Sorry to pop off the radar like that, friends, it's been a few weeks of muscle madness in my world. Swelling came back at the base of my brain and in the high neck, plus all those fun things that make life so much more interesting. My family has been on intense Alison alert for so long I feel like I live in an ER unit at times. My beloved husband can move pillows to a thrash site faster than any person I know when it's time to flail around on the floor. Ugh. My doc says I gotta lower my stress. I keep telling her that it's going to end someday - just not today.
I can make that fish face, too.
I'm going to a new school starting Aug 22 - I AM SO EXCITED! I'm contending for a job as an assistant in the Dean's office, and hopefully will get it and stay there for the next 3+ years until that PhD is on my wall. Technically, it's a PsyD, but who cares? I get to go back to my hospital and practice ... internship starts in 18 months. I plan to never leave, unless we actually move to Florida after graduation...I am a happy girl. Already stomping the beat for a paid internship there. :-) Although I must admit, working on the Psych Unit at the downtown hospital would be so very different, or on the resident hospice unit. I may do that for a while. Not sure. Private practice seems the way to go for me.
Well, I have to go write, take a anti inflams that is overdue and get steak ready for dinner. Brian's grilled them over wood in the days past, and I am in LOVE with the flavor, even though I'm not supposed to eat meat anymore. Sigh. No bread, no meat. All that is left is..... chocolate! Yipee!
No, I haven't gone nuts, I am listening to the song "Everybody Loves Me."
Good music. I had the greatest vacation. It's funny how sometimes you expect that you're going to go one place and all of a sudden it factors into your life for the foreseeable future. Who knew that our dream house was across the road from the current condo? Who knew that the resonate of the beach and the family and the people would complete that empty part of my life? My God, I miss the ocean.
Listening to my absolute fave new group (not that I have given up on Linkin Park, just taking a writing break). Bri is out on the tractor whipping the acre of grass into shape, the house is finally cool and beautiful, Taryn is out kicking her soccer ball after an hour of flute practice, my beverage of choice is amazingly good....and I am reminded how much I love being in my life.
My God, I love being me. It's the first time in my life that there is no hint of depression, my major problems seem to be in remission thanks to reduced anxiety...I am out of the ungodly burnout from school.... I am finally back to being happy and balanced...I'm going zipping in West Virginia soon to celebrate our new Ball State status....the dots are connecting. Hope. Faith. Energy. Truth. Love.
Other than a #1 best seller, there is just little that I want out of my life. So many dreams are unfolding that I live in this almost constant expectation that God is just around the corner. Brian and I have never been stronger or sexier; Lex and I are writing solid work; Donna has discovered that our life as twins is still worth living and that we can love our beloved even after death.....it's just not the death of her. My girls are happy and healthy, family dinner is coming up, my hometown is humming with summer activity, I got into the grad program. Damn.
I'm waiting for Lexi, who is stomping my direction, to work on the Soul Thief before my agent disowns me on Twitter. I am ready for the first book to be out, the second to be done and be in that home stretch. Lex has all my journals and is teasing me through reading them. She's handling the diaries on her own, so I have been freed up to finish my "Unbroken" book after we are done with Lucian and the gang. It's so strange to have a real life template of Lucian now, to hear that voice that I've imagined and see the eyes that haunt me. His name dear world, is Zachary, he is 36 with amazing brown eyes and black hair, a full time professional actor capable of carrying the movie script and still melt women everywhere....and even Brian gets creeped out about how much the man resembles Lucian.
I'm off to Anderson then Indy tomorrow, called to the state office to "discuss my ordination." I assume that I've done something stupid they aren't happy with - the cosmo article was a little racy, but hey, what is a girl to do? It's just real life stuff. People have sex, and want to know how to spice up that relationship. I guess I'm not supposed to talk about stuff like that, or how much I went into a tail spin in grief last year, or how much I miss D every day...Or, maybe they don't appreciate my overall pluralistic "God is in everything" attitude. I don't know. I may return tomorrow as a unlicensed person. I won't give up writing, acting like a twin or being myself, no matter what.....so if that is the license I lose, it sure as hell beats losing my psychologists license. God is my author, finisher, soul mate....I won't give up on my call, no matter what.
Steve Jobs says that if you wake up in the morning and you say "Is this what I want to be doing today?" the answer should be yes. I can't imagine another life. Yes, yes, yes. I am fortunate, happy, blessed and in love with the one man that has ever known me, understood me, loved me and been honestly my best friend and lover. I have great children, an amazing amount of talent that I don't deserve and more dreams than a lifetime deserves.
I can only pray the same for you.
Be happy, love life, live full on.
No apathy, no regret.
"I will never give up on you." Okay, it's always on dire circumstances, but I love it when a movie uses this line. I love the idea of never giving up.
Outside of that, I had someone clear their throat at me for laughing when Bri said something funny, and again when I kissed him a little to intently for the "grown ups" behind us. Jeez, live a little people.
I really liked that about this movie although I found it a little difficult to follow which of the big robots was who, or whom.....or why the girl in the white dress seemed to serve very little purpose...in the vernacular of robot transformer worlds, I am a little slow. They really all look about the same to me. Brian laughed when I asked what the little monkey looking things were.
So we know that Transformers is a great time to work of part of a post, but horrible to type in, so if you got the initial read of this, you know it was a lot fewer letters. My keyboard was all greasy from the popcorn. :-)
I loved a couple of the lines from the movie. "When they asked you where you were at the end of the world, what will you say?"
"I just stood there?"
I couldn't imagine the question, or the idea of just standing there. The most massive disappointment, however, was the lack of the Iridescent video at the end of the movie, the entire reason that I wasted an hour plus of my life being confused by computer generated crap.
I love this song. It suits my life, my spirit, my love....all of it. There are so many things that I wish I could redo, explain, change....I guess that is what the future is for, to build a new life on the foundations of knowing there is such a thing a wellness....
I wonder, are you obsessed with being? Are you all in? Is there something in your life that flows in your viens, haunts your waking moments, walks with you though life? Do you love with passion and vitality and adventure? There is a word worth building on....adventure. :-)
That doorway in the picture has been one of more important places in my life. I stepped across it to enter seminary - I stepped across it for lunches and coffee runs that I will never forget. I stepped across it with my heart broken, then mended, then broken again. Inside those doors I have learned leadership, theology, psychology and that rarely is anything what it appears to be. I lost and found my faith, just to have it ripped apart and remade. I've lived and died in that place.
I stepped across that threshold this weekend to take my place among the people that I love...and I will step across it again this fall as I finish the longitudinal study on clergy wellness. That is a lot of times through one door.
Do you ever think about the butterfly effect? What does that mean, step on a butterfly today, kill a million people three years from now. The phrase refers to the idea that a butterfly's wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that may ultimately alter the path of a tornado or delay, accelerate or even prevent the occurrence of a tornado in another location. The flapping wing represents a small change in the initial condition of the system, which causes a chain of events leading to large-scale alterations of events. Had the butterfly not flapped its wings, the trajectory of the system might have been vastly different. While the butterfly does not "cause" the tornado in the sense of providing the energy for the tornado, it does "cause" it in the sense that the flap of its wings is an essential part of the initial conditions resulting in a tornado, and without that flap that particular tornado would not have existed. What changes has it caused in the world that I went rock climbing one day, or met a person in the hospital, that I went home instead of waiting, that I said yes instead of no? What inalterable history dissolved into a new realtiy? Wow, I love the paradox of the butterfly effect because it says that nothing is definite...the butterfly hasn't landed yet, and it's not yet there to flap a wing. Maybe it won't come at all. Maybe that obsessive tug we get about a certian person or place is our soul pleading with us to be where we were supposed to be - not where we "should."
I love the idea of the butterfly effect. It's so....full of possibility. No one has ever drawn if out for me far enough, how the delicate balance of time all plays out. There are moments in meditation that I feel like I almost come to understanding this one elemental piece of the universe....and then it fades. I don't understand ..yet. But I will.
There are so many wonderful things in this life, I hope that you find today a joy, not a trial. I'm struggling with emotions still, wanting to scream out loud, but it's getting better. Today I have prayer incense burning and candles lit; I am okay within myself and balanced. I'm not depressed, my head isn't swollen or trying to kill me, and my hands aren't shaking, so bonus. Although I am a bit haunted, it's an early day for Brian, and he and I have three days of peace together, then four days of prep, then seven days of vacation in NC and Jacksonville. On the beach, sun and surf, just relaxing and playing golf.
Today is the day when I can scamper the house and get some stuff done. I am unenthusiastically working on clearing out all of Taryn's old toys from her former playroom and prepare to repaint that room once again. Then it's on to the clothes room. Even I shudder at remaking that mess of a room. Everything is hung up, it's just so disorganized. I will take a before and after photo.
The question from Alice in Wonderland came to me this morning as something to think of other than the ghost. How is a raven like a writing desk? The madness of it all. Like Alice, I am wandering a path toward a goal and sometimes along the way, no one makes sense.
If you're coming over from our parent site, Today's Healthy Minute, welcome. If not, come see the magazine site dedicated to life, sanity and wellness at Today's Healthy Minute.
This is the open journal of our writer in residence, author Alison Rodgers. It's the space for thoughts on nearly everything, including love, loss, relationships, illness, faith and life as we know it. Think of it as the text message center that all of Alison's friends see every day. You can visit us anytime you like!
