Tag: life
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Exceeding Expectations
My brilliant son was in his senior year of high school, excited for his next adventure – attending college out of town. Since he was a freshman, I’d been talking to both our sons about the need to engage in extracurricular activities and volunteering for solid college and scholarship applications. Occasionally, I’d see and mention…
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Shhhhh
Don’t talk about it. Keep your feelings to yourself. Oooh, do I need to treat you with kid gloves? You’re really gonna go there? I did not sound that way. It wasn’t meant like that. Makes you feel bad? Listening to you nitpick everything I say is making me feel bad. That’s how I feel…
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Wishful & Wistly
Always, it seems, an echo of wistfulness reverberates in my soul to which I assign sadness and loneliness. It occurs to me now, though, that the best course may be to uncouple this sensation from depression. Experiencing wistfulness doesn’t have to be negative. Perhaps nostalgic is a more apt synonym than melancholy. Wistful vs nostalgic.…
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The Light
No one, besides me, has quit church. Sure, some folks have checked out a different house of worship and moved on; but regular attendees, including actual members of the church and people who study the scriptures, they’re not quitting. If the current pastoral staff and worship programming aren’t meeting a parishioner’s needs, they’d transfer to…
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Rethinking My Plan
This. ☝️ The dental aesthetician who placed my filling displayed a complete inability to concretely empathize with the patient in her chair; today it was me. Water, a lot of it, comes pouring down my neck twice, and she doesn’t apologize or wipe it up. She laughed, “Oh, ya get a little water?” She leaned…
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On Being
For the past week, I was. Today, I am. When anxious, I remind myself that my purpose, for now, is just to be. Be. When pain visited, enduring or distraction were my choices. I didn’t try to figure out how it originated, wasn’t surprised, and didn’t keep track of the usual problems. Some new symptoms…
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Warts and All
In the name of documenting my journey, the good and the bad, as I struggle to identify a purpose for this next chapter of life, this is another day hoping for progress towards a new purpose, renewed meaning. Two steps forward, 5 or 10 back. Very much on my mind that what’s on my mind…
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The Purpose of Life
Purpose (def): the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists. Purpose creates meaning, offers a sense of direction and helps guide our paths, behavior, and goals. Purpose according to Google: Live and let live. (I think it’s hilarious that one can ask google what the purpose of life is,…
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Recalibrating Good
“Have a good day!” “How was your day?” “Hi, how are you doing?” “Did you have a good day?” What is good? What’s going on in your life when you’re pretty sure it will be a good day? How might a day unfold that results in you considering it a good day? For me, personally,…
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Where is this?
Here I am in a new place. The travel itinerary for the last year, 12 months – not calendar, has been one of exploring roadside attractions I had visited previously or those in which I certainly had no interest. Severe, suicidal depression was the first stop. I am so familiar with depression, I was sure…
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Human-sized Web
I was trying to think of a witty bon mot for the title, but I couldn’t think of one; so, instead, I used ‘bon mot’ in the first sentence. Feeling like we are all, nationally and locally, caught in a web. It began last winter and has slowly wrapped around us. The first, barely visible…
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Someone Keyed My Car, and I Deserved It
About ten years ago, I drove myself to an early morning needle breast biopsy. When they called me to schedule it, they said I could drive myself, so I did. As I drove my blue Honda Odyssey across town for the outpatient procedure, my nerves fired up, “What if this? What if that?” Given that…
SurvivingSara 