A complaint for the ages

I know I've led a semi-privileged life. Aside from the brief period when Joey and I were both unemployed, I've never gone hungry. I've never been (really) homeless, even though I don't have my own home right now. I tended to outgrow my snow boots every winter as a child, but have never gone without shoes, even if they were the wrong size. I rarely received the toys I wanted, but I wanted books more, and I was filthy rich when it came to kid lit. School came easily to me for the most part, and when math became too difficult my parents were able to get me a tutor for a short time. I didn't have a lot of what the world thought was necessary for happiness, but I had enough. My family loved me, I had a few good friends, and it was enough.

But I'm in a strange period of life now. This in-between-ness. I have enough... for now. And just for right now. The future is coming at me fast and I don't know what I'm going to do when it arrives. I just know that what I have now, which is enough for right now, won't be enough for later.

I miss my clothes. Maybe that sounds stupid, but I can't tell you how frustrating it is to walk between seasons and know that I own a coat, a really nice one, but I can't get to it. I also have lots of nice "professional" clothes but when I had an interview last month I didn't have anything. I had to improvise. I miss my blouses and my nice shoes and my winter boots and all of my many pairs of warm socks.

I have bought more socks in the last month than I've bought in the last year, simply because I cannot access my sock collection. It's a nice collection, too.

I miss my books. I brought only three books with me on the trip out to Seattle. This complaint is not about having enough reading material (I mean, I could always buy more, right? Or borrow some.) It is about the comforting presence of my own beloved books, the sacredness of their weathered pages and illicitly written-in margins.

I miss the treasure trove of coffee mugs Joey and I kept. It's strange to only have four mugs to my name. Two I bought at a thrift store out of necessity, and two I inherited from my grandmother's house.

On that note, I miss my grandmother. This is possibly a strange place to mention such news, but she passed away in late September. She was 92. I have no hard feelings about her passing--she led a good life. She filled us up with her love and wisdom. My grief is soft, like a blanket. I miss her because she was wonderful and warm and she loved me. I think perhaps her greatest gift to me was that she received my love for her so willingly. She wrote fondly of my artistry and appreciated every picture I drew for her, every card I sent her, every doodle I might have scribbled. She soaked it up. I suppose that's a grandma's job.

I miss my desk. I have a "new" one now ($5 at Goodwill) and it has its own drawers, but the surface area isn't as big. I also miss all my office supplies. I miss my white board calendar and my hot glue gun and my stash of fancy markers. I have a stash of less fancy markers now--and by less fancy I really mean they are just terrible markers. Just the worst.

I miss my church and my friends in Waukegan. I miss holding hands and standing in a circle with all my CNC friends, singing "I Need You to Survive" and wondering at the double meaning. I needed them to survive for their own sake. I needed them for my own survival. I still do.

And I miss my dog. I miss the quiet moments when she would rest her big floppy head on my feet. I miss her warm little body against mine in the bed. I felt her loss most painfully the first cold morning here in Renton. How she used to love naptime with me on a chilly day. She would be so happy snuggled under the blanket for an hour or so. She wouldn't squirm or grumble, she just pressed herself into my chest and sighed contentedly in that way that a dog sighs with their whole body.

But of course, missing things doesn't mean I'm unhappy.

Goodness gracious. I am so happy. I am so sad, and so happy, at the same time.

All at once my heart is so light, and yet so burdened. There is such joy at what has been restored to me and such heavy sadness at what I've lost. All at once.

If I had not come home when I did, I never would have been able to say goodbye to my grandma. I couldn't have painted her one last picture or held her hand. The last thing she said to me was, "I love you," and I remember that. I remember her face when she said it. I wouldn't have that memory if I wasn't here. I couldn't tell you the last thing she said to me, or when it was.

If I had not come home when I did, I would feel her death more intensely. I have spent many years being absent for funerals and memorials and it is pointedly awful. It is so isolating. Death is so much more ominous and somehow haunting when it is unapproachable.

I am glad to be here, home, to have my goodbyes. I'm glad to help plan the memorial and wade through the ocean of photographs that embody my grandparents' lives. I'm glad to be able to support my mama and be the daughter I've always wanted to be but couldn't, because I was too far away.

This seems like a list of complaints. It is, but it isn't. It's just the way my life is right now. These are simply facts. I am so happy, and so sad, and so excited for the future, but so anxious.

And the most beautiful thing is that God is sitting with me in all of it. He holds my hand when I drown in the photographs and sticker collection at grandma's house. He gives me sleep when I am reminded, yet again, that I can't say goodnight to my dog because she's gone. He does not expect me to only see the good in life, but doesn't want me to see only the bad. He does not expect me to toss off the life he helped me build in Illinois, nor does he wish for me to drown in grief. He allows me to be in the middle, between feelings, between stages, between periods of having and not having enough.

Having him with me, in darkness and light, is the greatest privilege of all.

Tis the Season

At the end of every year there is a burning light, and throughout each month the distance from that light becomes less and less as we trundle towards it. When we reach the end, the world is dark--we have passed through sunrise, daylight, and starlit nights, and the flame is nearly gone. We blow it out or watch it fade just in time. Somewhere on the horizon someone strikes another match, another flame blazes into the darkness, and we start over again.

But for me, this year, I never seemed to get any nearer to the light. Despite how I anxiously scrambled toward its glow, it was snuffed out before I got a chance to reach it. When this happens, reaching the next light is rather impossible. It hasn't been lit. When this happens, there is a great deal of wandering in the dark without any guidance or sense of direction, and we may not even see the next light when it is lit because we get lost.

If this sounds familiar or resonates with you somehow, there's a chance you've experienced depression the same way I have.

I have written, albeit briefly, about my depression a handful of times on this blog. I prefer not to talk about it on this platform because in spite of the decreasing amount of stigma surrounding the issue, there are still individuals who are not "safe" people to tell. There is the person who once told my eighth grade English class in a reprimanding tone, "Happiness is a choice." In addition, there are still people who will respond to another's depression with comments like, "It could be worse," and to add to their blithe statements, will often give examples of people who have it worse.

In any case, this post is not written for those people.

This post is written, first of all, for the people like me: The people who get it, who have been there in the dark too. However, it's also for the people who may have stood back and been confused by my irregular temperament. It is for those who were shocked by aggressive words or ignorant statements, by my impulsive actions or dramatic reactions, or even periods of what looks like laziness. If I seemed overly sad about something you thought was insignificant, if I was so excited about something I appeared agitated and ill-composed, or if you ever thought that my behavior was out of character--this year, or any year--it is likely because of depression.

I am not going to apologize for my feelings. They were real to me, even if they weren't realistic. I am only going to apologize if my behavior caused pain, confusion, or distress of any kind. You don't need to let me know if I hurt or disappointed you; just know that I am sorry, and I hope you will forgive me.

I have been able to cope with this, most days. I have a fairly reliable support system and people who will talk me through things. Sometimes the support system is there before I do something regrettable, but sometimes they are simply there for me in the backlash. And for the last several years I have not been overwhelmed by the depression that was so terribly consuming during high school and the year after. I felt relatively stable until this year, and following my surgery this February I realized that things were slipping out of place. I had a stressful spring and summer, and over the fall months it worsened until it suddenly came to a peak and I realized that for the first time in my life...

...this is real, and even with the proper support system in place, it is not going away. 

As a teenager the tumultuous experience of depression could have been blamed on an awful boyfriend or ridiculous hormones. As an adult I am distinctly aware that this is not how things should be. I have walked toward the light at the end of this year and watched it go out, and I know I do not deserve to wander aimlessly through the darkness.

Happiness is not a choice. Happiness is not even the goal. Happiness is a temporary, fleeting thing--and it is not the thing I want.

Yes, other people have it "worse," but that does not mean anyone has the right to dismiss my pain or decide that I am the antagonist in my own story.

I have taken steps to find healing and new ways to manage my depression, but it will be an extremely difficult first week. (My doctor essentially told me I should expect to feel varying degrees of awful.) That being said, I do not have time for those who refuse to respect the severity of this issue, or for those who won't acknowledge how imperative it is that I receive the support for which I am asking.

So I am taking a break this week.  From the people and situations which have hurt me, knowingly or not. From the people who don't understand. From the mindless, desensitized, media-driven world.

From Sunday, December 13th through Saturday December 19th I will not be on Facebook. You can feel free to text or call me (only non-advice conversations), and I will do my best to respond to messages on Facebook. There's a chance I will use Instagram and I might be present here on the blog (both automatically send updates to FB) but I haven't decided yet. Mostly I just want to avoid the senseless scrolling and the following fogginess.

And there you have it. Even writing this made me anxious... I worry that expressing my feelings and being vulnerable here will somehow have terrible consequences. Anyways. Thanks for taking the time to read this. I would appreciate any prayers you can offer, and encouraging notes/messages/calls/etc. are definitely accepted. As I said before, I'll do my best to respond if I'm feeling up to the task. Hopefully I'll be back in a week with a new light. :)


-K

The Soul Who Seeks Him

The future is always unknown. As humans we would like to believe that everything our heart desires will come to us when we see fit, that the routines we develop and the lives we build will suit our whims for predictability or spontaneity. We know that the sun will rise tomorrow and the earth will make its turns and somewhere rain will fall and somewhere else it will be hot and people will be born and they will die and in general, life will just go on as it always has.

And we would like to say with complete certainty that what we want to happen will also happen. We say, "I will go to this college" and "I will marry a rich man who supports my career" and "All of my children will play the saxophone." Those are the big things we want. The big dreams, the foundations for the other things in life. We also say, "Tomorrow I will get an oil change" and "I'm going to read that new bestseller" and "I think I'll go to New York for Christmas."

We plan all these things, big and small, tedious and thrilling, the mundane and the marvelous, day in and day out because we like to think we're in control. But we're not.

You might not get into that college. You might marry a different, less-wealthy, less-supportive person. Your kids (if you have them at all) might want to play the kazoo instead, or be stand-up comedians. And you might crash your car on your way to get the oil changed, you might be too busy to read that book, and maybe your kazoo-playing children all get the flu at Christmas so you can't go to New York.

And I say all this because it's true for me as well. I make plans. I have dreams. I intend to read the books and I even buy the books and they just sit there, waiting. I buy the Groupon for a cheap oil change and forget about it. I wanted to be having kids by now. And I'm not.

As I sat in my obgyn's office this afternoon she explained how I'll probably need 6 months of therapy, and there will be regular biopsies, and that I only have a 5% chance of getting cancer at this point. She said the therapy would likely be in pill form, so there wouldn't be many visits to the doctor's office. Relief washed over me, and then I suddenly realized in a real-world kind of way that I might not be in the same state in a few months. We're waiting to hear about a job back in Washington, but back when we applied I didn't know any of this was going to happen.

When we applied in December, I didn't know I had abnormal cells of any kind, let alone pre-cancerous ones. I didn't know I would be going in for loads of bloodwork and procedures and then a surgery. I had no idea that I would need months of therapy.

I asked my doctor, "What if I'm not here?"

She laughed and said I would simply have to get a referral and continue therapy somewhere else.

I have all these decisions that I might have to make. Or might not. I don't know.

But I do know that God has a plan for all of it. It might be different than my plan, if I had a plan, which I don't. Even if I had one, his would be better. Even if I had one, his would be wiser. Even if I had one, his would be the one I would prepare for and wait for.

So that's what I'll do. I'll wait.

Surgery, Part 1: All of the Questions and None of the Answers

I'm going on an adventure!

It's about 3:30, just a little more than 24 hours after my surgery. Apparently it's the norm to schedule a surgery at one time but not have it until a much, much later time. In my case it was only an hour and a half later, and I didn't even notice--I was that overwhelmed. And if you're interested, you can read all about it below. A new experience calls for a new story, and I'm not letting this one go to waste.

We got to the hospital at 11:15 and a friendly old man told us to go up the elevator. I was greeted by three good-humored grandma-type nurses who seemed to be wearing an exorbitant amount of sparkly brooches and pins on their scrubs. They sent me over to Kris, the registration nurse, who kindly made jokes with my nervous husband and then put on my ID bracelet.

Less than five minutes later we were ushered through some enormous doors to the pre-op area. I put all my stuff in a locker--immediately regretting that I left my chapstick behind--and then got to step onto the industrial-sized scale. It gently beeped out my weight in kilograms, which was very kind of it, because I don't know what those numbers translate to in pounds. I also got to tell the pre-op nurse my height, which has become really fun for me since I recently realized I'm actually 5'3 and not 5'2.

Once in "my room" I was asked to put on the "gown" (aka "high-necked bag dress designed to choke you AND show the world your bum at all times"). I asked if I could keep my socks on and she said, "Oh, we've provided you with fancy socks." I actually clapped and said, "Oh, yay!" In retrospect, I think I was just excited about being able to wear socks, but it definitely sounded like the "fancy" hospital socks were the highlight of my day.

They weren't. But I'll get there.

So I put on the gown and the fancy socks and got into the bed with the pre-heated blankets from heaven. (I haven't mentioned it in a while, but it's winter here in Chicago. That means it's 16 degrees outside, before the hellish windchill.) I sat there fiddling on my Kindle and talking to Joey for about thirty minutes before there began a constant barrage of nurses, anesthesiologists, more nurses, surgical nurses, and more nurses asking me the same questions over and over again. They put two more paper bracelets on my wrists indicating I had seasonal allergies and was a fall risk because I would be put under general anesthesia.

During most of those questions there was one unfortunate nurse trying to get my IV in. Because I had the blood tests done just yesterday she had a lot of trouble, ended up poking me twice, and had to sit on the floor to get the right angle because there were so many people in my room. 

But that wasn't the most annoying thing. I'm accustomed to my difficult veins. What I'm not used to is being ignored by the people who are supposedly listening to me and writing down my answers. I told four people today that I did not have diabetes or PCOS. (Look it up, I'm not wasting time explaining it.) You would think that by this point, if I had diabetes, I would have told someone. I would have told my surgeon, the nurse that called me on Monday, and the first nurse to check me in. Doctors and other medical professionals tend to assume I'm diabetic because of one of my medications, and because--well, I'm not exactly a runway model. The medication is often used for the 'betes and PCOS, but those are not the reasons I take it!!! I actually laughed when one of the nurses assumed I had it and she became haughty and offended, like she knew better than me.

So, for the rest of the world, let me be abundantly clear: I do not have diabetes of any kind, even the ridiculous "pre-diabetes" and I am not "in danger" of having diabetes. You can look at me and make assumptions based on my size, but you will be wrong. I'm actually a pretty healthy person, despite your judgments. The next time a medical professional assumes that I have it (or PCOS) I may actually flip a lid--or maybe I'll just eat a cookie to prove them wrong, or something.

Anyways. Between all the nurses and technicians coming in we were also visited by the hospital chaplain so that we could sign the POA (Power of Attorney) papers.

The first good sign: His name was Tim, and he had a daughter named Katherine.

Obviously he introduced himself, and asked for our names. My first job was to name "an agent" to make decisions for me. I'm sure you can all guess who I picked. After that we had to talk about what I wanted to happen if I was put on life support for any reason. I'm not going to tell you what I decided because, well, first of all it's weird, and second of all it's none of your business. This conversation was daunting and surreal, in spite of the fact that Joey and I have had it before. It's just different, when you're there, with the IV in one arm and the other hand signing away your life, essentially.

The chaplain got to know us a little bit. We talked about Trinity and why we were in Illinois (people always ask that after they realize our phone numbers are from Washington) and I mentioned how ironic it was that he was a pastor named Timothy with a daughter named Katherine, when I'm named Katherine and have a pastor/father named Timothy.

And then the chaplain asked if he could pray for me. I had been hoping he would. He told us the basics of the prayer--for peace and comfort, safety and success in the procedure and all that. Then he asked if there were any other people or issues I'd like him to pray for.

So, this is the part where I get to tell you the back story while continuing to tell this story. This is the part when I tell you why I was there, why I had the surgery, did the blood work, endured the torture of answering five questions a million different ways for an hour, why I wore the "gown" and actually let a crazy nurse MEASURE how much I peed before I was allowed to leave the hospital.

But you'll just have to wait until the next post to find out. :)

Resolved

Happy New Year, world. I promise it's a good one. Or, at least, we'll find out.

As one year closes and another begins I am full of separated thoughts. First off, I dropped the ball with those Thanksgiving posts. Sorry about that? We had an odd Thanksgiving which involved someone else's car and then driving back home in the middle of the night to avoid a snowstorm. Second, I am overwhelmed with odd reflections on 2014 and also odd reflections on this whole "holiday season" in general.

Did you know it's been 15 years since Y2K? Fifteen years since that period when we stored jugs of water and canned goods in basements, and people built fallout shelters "just in case." I don't recall many details from Y2K--I was in 5th grade, after all. I remember the Christmas card I got from Ms. Trudeau (my favorite teacher, ever) and the knowledge that "Y2K" might make all the electricity go out in the entire world. Otherwise, I was happily oblivious. I wasn't afraid of the mysterious Y2K and I probably went about my Christmas break as usual by opening presents and playing outside and making some childish resolutions in January.

Ah, resolutions. As children we are taught that the New Year is a time to make these so-called resolutions, to make an alteration in the way we live. This concept is usually pushed more by teachers than parents, because those New Year resolution art projects are just so gosh darn cute. We stop learning about it around the time we become irritable/irritating teenagers. However, for at least a few years during elementary school we are persuaded to believe that every January we should find something to change about ourselves.

Yeah. That's kind of messed up.

It's not messed up because children are perfect--they are human, and therefore imperfect. It's not messed up because teachers shouldn't have the right to offer kids time for self-correction and reflection--they do, in fact, have that right, in many aspects. It's messed up because it's arbitrary, and leads us to the assumption that January 1st is prime time for changing your life, instead of changing it during some more appropriate moment.

From a teacher's perspective, it's also messed up because there is no follow-through. We give the kids this assignment, the "pick something that's wrong with you and decide to make it better" project, and maybe we talk about it for a few days. But for the remainder of the school year and into the next, no one dares mention a resolution.

And that is how kids are lead to say, "I'm going to do all of my homework before the weekend!" (not knowing that in a few years your homework will reach its deadly claws into your precious weekend.) They say, "I'll be nice to my sister." (Such a specific, reachable goal.) New Years resolutions done wrong (which is most of the time) teach kids to be idealistic and then forget their ideals, because, hey, no one is going to ask you about this for another year.

I'm not saying this because resolutions are bad. They're not! But they can be so much more than some blithe statement you make each January. Even if it's not a blithe statement--even if it's a statement you really mean--it's unlikely you'll remember it past March. People take themselves far too seriously when they make these resolutions but some reason it's inconsequential to give up the decision you made under such strain. If you make a resolution, don't take yourself too seriously, and try to be aware when you give up.

One last thought before I go. Anybody ever think about how a resolution usually signifies the end of something, and we tend to make resolutions at the beginning of the year? It's almost like saying, "Let's get started so we can get finished!" I have literally never been aware of this before.

So, my resolutions this year, which I will not take too seriously, and will probably forget half of by the end of March, are the following:

-Read more books
-Play less Tetris
-Drink more coffee
-Clean out my inbox more often (532 unread e-mails and counting...)
-Be more patient
-Smile at people
-Get more sleep at night (so, less daytime napping)
-Make more art
-Write more poems
-Sing (loudly, and often)
-Cuddle with my dog
-Love my husband (even when he buys me a box of chocolates and eats the only piece left in the box that I wanted to eat because I was saving the best for last.)
-Be introverted
-Be extroverted
-Be peaceful
-Be FEARLESS

In any case, here's a toast to the old year and the new one. This makes for an incredible life.

A Decade of Deciding

This is the third year in a row I've taken fall photos at the Wright Woods. I figure since I just wrote about fall I could write about this place, but I've got something else on my mind. It's the sort of thing that happens to me when I think about "how many years it's been" since something. 

And of course, I realized, 10 years ago I was 16 and it was fall and a whole mountain of memories crumble down and crush me. Right now I am this 26-year-old person dealing with all these un-26-year-old issues because when they happened, I didn't even know what they meant. Or if they meant anything at all.

Ten years ago, in 2004, I turned 16. I was a sophomore in high school. I had a "surprise" birthday party. I went on my second missions trip. That same year I decided my favorite color was green, and no longer orange. One of my best friends moved to Texas. I went on my first real date, with a guy who actually liked me. I was accused of being a lesbian by the new girl at school. I was a TA for the biology teacher. I met another best friend, and began a relationship based on a shared love of music and chocolate muffins. The new Relient K CD came out. I had one of the leads in the school play. My brother-in-the-NAVY (which was how I referred to him back then) got to come home for Christmas. I had really long hair. I started wearing make-up more often. I read a lot of Shakespeare. I wore a lot of scarves. Took a lot of photos with my parents' old Nikon. My dog was born, and was given to me the week before Christmas. The guy I was in-like with, the guy I went on my first real date with, actually became my boyfriend for a whole month and six days. (He then dumped me, the second time that year. We dated for 11 days when I was 15.) 

And it's been ten long years but some of these things still steal my breath from my lungs--as if the impact of them still shocks me, and I still can't believe it all happened. I still can't believe I was that person for a whole year and, believe it or not, it was the one year in high school I did not find myself faced with any serious depression. I had bad days, of course. But overall? Sixteen was incredible.

You must understand, however, that I had to decide every single day to make it incredible. I am never going to tell you that happiness is a choice. Aside from the fact that "happiness" is overrated and inconstant, depression is more complicated than choosing how to feel. But I somehow managed for an entire year to simply tuck it away. It takes a certain strength to take your sadness, your depression, your anxiety and fear, and put those things in your pocket while you go about your business. These days I'm pretty good at it, but I couldn't begin to explain how I do it currently and certainly couldn't tell you how I did it then when my brain wasn't even fully formed.

But I can tell you what it felt like.

When I made a new friend, I felt like I was "enough." Having finally reached a healthy level of confidence, I was able to reach out and introduce myself to people. If they didn't like me, I wasn't crushed--and that was difficult to do in a school with only 150-ish students. If something was truly upsetting, I knew I had people to talk to. 

When I chose a new favorite color, it was a near-physical manifestation of moving away from the angst of being 15. I still loved orange, and still do today, but at 15 it was like my armor. I had this hideous orange sweatshirt and imagined myself protected from the world by it. It both drew attention to me and protected me by setting me apart. At some point I must have realized I didn't need it. 

When I foolishly fell in love, my whole world did not tilt on its axis or cause me to stumble. He was a friend, who became a boyfriend, who became a friend again. It wouldn't be the last time we tried being "in love," but the time when I was 16, it didn't break me apart. When it was over, I was sad, but felt no real loss because I knew had better support and better friendships in other places.

Essentially, I was not overcome by my weaknesses, but rather I discovered my own strength and was not afraid to use it. I didn't fear it would leave me in a moment, or a day. I was not anxious about people seeing my strength and calling me aggressive, or arrogant, or obnoxious. I chose to show it off. I didn't need to hide under a baggy sweatshirt, or an ugly color. 

I have been many versions of myself in the past 10 years. And even though, when I see this girl, I ask myself, "Who is she? What makes her so strong?" I know I can still find her in me. I can decide to use her strength at any moment.