Flashback Friday---swim team

Since I have missed a few flashback Fridays, I thought I would do a few make up posts.

I did a triathlon with my sister, Kristen, a few weekends ago.  I was on the swim team with Kristin, my friend, in high school.  They pretended to be sisters sometimes, which in the end has turned into a great friendship.

Flashback Friday--Hannah Kennedy

This little girl left for college yesterday.  Oh, they grow up too fast.

Smooth sailing (okay, well, as smoothly as anything goes for me)

It has been a week and a half since my resignation began and the process it getting easier (620).  I am not as offended that supervisors now are telling staff (and quickly nipped the rumor mill in the bud by telling them myself via email).  The process of telling clients I am leaving has been with a little less pain each and every day.  I have had to check myself more than once when a client's reaction was not what I wanted or expected (which became a great topic for my first class last night-#621).  I have had to question my reason for doing my job and ensure that this is not about me and my own personal gain (622).  In the end, the transition is going smoothly and I am reducing my caseload, one client at a time (623).

Day after day, there continues to be more affirmation that this is exactly what I am supposed to be doing (624).  I see the opportunities that abound as this happens (625), doors at my current job continue to close (so much for sentimental goodbyes) (626), I have people time and time again tell me that they are happy for me and know that I love teaching (627), and I realized yesterday how much I absolutely love teaching (628).  I still wonder how I am going to eat or what I am going to do with my sudden free time and how I am going to find another full time job, but I am not even sweating it (629).  I am looking forward to going part time for a little while, focusing on school, and really channeling myself into my classroom (630).

I keep listening to this song and think that it was written just for me (631).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsjZ94K7UQs

Resignation

I apologize now for not blogging in a long time.  Life has been busy.  Excitingly, draingly busy.

I put in my resignation a week and a half ago.  I have prayed for months and months and months about developing myself inside and outside my job.  Door after door after door has shut.  FBI?  Hello sequestration.  Working for our Child Advocacy Center (where kids who are abused are interviewed for criminal investigations)?  Filled on it's own.  Doing a childhood obesity initiative?  The supervisor approved the grant too late to even try.  Asking for opportunities to do policy work?  There are none.  How about creative interventions?  They are expensive and time consuming.  How is that fitness initiative for employees coming?  They are working on it.  Teaching full time?  Not now at least.  Community development organization against domestic violence?  Position has been filled (and would be difficult to do with my current job).  Getting paid to travel to other countries and do clinics with med students?  They went with someone else.

One final prayer and fast finally convinced the heavens to have the doors swung wide open for me to leave.  I jumped on the opportunity, but the emotions that followed were mixed.  I am leaving the only career I have known (minus teaching a few classes at the community college) to pursue teaching a few more classes and other opportunities that may present themselves.  I am giving up a full time job with benefits and a few more jobs on the side for some part time work with no health insurance, retirement account, or paid time off.  It is a risky move and has caused me moments of regret, fear, and sheer wonder if I know what I am doing (I don't).  The day I did it, my thoughts were something like, "Okay God, I have stepped out of the boat, now what?"  However, I am past all that and now know that this is the right move.  The fear is not paralyzing and the transition feels natural.  As soon as my resignation letter was submitted, opportunities started coming out of the woodwork.  I am so excited for the possibilities of straddling a few part time jobs and expanding myself professionally.  I am just amazed that there are so many possibilities for employment with my experience and degrees.  My last day as a therapist in my current position will be September 6.  I will give up an office, work computer, and burnt coffee.  The benefits of my bold move are yet to be known, but I am firmly convinced that this is where I am supposed to be and it will all work out in the end.  And that, my friends, is enough to squelch the hanging in the balance anxiety. 

The class of the world

Sometimes, it is easy to wallow in my self-pity.  I can list a lot of things I want to have or do or why my life is so hard, but I had an interesting perspective the other day.  I met an Egyptian doctor the other day in the ER.  I mentioned how he must feel relieved to be here in the U.S  right now.  He asked me not to remind him, because he still had family over there and longed to be back with them.  (In cased you missed it, Egypt overthrew their leader and has had escalating violence recently.)  He said his kids weren't affected the same way because they were born in the U.S.  He said, "I know there are problems with the economy and all, but the rest of the world has a lot to learn from the U.S.  This country is like the smart kid in the class who is worried about failing his test, even though he is the first one to turn it in.  It's like the U.S. is getting a PhD while the rest of the world is struggling to get through high school."

Ok, pity party over.  Besides, I just made coffee.:)

The Heart: The Wellspring of Life (and Love)

I have been MIA for several reasons.  The most recent being my string of bad moods, lots of stuff to do, topped off with my coffee detox (which has only caused me to eat a lot of really bad things to make up for it...so much for detoxing).  I was ruminating today over having to go to the gym last minute to bathe (our bathtub drain was completely clogged), having dishes in the sink that still weren't done, and dealing with this overall moodiness that seems to have come from a series of battles and disappointments, but more importantly, appears to be a whole lot of spiritual warfare.  I have had so many moments lately where I have almost lost my breath out of nowhere.  There is something major going on and I can't just will it away with good thoughts.  So I pray...and pray...but nothing has suddenly changed.  So I feel stuck.

I realized that I could ruminate all day about things that had gone wrong (and probably did to some extent...people told me that I looked stressed today), but I am thankful that things were not any worse than this.  A lot of things have gone right, even if they were small.

I had a really great time with a bunch of girls Friday night (620).  They are the kind of girls who love Jesus with all their beings and cuss and drink beer.  They are the kind of girls who love prostituted women and their hearts break when people are the butt of jokes and adopt babies with special needs.  They are the kind of girls who leave me wanting more...wanting to know how they can so deeply love with getting so little in return, who can get past all the things that still hinder me from fully caring about people, as superficial as they can be sometimes.  They are the kind of people who are interesting and caring and so real.  If this was who Jesus was, I want to know them more.  I want to know him more.

I am thankful for:
621.  Friends who text me at just the right moment
622.  Having a busy, but manageable day on call on Sunday
623.  Getting in a run Sat. before whatever flulike symptoms took effect
624.  A lazily productive day Sat.
625.  The chance to nap when I felt so crummy
626.  Being healed enough to work on Sunday
627.  Having a father who is willing to run a spare set of keys to me when I locked mine in my car
628.  My grandmother being released from the nursing home today
629.  How she quickly made herself at home in her own home, even if it isn't permanent
630.  Having grandparents who model dedication of marriage vows
631.  Getting a bonus shift on call
632.  Having parents who were willing to sacrifice their weekend and go on very little sleep to move my sister
633.  My sister finding an affordable apartment in a safe location close to her grad school
634.  That, after four years at Olivet, my sister actually will miss it.  (I guess California wasn't calling her name after all.)
635.  Running into a friend on the Greenway and having a great bike ride with her
636.  Having a work phone to separate my work and home life.
637.  Having a chance to have a day off last week to visit my grandma.
638.  That I was able to be a part of a family meeting.
639.  Heart to heart conversations with my grandpa
640.  Getting caught up with my uncle from Africa
641.  Safe travels and making it to a gas station, even though I was running on E
642.  That, even though my grandma does not remember my name, she did remember that I was "one of [her] girls" and that she loved me deeply.
643.  That my grandma's love runs so deep for her family that she feels comforted when we are around, even if she cannot remember how we are related.  Alzheimer's doesn't effect the heart.

Flashback Friday--Grandma and Grandpa's 40th Anniversary

This week, I went to visit my grandma in a nursing home.  Unfortunately, her recent fall had exacerbated her Alzheimer's and she was sometimes uncooperative.  She had some problems remembering my name, but said I was "one of the girls."  That answer satiated me.  After all, I do look a lot like my sisters.

Here are some happier memories.  My grandparents had us all go to a nice hotel restaurant for their 40th anniversary.  We gave them a gold clock (which remains on their stereo today).  While I didn't think that 40 years was really that long, I saw the dedication it takes for this kind of marriage this week.  My grandpa is at the nursing home every day until the visiting hours are over and is completely dedicated to my grandma, even if she does not know his name.

That kind of marriage does not occur very often anymore.  When the going gets tough in friendships, relationships, marriages, it is easier to leave or ignore the problem.  It takes deep loyalty and genuine character to stand by someone no matter what.  I love them beyond words and cannot thank them enough for modeling how to stand by those vows they made long ago.