To fix it

(Truth be told – Matthew West)

 

So a few days ago I was going to pick just one youtube video and then do something productive because I have two presentations due within the next week and I haven’t even really started to get ready to interview and I need to book some hotels and I need to pack…and…yeah, there’s a lot going on…

 

Well, I watched my one video…and then youtube suggested a song for me. To be honest it didn’t even look like that good of a song, so I don’t even know why I clicked on it…but I did.

 

Sometimes God knows exactly what I need…it still very much feels like God has totally failed at the big things, but it feels like despite failing at the big things he really is helping so much with the little things.

 

I fell in love with the song and now it is maybe my favorite worship song…and my best friend will totally concur that I’ll insist I am fine until it’s obvious I’m not…or sometimes even when I really obviously am not will still express being fine…I’ve always justified that it isn’t really a lie – if I’m talking then obvi my heart is still pumping oxygenated blood so I am objectively fine…and it isn’t like I am trying to be deceitful. The more not okay I am the more likely I am to be sinking into social anxiety because a lot of my being past the social anxiety isn’t so much that the fear isn’t there but that I’ve learned to hide the fear as best as I can and learned how to usually say enough words to get by without drawing attention to being different…so when the energy is going to a different problem suddenly I have way less margin for figuring out the social realm and have to work even harder to make it…and so I rely even more heavily on the phrases I practiced over and over. There is a lot of conversation that I don’t know how to fill in with formulaic answers, but I’ve been observing basically my whole life trying to crack the code and between that and practicing over and over to myself, I’ve gradually learned how to reflexively fill basic conversation. Someone says how are you and you say I’m fine or I’m okay and if you are feeling brave you add how are you or how about you at the end of your answer…the script kind of breaks down if the other person has something besides okay or fine as their answer…

 

That reliance on scripting is why interviewing is so hard. You put me in a strange location with people I don’t know who want me to answer personal questions and evaluate me on it…and you can imagine that I struggle. Even if I could magically know all the actual interview questions and have an answer memorized for each one (I which should have been working on months ago…’cause figuring out answers to typical questions is usually the November to interview time task…) that doesn’t fill in all the gaps like greeting people, parting words, asking questions, responding to answers to my questions…and that reminds me that I also need to come up with a list of questions…I wish they wouldn’t make me ask questions. For most programs 99.9% of what anyone would want to know is already on the internet and the other 0.1% you probably already saw or heard at the interview…I really don’t like having to play the game.

 

Speaking of songs and God knowing what I need…I have also fallen in love with the song 21 years by Toby Mac…it depicts so perfectly what early grief feels like…but offers such an incredible and Christian perspective on loss. I was intentionally listening to it on repeat last week…and then I turned repeat off on my spotify and it was supposed to be on random play, but for multiple hours it somehow just kept deciding to play that one song over and over…and it was exactly what I needed. It helped the truth sink in. You can’t fix grief. But feeling like someone really gets it does SO MUCH to cut through the pain and aloneness. It is really hard not having my daddy. I miss him so much.

 

“They tell me pain gonna come in waves…I’m still waiting for the first to break.” H**k yes. People totally said the first few months that grief would come in waves…but I didn’t really get it…because yeah, it took a few months before I really felt like the first wave broke. I just felt like I was drowning for a long time. Now I really do have moments I feel like for real okay. There are definitely times almost every day that I am still really struggling not to cry, but now the waves are finally breaking and sometimes it might be a whole lost day, but other times in a minute or two the wave has receded and I’m okay again, moving on with my day.

 

“why would give and then take it away.” It is really hard letting go.

 

“God has you in heaven, but I have you in my heart.” This I feel like is repeated enough that it should have been the title…it hurts right now, but I think I will like it better as I heal…and now I am really glad that I picked the heart necklace, because I literally do have daddy in my heart.

 

“Everything is so dissonant.” A lot of things that should spark joy, should make me feel good…they just fall flat. I am starting to feel like I am a little more alive now, but for a long time everything hurt.

 

“what a beautiful loan.” This was huge for me. I needed a reminder that absolutely everything in my life belongs to God and he is just letting me borrow it. It kinda feels like he is one of those people who let you borrow it but then yank it back from you before you’re done because they weren’t really ready to share yet…but it was never really mine.

 

I could keep going, but it is a minute past bedtime already…so I need to sign off so I can get some sleep and then get working on finding all the things I need for the next few weeks…

Until this show is over

(21 years – toby Mac)

 

Most of the time youtube is a happy place. Youtube lets me have friends who welcome me every time but have zero expectation of my ever actually exchanging words with them. It is like a community that doesn’t require any social skills whatsoever…so a lot of times I’ll watch a video while I eat and then figure that when the show is over I’ll re-assess and figure out what I think I can do next…but sometimes I need a break from my break.

 

Today I clicked on a video called something like “did she choose basketball or dance?” It sounds like it should be pretty innocent, right? Wrong. The majority of the video is this kid puking.

 

Do I know pretty immediately that I shouldn’t be watching something like that? Yes. I know I should turn it off immediately, but I don’t…because I also have this need to know exactly what the danger is. I need to know whether just one kid was puking or multiple kids. I need to assess how contaminated everything is. It doesn’t matter that this is happening across the country from me. It doesn’t matter that stomach flu is probably happening in my very own city right now even though I don’t want to know about it…it matters that I found out about that one incident and now I need to know it all to feel okay, but I can’t, because for one knowing it all isn’t going to fix it – I can pretty much guarantee the whole world didn’t get bleached and lysol’ed…and obviously at the same time, watching the video brings my fear level up higher and higher. And then when the video is over instead of feeling like maybe I am finally ready to get the stuff done I was going to do on Friday I need a break from my break to calm down…hashtag epic fail.

 

Which is a bummer because I got close to nothing done on Friday. I tried…but some days I am doing so much better…and other days I am falling apart. Friday was one of those days I cried most of the day and when I wasn’t crying I wasn’t really in any place emotionally to be able to do anything productive. My mail came and a few hours later I was ready to go open it and I got a size 6-7 dinosaur costume. I tried it on…I was thrilled to find that if I unzip the zipper that’s supposed to make it possible to potty without taking the costume off I can get the costume all the way on. So I figure paired with my leopard print skirt I can be a dinosaur in disguise for Halloween if I ever have any reason to dress up…I wish I’d gotten a bigger size costume but this was one of those times when Amazon didn’t include what size was going to be sent in the description of the item and I took the risk hoping for either my size or something cute and teeny tiny…

 

Totally on another topic yet again, but I recently read the book “The Space We’re In.” Like read it with my eyes instead of my ears. It was really good. It was really heartbreaking. It is intended for kids in about 5^th grade…but even as an adult I was totally connected with the story (just wished there were maybe a little more mention of the adult side of things). The boy telling the story has a brother with special needs and really struggles with feeling different and embarrassed because of that. He doesn’t always get the attention or experiences other kids get because his parents are concerned about his brother. At ten years old, he is already relied on at times as a caretaker. He finally gets something his own – attention from his neighbor – and then he has to share that, too, with his brother.

 

Then something happens. His mom has a seizure. And another seizure. Her medical problems start to overshadow what is going on with his brother. And then his mom dies. He feels broken. His sense of self is shattered. He describes so accurately what that feels like. It made me feel so much less alone to see through his words how normal everything I’ve been through is. The book ends right around the same amount past death that I am, and like the whole thing is so real. I could go on and on, but basically, while the main character and I aren’t exactly the same, there were a lot of things that were so nearly identical and the other things I could totally see someone experiencing things that way…

 

So yeah…I’m exhausted partly because I just came off of most evenings for the past two weeks into day shifts and partly because I’ve been waking up at 2am the past few mornings and struggling to get enough rest before rushing through getting ready for work, but one day at a time I am getting through the day and getting through life.

 

I can’t remember what I was going to write in this paragraph so I think it’s time to stop and then get my dirty dishes off the floor and remind myself of the directions to work tomorrow and write down the phone number I need to call tomorrow…

 

P.S. Interview season is starting and I am so not ready and would really like prayers that I will get interviews at times I am able to get off work for them and that this year someone will actually want me. Realistically this year is my last chance. I don’t want to fail and then wonder if my dad hadn’t died if I would have been able to write better letters and stuff and interview better and stuff that would have finally gotten me a residency…

Up and Down Never Slow

(Welcome to the Show – Britt Nicole)

Sometimes things are coming closer to normal. Other times I feel like I am drowning again.

So yeah…last week started out with a late night Sunday with a grief attack in the afternoon followed by scary driving situation in the evening…and then after that too short night a day shift in the morning. This was also the day my first application deadlines were and one of my references hadn’t done it yet and I’d been trying to get a hold of this person for two weeks and heard nothing…and we had unexpected downtime and someone who forgot to come to work in the morning so it was a little bit of chaos that had me feeling like I was stretching too far. (The computer software did eventually come back online and I finally got a hold of my last reference to get the reference submitted on time). I’m not sure if it was that day or the next day I got an email that I forgot to submit the HR portion of a different application…spreadsheets of requirements are only helpful if you actually look at them more than once…

Tuesday morning I woke up at about 2am and so by the end of my evening shift I was beyond exhausted…and had an email reminder that I had committed to something at 9am the next morning. Awesome.

So yeah, Wednesday morning I finally got up about 25 minutes before 9…which is not exactly enough to get a shower, get dressed, find all the things I need, get in the car, and be at the park by 9am…so I was 10 minutes late…and I might not have been the most late person, but I don’t like being late at all…I do so much better being excessively early and having all the people be added a few at a time rather than having to jump in to the middle of a group of like a million people already waiting around. So there was probably breakfast and snacks set up (And by probably I mean I could see candy canes and cookies and drinks and donuts) but unless someone told me to eat something my brain was on just survive mode – eating in front of strangers is something that is still scary sometimes and I was not in the right frame of my mind to get that done…I really wanted a candy cane though.

But eventually I got assigned a job and went off to de-light a bunch of trees. And right about the time I was losing interest (and an hour or so after my fingers and toes went numb) someone announced there was lunch…and I wandered around pretending to be busy for a while because I didn’t want to walk in alone even if I was just walking in with people I didn’t know…but eventually I got some food and then went home and got ready for work. I still really wanted a candy cane though. We didn’t have any candy/snacks in our stockings this year or candy canes on the tree because that was daddy’s job and he wasn’t there. And the top of the tree was smooshed together and facing forward instead of up because my brother got tired of shaping the tree before the top was done. And yeah, Christmas came and Christmas went, but it wasn’t like YAY!! Christmas!! It was like okay, now I can check that off the to-do list and move on. Not just in my it is easier when life is the same and predictable so holidays aren’t really my thing kind of way but in a deeper I don’t really want to be here pretending everything is okay when it isn’t kind of way. We didn’t fight about singing Christmas songs…and that might sound like a good thing, but it isn’t. We always sang Christmas songs together as a family and it always devolved into a fight about which songs were good or what the words even are to that song or which songs “Everyone knows.” There is usually some gag gifts (like mom can I borrow a potato and a marker? Look, it’s a mister potato head doll for you) or silly wrappings (like inside a box labelled for one person is a gift labelled for someone else)…but no one was doing anything like that this year.

Thursday I was still exhausted but was assigned to the job I like the least: med rec. The reason I absolutely never ever have any interest at all in being an MD is that I don’t want to talk to a bunch of sick strangers…so what is my job when I am med rec? Talking to a bunch of sick strangers…not fun. I pray on all those shifts that the only admissions will be people from nursing homes and that the nursing homes will have sent a MAR along. I love the data entry part of the job – tedious tasks like that are something I excel at…but the whole finding the patient and talking to them part I hate…so it didn’t bother me a bit that a lot of the nurses were doing my job for me…as long as they do a good job, I am all for that! (It’s just when they do a lousy job and I have to re-do it with a crabby patient who just told that other person all the things that I am asking that it is frustrating when the nurses do it).

Then I got to back into a day shift on Friday…and by got to I mean I was still exhausted when I got out of bed Friday morning to go to work. I was supposed to have a project day…the person who was morning med rec (and honestly had very little work to do) came in and tried to hand off all her work to me and one of my coworkers. I was super frustrated because I did my share of the work last night. Now it is her turn and there wasn’t really that much to do because I was caught up when I left and there weren’t many admissions overnight. I wasn’t happy about it but I some of her work and tried to do it…I got as far as I could (checked fill histories and care everywhere data, tried to talk to patients and look for family) but when a patient is admitted for difficulty speaking and family is not present at the moment it is hard to have a conversation about medications…and when the patient is sleeping also not possible. So I handed off what I knew and tried to get back to my own work. And she called again. And I was like fine whatever and helped her with her work again (and by helped I mean I did her work while she did nothing). And I, of my own volition, faxed the VA for med lists for some people who were known to be poor historians. And I tried to get back to work. And she called again. And I just said I was busy with other things (not a lie – I was in the middle of orders so someone else could work on a project that was due on Monday). I finally finished my work (that was technically due the week of Christmas…but I didn’t have time to get it done). Eventually my frustrating coworker comes back from lunch and says if you’re bored I have another thing to do. And I just told her I’m not bored and went back to work. She just stared at me like I can’t believe you just said that to me and why aren’t you helping me…and I ignored it even though I was probably rude because I was just so over her and her entitled attitude and was going to say something even less congenial if the conversation continued. She finally got the message that I wasn’t in the mood to do her work and mine and left me alone the rest of the day. And then someone mentioned that someone else had had the plague (not the actual plague) and my brain went even further into overdrive but couldn’t elicit whether this was the plague like the stomach flu or like a cold or what…which matters because everyone is guilty until proven innocent in the stomach flu realm because my anxiety doesn’t really care that stomach flu is less deadly than RSV/influenza. My anxiety is absolutely terrified of the stomach flu and needs to know if there is any safety in the world.

So yeah, I was very ready to go home at the end of the day. I had some snacks and then it was time to go to church for an event. I tried to do all the right things, but my brain was still spinning so fast I couldn’t figure out using my words and I almost left before it even really had gotten started because my social anxiety was making it really hard to be there. There were all these people that I would have loved to talk with, but getting close enough to enter a conversation was just not going to happen. I couldn’t do it. That is one of the most frustrating things in the world. People who don’t get it are like all you have to do is say hello and ask to sit with someone…and I’m like, umm, you might as well be telling me all I have to do is step over the moon, because those things are all equally impossible right now. Are there days I am ready to talk your ear off, yes, but when the anxiety is high I just need someone to be my social guide. Give me an opportunity to talk but be ready to talk for me when I can’t.

And I don’t even know how I got from there to thinking about Christmas to trying not to fall underwater too far in grief before I got home (Well I know how the second half goes, just not the first half)…but eventually I was like I don’t want to leave because I know as soon as I leave I am going to crash, but I also really need to leave because if I don’t leave soon I am going to crash here instead of at home…so I made it home and then crashed. I could have gone to bed on time…and actually I technically did go to bed on time…but I was up and trying to figure out how to make it through the night for another three hours or so before enough of the hurt inside my body was ready to let me breathe. I want to be in control of my body, but sometimes I am not.

And there are so many things that just all layer into a week even in addition to the things I just shared that just make some days feel like a race to the bottom…

But in the midst of the pain and frustration there is good. I downloaded and audiobook and within the first couple minutes realized I’d already listened to it in the past…but kept listening anyway because I’d rather have some girl togetherness with this female author than have Dan Allender keep telling me his little story of positivity and hope about how to live my life…Dan isn’t bad and his books have been super helpful, but sometimes he is WAY more positive and hopeful than I am ready to hear and I needed a break from him…and this other book was really good. It was only my second time listening to this one so I don’t have it memorized like I do the Healing Path. And there were things that were really helpful to hear. Like over the months and years after loss things will become more like normal, but while some people may be able to go completely back to normal, for other people some things will be lost forever. You may never be able to focus the same way again or your hobbies may completely change or things like that. And the author also acknowledged that it is hard to know what to say because people living in the dark desperately need hope that there is light, but the reality is that years 2 and 3 might not be any better than year 1. And that false hope can be painful and not even really be helpful in the moment either. It really helped to hear someone say that it is okay that to not feel happy all the time now that it has been a few months. I guess to quote Dan Allender, “to know it is not wrong to suffer.”

So yeah. Sometimes I crash, and that is okay. Sometimes it is almost lunch time and the only thing I have to show for the first half of my day despite the things that need to get done (like working on a presentation for interviews in case anyone is thinking about maybe wanting me this year) is one phone call and a LOT of snacks…the snacks were supposed to be rewards…but like really? I’m a grown butt adult. Did I really earn a snack for picking up my phone and another for getting out the phone number I needed to call…etc…before the call was even made?! And of course then I decided to continue to not get stuff done by writing a blog post instead of working…so probably now I should actually do something useful with my life…lol