What's Saving my Life

 

I am taking a page from Barbara Brown Taylor today and easing back into writing with a post about what is saving my life right now.  Of course, the things in here aren't truly what I consider to be saving my life, but maybe a better way to phrase this is what are the things that are giving me life right now? What things are filling me with joy, giving me an extra pep in my step, helping me to get through these winter doldrum days? 

I've been on a writing hiatus, at least in a public way, for longer than I have desired.  And it is not for lack of desire to write, but more for wanting to shield our tiny family from input of others while navigating our own heavy grief.  I've found writing to be a more private practice over the past two years, as I poured out the words through prayer in tear-stained pages of my prayer journal while crying out in lament to the Lord for the season of recurrent pregnancy loss that we were walking through.  Five miscarriages, several procedures, and lots of needle pokes later, we are seemingly on the other side of things with a healthy 20-week gestation baby boy, Josiah Scott.  I have more ultrasound photos than one could dream of thanks to our reproductive endocrinology clinic and an OB who wanted me to feel comfortable when transitioning back to her.

That story is for another day, and I do plan to share about my years of silence in this space someday soon.  But for today, we will pivot and talk about the things that are saving my life, things I might even dare to call small joys once again.  

• Quiet mornings with the Lord.  Oh, this one is so important for me. I don't realize it until the mornings when I skip it.  My sleep has been a little wacky over the past few months, so sometimes I find myself "sleeping in" until 6AM, which is good for no one in our home.  It means coffee is made later, dogs are crying to go outside and are ravenous for food, and I barely have time for my morning quiet time before the rest of the world starts waking up.  I'm in the season of life where my friends no longer text after 9PM but we sure do send one another messages in the 6 o'clock hour.  I got out of the practice of communing with God in a regular way sometime last year; we still talked a lot throughout the day, but I got out of a rhythm of regular dedicated time with Him each day, and I found myself slipping into unhealthy thought patterns and wondering once again who God really was.  The familiarity of His voice in our early morning conversations was gone. I'm slowly getting back there with a Genesis study through the She Reads Truth community, writing prayers on the page again but also praying them out loud to Him before anyone else around me has awoken.

• Early mornings at the gym with Scott.  Scott and I have tried time and time again over the past decade of marriage to work out together. It never ends well.  One of us usually storms off in frustration and we end up vowing to never again workout together.  But this past year, when I was struggling with being kind to my body, a body that was disappointing me and failing me in so many ways, I decided to do something for her.  I signed up with a personal trainer at my gym and faithfully met with her at 7:30 every Tuesday morning.  Even though we only met on Tuesdays, I found that I was getting stronger and wanted to spend more time at the gym.  I was enjoying movement and the feeling of getting stronger each time I went to the gym.  Not in an unhealthy, addictive way, but more in a way of "Oh, my body CAN actually do this! And it feels good."  So I started going to the gym on other days. My trainer would see me and say, "Here on a Monday?! Way to go!" After about 6 months of doing this, Scott and I decided to try going to the gym together once again.  But this time, I knew enough about the gym equipment and how to put a workout together that I didn't need him teaching me how to do anything.  So we go to the gym at 6:00 most days (hence the need for my earlier wake up time for my quiet time!), we do our own thing, smile and wink as we pass one another, kiss goodbye as he goes off to work, and have thoroughly enjoyed this new rhythm of exercising "together" but not quite together in the early mornings. We have both found it to be really delightful.

• A slower work pace.  For many reasons aside from just the personal health challenges that I faced in the wake of getting pregnant and losing babies time and time again, I took a major step back from work over the past two years.  We realized several years ago that our marriage and our home were not working well with both of us working full-time in healthcare. Anyone in healthcare knows that to work full-time is really not just confined to 40 hours a week.  For me, it became more like 60 with administrative tasks and follow-up on visits, documentation and other such necessary tasks.  We trialed me working part-time, 3 days per week. That was better, that seemed more manageable, even though it amounted to regular full-time hours some weeks.  But in the wake of our losses, my health became the utmost priority, and it was hard to care well for myself when I was working in the capacity that I was.  Our home and marriage had benefitted from the initial cut in hours, so we decided to see what happened if we cut back a little more. We know that this is an extreme luxury and privilege to have had this opportunity, and we do not take that for granted in any way.  I took a further step back to working only one day per month, and the world did not fall apart.  I continued to feel fulfilled in my role as an NP on the days that I did work, I had time to focus on my health and had space for all the extra appointments that came with our fertility journey, and I even had time to study for two certification exams that I wanted to take.  We have seen such benefits to our home life, our rental property business, and our marriage since I stepped back that we do not at this time have plans for me to resume work in a full-time capacity. 

• Taylor Swift's Reputation album.  I am late to the game on this one.  I used to be a huge T. Swift fan years ago, but I took a break from her for a few albums and then jumped back in with her Midnights album a few years ago.  So I'm playing catch-up on what I have missed, and her Reputation album has been strong for me. It's my gym playlist most days, the album I will turn up and sing at the top of my lungs while on long roadtrips, the soundtrack to my boards review.  I am sad to have missed this one when it was hot but am enjoying and savoring it even more now. Do I regret not going to Taylor's Eras tour? I do.  I almost impulsively bought a ticket to go by myself to one of her Atlanta shows after receiving some bad news one day, but I could not bring myself to pay what was being asked for this ticket.  It will be one of those things that passed me by and that I will probably be just fine with in a few years. 

• PG-rated fantasy novels.  Really, it's just one series that I am wrapped up in--The Cursebreaker series, which has some major Beauty & The Beast vibes, at least in the initial installment.  I have wanted to devour these books yet have paced myself so that I can truly savor them, as there are only 3.  I want to read ACOTAR and Fourth Wing and all of these things, but I am a bit of a prude when it comes to reading and do not enjoy explicit sexual content.  I much prefer for things to be left up to the imagination, so I have struggled with the fact that I love the fantasy/romantasy genre while wanting something a little less X-rated.  The Cursebreaker series has done that for me (and unless the second half of the 3rd book surprises me, it's pretty PG so far!)

• Empty spaces. Scott used to joke when we got married that I was someone who saw an empty space and immediately needed to fill it. Another friend and I talk about having horizontal surface disorder-- I am tempted to always fill a horizontal surface when I see one.  My desk could speak to that right now. But recently, we have been getting rid of items we no longer need as we prepare for having a baby in June, and I have found some empty spaces in our home that I prefer just as they are.  An empty hook where we hang out coats doesn't need to be crammed with more coats or more dog supplies, it can just sit empty.  It looks refreshing actually to see that there is space there.  It leaves room for possibility and imagination of what could be.  

• Vegan soups. Oh my, we have really gotten into the soups lately.  Some people in my life know that we've been making a gradual shift towards plant-based eating over the past few years.  We've been slow studies for sure, and I do still sometimes eat meat, cheese, desserts, etc (sometimes way more than I should).  But with all of the literature I've read on the health benefits of eating less animal products, I can hardly continue to eat large amounts of those things without thinking twice about what it means for my long-term health. With a recent cardiac event in my family as well, I am more motivated than I have been in quite some time to lean into the plant-based world.  And oh my, are the soups good. My two favorites from this week are a vegan white chicken chili (obviously no chicken, and I opted for bulking it up with more white beans instead of using a meat substitute!) and a wild rice and mushroom soup.  I am drooling just thinking about this and wishing we had more leftovers in the fridge. For cold, snowy days, these soups have done the trick. 

• Christmas trees.  Many people in my life are aware that I typically keep my Christmas trees up until the end of January.  I am actually doing the unthinkable and taking one of them down this week only because we are prepping the room it is in for a big sanding/painting project and need to remove all of the unnecessary items from the room.  I find January to be a really dull month, and because we are often traveling a lot in the month of December, I rarely get time to sit by my Christmas tree with hot coffee to revel in its magic.  In January, when everyone else is tossing everything they own to the curb and making room after all that they accumulated over the holidays, we are spending our days by light of our Christmas trees, enjoying the glow of them while the world outside feels dark and dreary.  

• Painting my nails.  This is nothing new for me-- should you ever see me with naked nails, you should do a mental health check on me and see how I am really doing.  Probably I'm not doing very well, because painting my nails is an act of self-care much like showering for me.  It is a basic and fundamental part of my life that requires some margin.  When I am lacking margin, my nails will reflect that.  They are actually bare right now as I type because I keep prioritizing other things over my nails (laundry, cooking, exercise, taxes, cleaning out the nursery, etc).  As soon as I hit "publish" on this post, I have plans to paint my nails before doing any other tasks.  My nail kit is waiting on the dining room table and the dogs have peanut-butter filled kongs to keep them busy while I take care of this basic need. 

• Doc and Ruby.  These snuggly little dogs are probably the biggest thing that is saving my life these days.  Through an exhausting sixth first trimester, they snuggled with me on the couch every day for my two (yes two) naps.  They have been my constant companions as they nursed me when was unwell, snuggled me when I needed comfort, and motivated me to get out and walk the lake on days I would have preferred to stay in.  Ruby was a Christmas gift to me last Christmas after Scott decided we "needed some joy" in 2023.  She has been the greatest joy to add to our family and home, and watching Doc warm up to her has just been the best. 

• Being home.  I was home for all of 11 days in the month of December. Between traveling for a dear friend's baby shower in Michigan, dog-sitting for my mom while visiting home for my niece's birthday, traveling for the holidays to see family, and taking our "baby moon" to Scotland, I wanted to do nothing in the month of January. I wanted to go nowhere. Unfortunately, I will have to do some travel in the coming months, but it is for joyful events related to one of my best friends' weddings.  One cannot be too disappointed by that, now can we? But as much as possible, I am saying no to things that take me away from home.  I am choosing to stay firmly planted to nurture our home and care for it, which in turns allows me a chance to nurture and care for myself and thereby, our unborn child.  I sense a slowing of our pace in the coming months and I am ready for it.  We live a very fast-paced, busy life, and while I mostly enjoy it, sometimes I deeply need rest.  We started to experience that while in Scotland, as the days were only filled with daylight for 6 hours; we spent a lot of time napping, watching The Great British Bake Off, spending time together without racing through the city as if we needed to check every item off of the list from the tour books. (We actually don't travel like that anyways-- we always leave things to do for "next time," but we slowed even to an unrecognizable pace for ourselves this time). I am relishing in home so much.  After months of praying for this home by its address before we finally could purchase it, I am very careful to express gratitude to the Lord for our sweet home as much as I possibly can.  If you read the "gratitude" section of my prayer journal, every few lines you would either see the words "our home" or "72 Pepper Ave." I love it so dearly and am grateful to be planted here. 

Well, that was a lot of rambling now, wasn't it? For someone who has held her tongue for so long in this space, there was certainly a lot to say.  These are the things saving my life right now, or the things giving me life, or the small joys, as I once called them.  I hope for more to come in the days ahead, I have several essays in progress that I hope to gain some inspiration to finish in those quiet hours of the morning before we head out to the gym. 

Thanks for always being kind in this space and for offering so much grace.

Love,

C