Ellen

Did you guys catch Mark's boss on Ellen this week?  Mike(the one in the hat) is one of the owners of Mark's company. 

Missing

I'm in one of those moods that has got me feeling reflective, sad, frustrated, and missing my friends.

Did you know that living in California ruined me for winter?  I miss wearing flip flops in January.  I hate wearing boots.  I hate that the bottoms of my pants are always wet from snow whenever I go out.  I hate the shivering.  When I was little I loved the snow.  I thought it was beautiful.  I always thought that there was a magical sound in the air when I stood outside while snow was falling.  I hate snow now.

I miss feeling good about myself.  From the moment I quit my job in LA I have felt like a failure.  I hate feeling like a failure.  Went from a real job to a pathetic job, to no job.  Why doesn't anybody want to hire me?  I put in 2 incredibly difficult years teaching, where is the pay off??  Where is my patience?  Why is it so hard to trust that God knows what he is doing in my life?  Where is my faith??  I know that I expect a lot out of myself...and when it doesn't work out I am a wreck.  I hate failing more than anything, and I spent a lot of time in therapy trying to deal with that.  But it is still an issue that I can't seem to shake.  Two and a half years of feeling like a failure because I don't have a job is taking a serious toll on me.  I feel like I am trying to move, but I am just stuck.

I miss feeling good about my body.  I've gained a lot of weight.  That motivation thing has disappeared from my life.  Probably because I feel like such a failure in other aspects of my life it is translating to this as well.  Mark is his typical sweet self and tells me I am beautiful and how he loves me...But my clothes don't fit.  I am actually dreading our vacation next month because I will have to wear a swimsuit.  You know those silly music videos I used to make?  I started to make one this year, but then deleted it because I decided I looked far to fat.  There was a lot of jiggling in it, and it wasn't just from my boobs.  Because I don't have a job or any serious reason to get out of bed in the morning, I typically end up just wearing sweat pants everyday.

I miss my confidence.  I miss my happy.  These are all issues I have struggled with before.  I keep trying to look into my past and remember how I dealt with these things way back when.  I can't remember what I did, or what changed. 
I don't know what else to say.  Maybe my problems don't really seem like actual problems to other people, and maybe I am just complaining too much and just need to get over myself.  But in reality, these are the things that are debilitating me.  It's just the same thing day in and day out.  Somewhere along the way I lost my happy and I don't know how to get it back.  And if I am being brutally honest, as much as I want the happy back, I'm not motivated enough to do something about it.  So in the end it all comes down to the fact that I am just letting this depression overtake me.  I'm not doing anything about it because, well, it just seems like too much work at this point.

-And yes, I realize that most of you will want to slap me after that last statement...but guess what?  I really don't care.  You are all in California anyway, so what does it matter?  Right now California feels like it is across the world.  I am pretty sure that I won't get out there again until Kathy's wedding in 2013, so that is probably adding to the distance I feel from it, and all of you.

I need to stop this post now and lose myself in a book about Harry Truman.  Reading helps make me tired before bed.  Then I will wake up tomorrow wearing my sweatpants, and do exactly the same thing I did the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that.....

Latest update

In the past week things have calmed down a bit. 

The only thing new in my life at the moment is that my chest is covered in wires and tape.  I've been having some issues with my heart lately.  Felt like my heart kept skipping beats every now and then.  So a couple doctors visits later I now have a heart monitor hooked up to my body for the next day. I'm not worried about it or anything.  More than likely dear heart passed on her heart condition to me.  So anyway, getting it checked out.

The only other thing that is interesting in my life is that Mark and I are thinking about taking a vacation.  He just decided that it would be nice to get away somewhere nice before he starts working for his brothers and has no time for anything ever.  So we are thinking all-inclusive somewhere, probably Mexico.  Thinking Cancun area.  It will be soo nice to get away to this for a week.

If anybody has any good suggestions for places to go or resorts to go to let me know!  Trying to keep the budget down as much as possible. 

Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

I don't really know how else to sum up the past few days other than terrible.  How do you look at a friend your own age lying in a coffin and not feel sick? 

Mary was my best friend for the first 18 years of my life.  I know now that her death was good because it ended her suffering, and her next moment will be the kingdom.  This is a perspective I didn't have at the  last funeral I went to.  It is just one of many lessons that I have learned from Mary.

Mary and I had nicknames for each other.  She called me Megami, and I called her Mahi.  I don't remember how those names came to be.  I do remember that we cracked up when at 15 we learned that there was a fish called Mahi Mahi.  We had code names for other people/things too.  (Something that I get the feeling most girlfriends do around the age of 14).  Her cousin Andrew who I had a crush on for years was referred to as "cuz boy".  A guy Mary had a crush on was referred to as "Ladies Man" or "LM" for short. 

I say Mary was my  best friend for 18 years because after we finished high school we drifted apart.  I was hard headed and said some things I regretted.  It didn't take long to reconcile with her, but our friendship was never as close as it had once been.  In 2007/2008 Mary and I took up emailing each other again.  I told her about my struggles with teaching in LA she told me about her struggles with her cancer.  She came to my wedding.  This past year at Hanover, when we were talking, I knew she knew that it would be her last time at that place.  Hanover is littered with memories I have with her from the time we were 5 years old.  I just feel like sharing one memory from Hanover with Mary that was probably the single best memory I have of her because it show what a good friend she was.

In the summer of 2004 we had a tragedy in our family.  Ann and Aaron had a baby who died at birth.  Our family was devastated.  I remember what I was wearing that day.  I remember having to call Sarah and tell her the sad news.  I remember snippets from the baby's funeral.  I remember the hymn we sung.  I remember little else from that week.  One thing I do remember that week was that agonizing decision of whether or not to go to Hanover the following week.  I kept thinking that I shouldn't go to Hanover that year because it was too soon after the baby.  I struggled the whole week.  One afternoon I was laying in my room at Hanover.  All of the other people were out and about participating in all the various activities.
I was not.  I didn't feel like it.  Then all of the sudden Mary walked into my room. (At this point Mary and I were in more of an acquaintance type friendship).  She asked what I was doing and when I failed to give an answer she demanded that I get up because I was going to take a walk with her.

So off we go.  We talked a little bit about the situation with the baby and how I couldn't get that hymn from the funeral out of my head.  We talked and joked about the cicadas. That particular year there were swarms and swarms of cicadas in the trees.  If you looked closely at the trees you could see tons and tons of cicadas that had shed their skin.  Mary, the lover of all things nature was fascinated by these little bug shells.  That was when I snapped this picture of her and a cicada shell.

It was also on that walked that I snapped this picture from "the point" of the Ohio river...with Mary standing next to me as I did.

As we completed our walk, I felt better. 
As the week at Hanover went on things got better until one night at devotions, we sang the same hymn that I had sung at my nephews funeral.  I had a panic attack.  I ran straight to my room heaving and sobbing and shaking.  Not long after I was in the arms of 3 of my friends...one of whom was Mary.  They had all run after me because they all knew why I was so upset. 
I came away from that moment with a huge appreciation that I had Mary there for me that week, and wondered why in the world I had ever stopped being close with her.

I take my lessons on friendship from Mary.  I take lessons on faith from Mary. 
A horrible day like today has made me excited for the kingdom, and a time when I can see my dear old friend again.