Aches and Pains

I've never been very good at slowing down and resting as much as I need to. So naturally, there comes a point where it all becomes too much, and my body forces me to rest. This time, it is coinciding with physical illness. My thyroid condition is acting up. It's something very easily remedied, but it takes time for the new dosage of medication to work itself into my system. Until it does, I'm stuck feeling exhausted all the time. Just trying to muster the energy to get out of bed some mornings is a huge feat. The periodic sense of vertigo gets to be incredibly frustrating. My joints ache.

But the thing that bothers me most is the way this all affects my mind. With my hormones all messed up like they are right now, I can't focus very well. I am more easily distracted than usual (and I'm pretty easy to distract in the first place!). My memory isn't working at the speed I'd like it to. It's frustrating to try to hold a conversation, and lose focus midway through a sentence in an attempt to remember what word you wanted to say. Or forgetting completely what it was that I was talking about. Even if I write things down (which I nearly always do), I end up forgetting things. It's frightening.

Sure, it all goes back to normal once my hormones settle again. But until then, it's rather like sitting in the middle of a room filled with really thick fog. You can wave your arms around all you want, and shine tons of light everywhere, but you still can't see what it is you are trying to see on the other side of the room. Yet you know exactly what the room is like. You've spent forever in this room, and can describe every minute detail of it when the fog isn't around.

I have a tendency to get very cranky when I'm all out of sorts like this. So I have to stop and remind myself every now and then that this is temporary. This all goes away, and things return to normal. It's going to require a lot more patience than I'm willing to give, but I'll make it through this just fine, as I have every time before.

~*~

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.

2 Corinthians 4:16

Sink or Swim

Today, for the very first time, I woke up in the apartment where I will be living until next May. I'm still trying to find homes for all of my things, and trying to remember what got packed into which box or bag. But I'm settled in, for the most part.

It's a strange feeling realizing just how much growing up I have done at different points in my life. Many times, it seems to happen all at once, rather than gradually (as I had always expected it to). For instance, my mother's death forced me to grow up very quickly in order to help out around the house more, and look after my siblings every day. I didn't get to make that transition gradually at all.

Now? I'm moved into an apartment, no longer on a school meal plan. I have to buy my own food and figure out how to cook things. I had two appointments with new doctors last week, finally transitioning away from my pediatric doctors. It was really the first time I had gone to a doctor without my father  accompanying me. But I took it all in stride, and some minor anxiety aside, it all went very smoothly.

Growing up used to seem terribly frightening to me. The big, scary world wasn't something I wanted to face by myself. There are still so many things about it that I don't know how to handle, or that I simply don't understand. But I've come to realize that I will never be "ready" to face any of it. When I was a kid, my father threw me into the shallow end of the pool, after several years of trying to teach me to swim. I had never felt "ready" to learn. By getting thrown in, without warning, I had to learn quickly. I had no choice. But I learned, and despite a lasting fear of deep water (but I think I had that before this incident), the lesson stuck.

So I'm going to try to stop waiting for the moments when I'll be "ready" for things. When the time is "right", I'll be thrown in without warning, and I'll have to figure it out on the spot, just like everyone else. Looking back and thinking about all the times where I've already conquered those "sink or swim" moments, the future feels less frightening.

~*~

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.

1 Corinthians 13:11

Here Comes the Sun

The days are growing longer, the snow is finally starting to melt away, and day by day the air grows warmer. The sky is less gray, and the sun appears more often than it has for the last few months. Though it is still a long while before Spring will have arrived properly, I can't help but think about it every day.

This winter has been a particularly long one for me. Twice as much snow fell as I had anticipated. When it first arrives, snow is exciting and beautiful, but as time wears on, it becomes a hassle to walk through it all day long. I wore snow boots for two months straight, and had to carry around a pair of shoes to wear indoors. When the grass finally started to peek out from beneath its snowy blanket, and several birds began returning to campus, I felt my heart swell.

For all the grief my allergies tend to cause me, I think Spring might be my favorite season. It is a time when all things are becoming new. It is a time where trees and plants sprout new growth, and animals give birth to their newest offspring.

It reminds me of the New Jerusalem described in the book of Revelation. All things that came before are wiped away, and the world becomes new and clean. It also brings to mind an image of Noah and the ark. He had to wait through 40 days of rain, only to have to wait longer after it stopped for the waters to clear away. When the dry land reappeared, though, all was clean and new.

Palm Sunday and Easter are very important parts of my Spring memories, throughout my life. Easter is a celebration of rebirth, and perhaps that is why I am so incredibly fond of it. No Easter bunnies or marshmallow peeps (though I do enjoy microwaving them...) for me. I'd much rather go to church. After the long, solemn season of Lent, Easter really does feel like a day when all of us are being reborn, and granted a chance to start anew.

Easter is even farther off than the start of Spring proper. But I'm holding them both close to my heart this week, so that I may ponder them while I wait. I look forward to that chance to feel renewed, that I may make a fresh start.

~*~

But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

Romans 8:25