December

Somehow it is December. Somehow it ha been two weeks since my sleepless night of pain that I thought was nothing but actually was something.

Wow. Crazy.

Somehow in the past two weeks my body was opened up and taken apart and put back together, and it still somehow works. I can feel my abs getting stronger, can see my skin growing back together. I'm still working on normal digestion, but I can eat normally and walk around and more or less live my life with relatively no pain.

And life keeps moving forward, and we all keep moving with it.

Somehow I'm going home in 17 days. Somehow everything that needs to be done before that will get done.

I can't believe it's December.

I am a people person

Part of me is tempted to write a really whiny post. I'm feeling whiny today. Nobody knows the troubles I've seen, nobody knows my sorrows, etc etc etc.

But honestly, I know that's not REALLY true, because there are a lot of crappy things in the world. And even non-crappy things, like teaching all day every day and going home and prepping to teach some more, can kind of suck sometimes. My life is just a life, like everyone elses.

So this is what I know. But I'm warning you, I still feel kind of whiny.

But. A good thing. I stopped by school today (no, I did not work, and no, I was not there all day. Just the very very end of the day). I was in the office until the bell rang, and then I stepped in the hall to see some of those people who make everything worthwhile. I made it maybe 80 cm (that is a joke. It was probably more like 280 cm). Then... students.

So many students.

So many hugs.

So many "Meese!"'s. (That is NOT how to properly punctuated that. At all.)

So good. So very good. I missed them a lot.

And as they headed to the bus and the hallways cleared, I was left with a shadow. It was a student who doesn't necessarily do a whole lot in my class, but was fully ready to come home with me and cook all my meals as well as to talk my ear off and tell me everything about everything. And I didn't know we were close, but now I do. I'm good with that too.

And I loved it. Because that is what makes me feel like a teacher. Being there, having discussions, knowing and loving my people, that is what I love. I do not love making grammar powerpoints or writing quizzes and discussion questions. But, right now, that's just the way it is.

But tomorrow is already Thursday. I've been home almost a week, and life is flying by. Soon enough, things will be back to normal and I'll probably still be whiny. And that's that, and I apologize in advance.

Dizzy

I cried today. Like, kind of a lot.

My big sister left, and that was sad. And it maybe set off the pity-party that has been waiting to happen but hasn't because, honestly, all things considered, life is still pretty good. I mean, my big sister was here, people have been so great, I'm not dead and didn't explode, I'm healing well... I mean, pretty great.

But then she left, and the sucky parts started coming through - the hospital on my birthday, no Thanksgiving dinner ever, no ocean and not getting to hang out with my friends, no school, being far away from home and missing 60-80 cm of my intestines (sorry about the false report earlier) and no more sister... I could make the list longer. But I won't.

Tonight I got my stitches out. Looking at them, feeling the fabric of my shirt against my skin for the first time in a week, everything, it was a lot. It made me dizzy and slightly nauseous. This has been a lot.

But then I saw people who I truly care about a lot and who are great and funny and fun to hang out with, even if they aren't family. I came home to e-mails from parents and students who still, a week later, care about how I'm doing and write such sweet notes about missing me. I also have a hilarious and lovely loveable e-mail from my Grandmother who is praying for me and writing me every day.

And I might cry again. Because bad things happen and good things happen and I have less intestines and sometimes life is a little sucky but also there are so many lovely people in the world who, for some inexplicable reason, choose to share some of that love with me.

How overwhelming. Maybe it's bedtime.

Thanks

I'm writing this from my very own big girl bed. It feels so good to be in my space with my music and my things surrounding me.

You may have noticed a lack of posting for the last 5 days. I promise, I have a pretty good reason for this.

I've spent the last 5 days in the Honduran Medical Center because, on Friday night, I started experiencing extreme pain in my abdomen. I tried to wait it out, which resulted in a very sleepless Friday night and and an exceptionally uncomfortable Saturday. I'm so thankful I had never experienced pain like that in my life and would be ok if I never experienced it again. the last time I laid in this bed, I just remember crying out that I couldn't do this, that I wasn't strong enough to handle the pain. But I didn't take action to get help for the pain I couldn't fix.

I'm so thankful for my dear roommate who determined on Saturday that it was time to take me to the hospital. We got to the emergency room and thankfully no one was there, so they were able to get us in right away. After some tests and a very grim looking ultrasound technician, we were told we needed to talk to the surgeon.

When he arrived, he explained that there was about 400 mL of fluid that didn't belong around my intestines and my white blood cell count was over twice as high as it should normally be. Now, I'm very proud of my super blood, but it just wasn't enough.

Because they weren't sure of the reason for all the fluid, they needed to do a laparoscopy to see what was really going on. I don't really remember what happened next because I was blissfully anesthetized, but 5 hours later I woke up in my own private room with a largeish bandage on my stomach, a tube coming out of my nose, and a fancy-looking bag of intestine juice attached to my side. Hmm. Thank goodness for my friend and roommates who had been waiting and staying in contact with my family through the whole procedure. I clearly had the easiest job.

When the doctor arrived later that afternoon, he informed us that part of my intestine had created a ring around another part of my intestine. This caused the trapped intestine to lose blood flow and essentially die. They had to remove 10 cm and also my appendix, which I'm super happy about since I've been scared of that little organ ever since my cousin got hers out 12ish years ago. Good riddance, I say.

Anyway. The next few days were filled with bed rest, good visits with friends, an unexpected birthday visit from my favorite older sister, and lots of prayers and love from friends and family from all over the place.

And those prayers were heard, because my healing process went so much quicker than expected. So thank you to all of you who who offered me up. I really can't express my gratitude and how much it means to me.

This afternoon I bid farewell to the best nursing staff in the world (seriously, so great!) and headed home to my own space with my very caring sister.

It might be hard for me to be dependent, but I'm trying, as I'm so aware that I very well could not be here if it weren't for all the people who have been involved in caring for me these past few days. And also in the past 23 years, as, holla, I turned old in the hospital!

All this is mainly to say that I am so thankful for everything from my bed to my stuff, but much more than that, I am thankful for all the people in my life and for their amazing love and support. Most of all (note the move from positive to comparative to superlative) I am thankful for a God who can fit organs together and who gave them the ability to heal back together after something goes wrong. I'm thankful for a God who shares wisdom with humans so they can diagnose and fix these problems. I'm thankful for a God who puts the people you need in your life and for a God who answers prayer. Most of all, I'm thankful for a God who is always there, in the moments of extreme pain and of joyful overwhelmedness. I'm thankful I know he holds tomorrow, and I know he holds my hand.

And you can blame any sappiness on pain meds and any typos on my iPod touch.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Fill and be filled

 Homeroom is my hardest class. It seems so silly that a 20 minute class that is supposed to be a family of people who trust each other that I "in theory" don't even have to plan for would be more difficult to teach than 47 minutes of English... but it is.

I think one of my biggest issues is that I know that a lot of the stuff I'm teaching isn't interesting or really relevant. I mean, yes, bullying is definitely relevant, but presenting the facts seems to result in more jokes than life changes.

I had a plan for today, a lesson about listening because I feel like they never listen to me. It's a terrible motivation, I know. But I also am at my wits end.

When these babies walked in today, I couldn't do it. I couldn't fight the battle again, didn't want to fight a battle again. So we spent the time talking.

I was talking to a group of girls, and they started asking hypothetical boy and girl drama questions. Oh, middle school drama. So serious. So hard. So confusing.

And I thought about my past, about the back-stabbing best friend and all the boy drama and the insecurities and self-loathing and the mess that was (and, let's be serious, sometimes/often still is) me, and I can be thankful for the ways that I am equipped to have these conversations. Because I really have been there.

I teach better on Fridays after I watch Glee. I know this is silly, but watching it with my roommate, giggling and caring about these fictional characters and their made-up lives, it giddifies me (no, that is not a word, don't look it up.) And that flows over into my students.

Today, I had a friend share her teaching triumphs after a slumpy week. It reminded me to look for little triumphs in my day.

So I'm thankful for that fact that we don't exist in isolation. I'm thankful for interconnectedness and relationships.

And I'm a tiny (lot) bit thankful that I only have 3 teaching days before Thanksgiving Break. Hey, relaxation will make me a better teacher too!

There's a reason I've been posting more lately, in case you've been wondering.

Last year I kept a blog where I tried to write almost daily. November of last year was chronicling my lows of Student Teaching. Mm, were they low sometime.

This has been a lower week for me. I feel the darkness, the icky inadequacy, the doubts, the loneliness, and the desire to just sleep all the time.

Yesterday I had a dear friend over and we talked for a brief amount of time about feeling like we suck at teaching and whether or not that is normal. You know what they say, misery loves company.

Well, it's not exactly misery. There are still a lot of good moments and breakthroughs. My day today wasn't even that bad after I got through second period and homeroom.  It's just that feeling of gloom that I can't quite shake.

Regardless of what it is, it's nice to be able to read back and reminisce, not because I want to dwell in those feelings, but to remember that it won't always be like that/this. It's good to see the lights that happened then, and think about how much life has changed. It's a good reminder of what God has done and is doing.

Anyway.

Blogging more. It's easier to find this day last year on a blog than in a journal.

Here's a secret. I don't love asking for help. I don't love needing other people. I don't love not being in control.

Here's a fact. I live in Honduras, which is a great place, but doesn't always allow for a lot of independence. That being said, I did spend some time alone at the mall this weekend. So that's a thing.

This weekend I was attempting to get bus tickets for a group of us who are going up to one of the Bay Islands over Thanksgiving. The phone number didn't work, no one knew where the bus station was, and it was unclear what we needed to purchase the tickets and how much they'd cost.

We taxied on over, because at least the taxi driver knew where we needed to go, although that is a different type of vulnerability altogether. When we got there, we were able to reserve seats, but needed effectivo (essentially cash) to pay for them. This was a problem because the last time we went to the store, we couldn't use our cards and had to pay cash there. Anyway. We take a different taxi to a mall that is nearly across the seat, he waits for us to get cash and takes us back to the bus station, we purchase tickets, and that same taxi drives us home. Tickets = purchased.

In the States, I'd expect to just get in my car and take care of things. I need to make more than one stop? Ok, that's do-able. Nbd, yo. I need groceries? Done. This needing rides, translating, everything... it just gets to me sometimes. I haven't been this dependent since I was 15. When people asked me my most prized possessions, my car was almost always on the list. It symbolized my freedom and autonomy. Oh, how I miss it.

I watched a couple episodes of Scrubs last week with a dear friend/cousin. The theme song has been running through my head. "I can't do it all on my own, no, I'm no superman." I probably shouldn't have put that in quotes, as I'm not sure it's completely accurate. Please lyric fact check at will.

Here's a secret. That is true of me.

We keep about talking about using our own strength and whatnot in devotion like things. It's also come up a lot in my personal devotions. This is my number one bad habit (and you thought it was biting my nails...) I really really really get so wrapped up in being able to do this, in being able to balance work and living and communicating with people back home and being awesome and appearing put together and everything that I use up almost all the limited strength I contain. It's really not that much, you know.

Depending on God for strength, depending on others for prayers and space to talk about the secret (or not secret) failures of my life... this is hard for me. I hate being dependent, wrong, or vulnerable.

But I can't do this all on my own. I'm not superman.

So this is a topic I'd normally avoid...

I grew up believing that Christians belonged to one political party and that it was my job to pray for everyone who belonged to the other party. I'm my exactly sure where this came from, probably some random interpretation of my parents' political preference mixed with my concrete-thinker's sense of right and wrong. To clarify, it was not explicitly taught to me.

When I was 14, I wrote a report on a First Lady and developed what was probably my first woman crush. The only problem? Well, there were two. One was that she was dead and two was that she was from the "wrong" political party. I was forced to start thinking about why I believed what I did, what it means to be a Christian, and what that meant for my future as a citizen of this country.

Over the years, my thinking had changed. I've thought and prayed about authorities and what they should do and how to choose good ones. Do I have all the answers? Absolutely not. So that's a thing.

Anyway. Today is/was Election Day. The president was reelected. Is he perfect? Nope, not in the slightest. Would the other option have been more perfect? Meh.

A new or old president isn't going to fix the world. There is no perfectly right or wrong man or woman to lead this country.

Today I was talking with some co-workers about who they would have voted for (ok, the truth comes out, I never got around to getting an absentee ballot). We didn't all agree, but I think we could agree to see each others points and respect each others educated decisions. This was a far cry from the tumultuous divisions on my floor four years ago. In my opinion, that's progress.

Here's praying for wisdom, humility, and sensibility for the next four years.

Remember, Remember the 5th of November

So I have this big sister.
She born on this day 25 years ago.

She's pretty awesome.

So, she's almost exactly 2 years older than me, the perfect distance apart for her to try everything first and for me to follow close behind.

She taught me how to read when I was three, because she had already tested the waters.
She played the slightly harder part on our piano duets, because she started first.
She consistently found the best books and music.
She led the way on most bike trips to the library and candy store.
She shared her paper route with me.

She turned 16 before I did (funny how that works) and we would go on road trips to see her friends in Grand Rapids who she so generously shared with me. I remember one trip where we got energy drinks (and I counted how many stars there are on Rockstar Energy Drinks... no, I do not remember), and we saw a bus trailing a parachuting army man behind it, a la Napoleon Dynamite. Nice.

Speaking of sharing, once we had boyfriends with the same name. Don't worry, they were different people.
Sheesh.

Since we worked at the same Farm Market for most of high school, we had to mix things up. We worked in different departments and I remember a day or a week when we wrote cheesy song lyrics on order pads and posted them for the other. I still have one that says "Say you'll share with me one love, one lifetime. Sister, that's all I ask of you." Yes please.

Stories like these... I could go on forever. Playing Little Women with the neighbors, the time she made me drink Orange Juice and Milk mixed together, visits to her dorm room in college... it's a long list.

Still, even without the stories, it's important to note how important she is. She is a huge part of the reason I love learning, she taught me how to read, which is more or less English related. She took a chance and moved out of the country after college and is not attending a ridiculously prestigious Law School. She is encouraging and positive and intelligent, and is a humungous part of who I am today.

Sorry, it's not all about me. It's about her, and how incredibly thankful I am that God in all his wisdom put her and I in the same family. I'm sad to miss this birthday, but I know there'll be many more. Besides, despite the distance, we'll always be sisters, right?

Sister... Happy Birthday. I love you more than words.

  

Hearts

It's been a busy week. We had exams, we need to get ready for next quarter, we need to finish this quarter, everything has been all up in the air the past few weeks with testing and days off and retreats... I guess you could say it's been a busy month. Actually, now that I think about it, I suppose you could say it's been a busy school year. There is always SOMETHING more that could be being done.

About a month ago, there was an opportunity to go to an orphanage and hang out for the afternoon. I didn't go because I was too busy. I don't remember what weekend that was, but probably I ended up spending a good deal of time on things other than work even though I had enough work to fill up the weekend. This is, embarrassingly enough, something that happens often.

Anyway, when the opportunity came around again this month, I assumed (silly) I'd have everything done by the weekend and wouldn't have anything to do... the perfect time to go hang out with some small children.

MMMRRRNNNPPPP. (That is the sound of an incorrect buzzer. Ask me to demonstrate sometime.)

Anyway. Perfect time, right? Until this week happened and everything took longer and more things became due and I tried to have a social life and suddenly it's Friday and I have more work than I've ever had in my life. Great.

I can't back out on the orphanage thing because there are only 4 of us going and we're splitting a bus and I've already committed. So I stay up late last night and get up early this morning and grudgingly go.

Was it the best experience of my life? Did I see God or was my heart deeply moved by those kids? Honestly, probably not. It was fine, good, whatever. I gave piggy-back rides and combed and pony-tailed the hair of an adorable three year old. But mostly I just felt ok. Which is ok. But not mind-blowing or life changing.

However, on the bus back... I was thinking. It's generally too hilly and curvy for me to read or work on the bus, so I had some time to look out the window and think.

Yesterday I spent about 6 hours getting to the mall and hanging out with people and seeing James Bond. Thursday I spent a good chunk of my evening getting dinner with some friends. Wednesday I saw people who I really like a lot at Bible Study. Tuesday two of my favorite people in Honduras were over. Monday... I might have probably worked on Monday, but that was after going to the post office and grocery store.

One suppon a time I had a conversation with this boy about tithing, and putting your money where your heart is. It also turned into a conversation about gift giving and relationships and a lot of other things, but it's one of those things that keeps coming back to me.

I mean, this isn't really money related, but it's definitely time related. I'm willing to give up sleep and productivity to see people and get out. It's important to me, so I'll rarely say no. But service-y things? Youth group? Orphanage trips? I get so wishy-washy about having the time to do them.

And I have to wonder, is it because I don't feel I get much out of them? Is the whole point of my life my gratification? Where is my heart? What is it doing?

I went to an orphanage today. Honestly, my life didn't change that much. I didn't get much out of it.

But maybe it wasn't all about me, anyway.

On being the woman I want to be

Tonight a ran through a crowded mall.

This is silly, and probably not remotely grown up. Yes, I know. But this was also exhilarating and thrilling and excited and risky, at least a little bit. It felt like something some super brave and quirky character in a move (think Zooey Deschanel) would do.

Now, I love my life. I don't mind me most the time, although we have our moments. But I'd be lying if I said I felt like I was already the person I'd like to be or that I'm not still developing. That's life, yo. I understand that growing up, growing wiser, and making progress is a process.

Still, tonight was a good reminder that maybe there are times you just have to go for it. Maybe that's silly. But I ran around a mall tonight. What did you expect?