyway. The tweet linked her blog and something her husband wrote the other day as she was about to leave this life. You can read it here (tissue warning given). Like I said, I don't know Sarah but I felt compelled to read the blog while I waited for another 10 minutes. Dang slow train.

Then the tears started to come.

Welled up.

Then dripping.

Then streaming.

Down my face. Onto my shirt. Onto my pants.

I was trying hard to not look like I was crying because I had three kids in the car who would certainly be wondering why mom is crying over a long train.

Oh the tears.

And then I felt it, the stinging pain my my chest. The heartache for Sarah and her family. And the memory of sharing those last moments with people.

And I realized something.

I miss my job.

Oh I don't miss getting up early (I already get up early enough). I don't miss driving all over the county all day. I don't miss meetings or bureaucracy. I don't miss skipping lunch or holding my pee all day. I don't miss searching all over creation for a public restroom or getting lost in scary neighborhoods. I don't miss being on call and having to go pronounce a death at 3 am or the tears I shed so many times on the shoulders of my husband or on my pillow in the dark. I don't miss the pervading fear that something as horrible as the things I saw would happen to someone I love. I don't miss the hysteria of the grief stricken, clinging to me or chasing the mortuary van (true story) or the chihuahuas that appeared like sneaky ratty monsters from under beds to attack my feet (also true story). I don't miss missing my kids activities or worrying about who is picking who up or worrying about who is cooking dinner. I don't miss worrying about what I'm going to wear. I don't miss poop very much.

But I do miss my job.

I miss holding the hands of the ill and dying. I miss helping people be free of pain and suffering. I miss the crying husbands and wives and sons and daughters who so desperately needed to be heard and held. I miss the children who ask me wide eyed to explain why the person they love is dying. I miss people baking me things and trying to give me chickens to thank me for my care. I miss the hugs. I miss watching the peaceful transition from this life, an end to suffering. I miss feeling like I was doing something for people who truly genuinely needed it. I miss it. I miss it all.

I loved Hospice care. I don't talk much about it because I feel a reverence for death that I don't think should always be publicly shared (also because of HIPPA and my deep desire not to be sued), but I can't help myself today.

I believe in a few things in this world to be true.

1. Love is more important than anything. Any. Thing.
2. As long as you're provided for, money means very little.
3. People are more important than stuff.
4. Birth is best left alone.
5. Death is best left alone.

I knew those things before I became a Hospice Nurse. But Hospice taught me those things in a whole new way.

I felt the fragility of life so profoundly.

I'd spend hours on the phone while I drove from place to place talking to the Man and crying. Him telling me I was doing good work and that he'd be there for me when I got home. And there he would be. Arms open. Kleenex at the ready. Words of comfort and encouraging. Him telling me I was his hero. And the children. How precious they appear in light of such suffering.

At the end of my day I'd hug everyone a little tighter.

As a midwife to the soul I watched a young man with a crippling disease go from strong and strapping to withered and weak. I watched his wife and children watch this happen. I watched him die. I cried with them. For them. His wife told me I must certainly have angels wings under my sweater. She told me they were blessed to know me and to have me care for him. And them.

It was I who was blessed. So very deeply blessed.

Serious session ceasing. Thanks for hanging in there.


Now go hug your people y'all. Tight.

j

the one where I say I'm not skinny, and it's gonna be ok

Sometimes I'm not funny. I apologize. If you struggle with weight or body image, please read on. If you don't, please stop reading and email me immediately, I need to know your secret. If you're just not interested come back tomorrow. We are going to talk about hair.

Anyway.

I used to blog over here. This is Blog to Lose, if you don't know it, it's a great site for weight loss support and I blogged almost daily there when I was losing weight a few years ago. I lost, in fact, 60 pounds over the course of about 7 months. (Reader's Digest Version: I was depressed. I worked nights. I ate to stay awake. I got fat. I felt bad. I lost weight. The end. Well almost the end. Read on.) Anyway... not so much. I weigh about 10 pounds from the weight I was when I started that blog and my life isn't the same.

For the better.

Confession: In those days of weight loss I obsessed over my weight to the point of weighing not just daily, but multiple times daily. I weighed before the shower. After I peed. With clothes on. With clothes off. I measured myself weekly (if not more). I obsessively stared at my stomach waiting for it to remarkably become tighter, have less stretch marks, look different, better (hello. I had been pregnant 4 times). I worked out 6 days a week. Two or more hours a day.

It was an ugly ugly time. I'm ashamed of that behavior.

But also, I recognize that many women I was cyberfriends with were doing the same thing. I can't completely explain why but you go ahead and apply whatever psychological knowledge you have.

So now I blog for a different reason (because I'm not actively losing weight), but it's no surprise that the thing that seems to get the most positive response (or any response) is posts about body image. I can't tell you the number of emails I got after the Victoria's Secret post (well I mean I could, but that is meant to suggest that I got a lot, which I did). I got email from anorexics, bulimics, food obsessed people and people who just plain ol' hate their bodies. This isn't necessarily something people like to publicly share, but I know you're out there gals (and guys). So this one is for you...

Stop.

I know it's not that easy. Oh believe me. I knooooow. But here's the thing.

You are the way you look.

But the way you look is not *you*.

I know this doesn't apply to everyone. I also know that skinny people have body image issues too. I used to be one.

See...


I'm on the left (the one on the right is my little sister. She's 22, single and in grad school if anyone knows any nice guys). This was taken less than two years ago. I can give you a laundry list of things I don't like about my body in that picture. (I'll spare you, but use your imagination. If you're a lady, you know the hot spots.)

Anyway now I'm not skinny.

See...


And I could still give you a laundry list of things I'd change. (I'd put on a swimsuit if I thought it would illustrate my point better but I don't have one. Also I apologize for the poor quality of this photo. I had the 15 year old snap it quickly, because it's rare to get a photo of me without a baby attached.)

So, why am I smiling? (Besides the fact that it's sunny and beautiful outside and I did yoga.)

I should be crying my eyes out right? Because I used to look like that other girl? And now I don't.

Well I refuse. I will not cry over my thighs. Or butt. Or stomach.

See we went to the beach this last weekend and I sat in the sand with our sweet little baby, watching my Big Kids play in the surf and I people watched.

Mostly I just kept seeing girls in bikinis and thinking to myself, "Welp self. Your body is just never going to look like that again. Ever."

And I was just a little sad.

Ok I was a lot sad.

But just for a minute.

I'm going to be honest... I was trying really hard to enjoy the sound of the ocean and the smell of the salty water (both things I big puffy pink heart) but I was intermittently thinking horrible things. I was imagining how my husband must surely find me hideous and wondering how many women on the beach he was looking at thinking he wished I looked like them. (He wasn't. Just to clarify. He's not that guy.) I was thinking about how it's only going to get worse because I'm only getting older, and saggier. I was thinking about having another baby and what that might do to my body. I was thinking I'd never ever wear a swimsuit again. Ever. Never.

Oy.

I wasn't having a very good day emotionally speaking. I'm blaming PMS.

I was sad. Also PMS.

(Also I wanted a chocolate bar. Bad.)

Then I was sad that I was sad, and sad that I was sad that I was sad. Did you get all that? And I talked to the Man about it. Because that's what I do. And he did like he does. He told me he loved me and that he wanted me to be healthy and happy and not worried about the scale. Or my stretch marks. Or my pants size. Or. Or. Or. He told me I am beautiful and he loves my body the way it is. Round. Shapely. Soft. Curvy. And I thought, why can't I love myself this way too? Or any way I am? Oh this makes me mad at myself. Just mad. MAD. And so I consciously decide to I love myself. Yay. I'm smart. I'm beautiful. I'm a good person. Phew.

(Then something happens to make me critical (pick ANYthing) and thus begins the cycle again.)

But you see it's not about being skinny or fat (or whatever), it's just about loving who you are, how you are. However you are.

It's gonna be ok.

I wish women would tell each other things like this.

You look how you are.

But you are not how you look.