forever.

what would have been was wheeled by me today.

by a lady in black pants, ironed clean with pointy creases. she wore click-y shoes that tap tap tapped as she wheeled that little cart down the hallways.

that little cart carrying what would have been.

that little cart carrying
belly laughs
drools
diaper blow-outs
first crawls
first steps
first words
first day of school.

that little cart carrying
hugs.
and nighttime snuggles.
and will you read me a story.
fort building
cookie baking
dress up

that little cart carrying
slobbery kisses
childhood wishes
first big game
report cards
knowledge
excitement
potential.

that little cart carrying
a graduation day
a wedding day

that little cart carrying
seeds of future generations

the lady in black tap tap tapped down the hallway to the staff elevators. where she pushed the button & took what would have been downstairs.

to the place that no one talks about.

what would have been died.
yesterday, maybe the day before.
her heart just stopped beating.
no one knows why.
she was ready to be born.
her due date was tomorrow.

for all that encompasses those little people i've been spending so much time bringing into the world lately, potential was lost. and i've been chanting Psalm 139 in my head all day. because Someone, Somewhere has to make sense of all this. and has to explain, in His own time, the human disconnect between what is & little what would have been.

losing it.

"what, you feel like you aren't happy?"

"no. no, that's not it. i just...i just feel like i've lost my JOY."

somewhere along the journey, i lost it. i must have ripped it off and thrown it in the hazardous materials can or washed it down the drain with tears or blood or aptly named hospital-goo that seems to peel off of me at the end of the day. regardless of the method, i'm feeling like i lost it.

i'm not good at losing things. i am most certainly good at getting lost. the losing part? notsomuch.

i delivered 4 babies today, 16 total on the Labor & Delivery ward--one of them was completely independent. my first one ever without an attending breathing down my shirt. sort of like a first kiss, i briefly tasted that sweet sensation & got red-in-the-face over what i was doing. i'll probably never forget it. but when it was done, it was done. i was all excited and used a superfulous number of exclamations in my text message shortly thereafter...but then it was done--the baby was out, the mama was clean & i moved on. i let the womb-miracle, first-breath, radiant-mama surround me & then swirl down the drain. i left that room-of-excitement, drudging in the fact that the Labor & Delivery floor was full--everyone around me basked in the miracles of new life &cute! new! babies!

yesterday, i came home from work to find jon graciously working in installing a new back door. the old ones let in a draft-something-horrible & it was time to invest in quality new boundaries to keep the outside outside. in my flurry of keys-on-the-table-dinner-wasn't-made-i-had-a-long-day-ness, i lost it. and somewhere in the midst of making 7 pans of shepherd's pie & welcoming our three overnight guests, the joy burned up in the oven.

and i've noticed, too, that over the course of the week, bitterness & unappreciation have welled up inside of me. i've avoided the phone. i've stayed off facebook. i quit smiling at strangers, they probably don't care anyway. i stopped enjoying the blogs that usually make me swell with inspiration. i pushed away my Bible. instead of listening to sermons or finding solice in silence or studying or staying put, i've ceased a method a restless wandering. i started taking longer showers and making bigger i'll get to it later piles and bins and boxes. most certainly, i lost it.

i'm not sure where. or why. or how, really. but all i know is that foosh! and its gone.

i chose to sit on my rump yesterday instead of working out. i chose to eat 9 (or 29) Whopper Easter Eggs instead of dusting. i chose to avoid deadlines & studying & looming to-do's.

and the laundry waits--jon feels like he's drowning in it. the dishes wait, feta & balsalmic dried like glue to the dinner plates from last night. the relational wells wait--dry, cracking, & abandoned because of my deliberate choosings. and then the sleeping waits--my eyes &brain & heart awake at the seemingly horrible choices i've made throughout the day.

should i have done something different? in that delivery? in that c-section? was it the right lab? the right medicine? the right evidence to treat--or not? did i say the right thing? at the right time? in the right way? to be politically correct? generally accepting? showing Christ's love & grace &humility? was i there at the right time? and am i the right person?

and the question marks swirl--tattooing my sleepy daydreams with canyons of unanswered questions.

those eight pounds?
that laundry?
the budget?
the garden. and canvas. and dust. and sheets. and gifts. and cards.
and.
and.
and.

and suddenly the joy in the morning, in the hot showers & warm tea, couch snuggles & sleeping in--suddenly that JOY slips through the cracks. invisibly through my open grasp. and i realize, six months into 30-hour-hospital-call, that it is just gone.

I think the reason that the process of medical training is so stressful for people is because those who go into medicine in the first place usually try their hardest to do their best, no matter how difficult the circumstances. And it can be difficult for us when we feel like our best, for whatever reason, is not enough. More than the fatigue or the workload or the ridiculous life-and-death stress of working in the hospital, far and away the hardest part for me was feeling like my best was not enough. Of course, my efforts for the most part were "enough" (at least by most quantifiable metrics and some intangible ones), and though it never felt like enough,

I tried my best, then as I do now.

As we all do.

- Michelle Au, The Underwear Drawer (blog)

someday, the sun will come out. (tomorrow, tomorrow). the garden will be planted. the laundry will be done. the canvas will be painted. and someday, i'll look back &realize that this is all in the plan. these long days and longer nights, these feelings of lost &guilt of stolen joys. and someday, i'll snuggle on the couch and enjoy the hot tea & rosemary shortbread & rain on the windows &charts in my inbox. and i'll embrace the wrinkles & gray hairs that stress has painted lately. and maybe then, maybe in that someday, i'll realize that every ounce of me was poured into my days. and it will be okay. and it will be enough.

in the meantime, we just keep trying.

seasons.

It was Ash Wednesday last week. Did you know that? I forgot, conveniently, I think. I was, once again, at work. Which is where it seems I always am these days--& where I have been hanging my head, laying my head, & missing my bed for the past 7 months.

I stepped into our back yard a couple of days ago, mostly to check out the side yard & throw daydreams of a patio & new BBQ at the muddy weed patch & noticed that little sprouts had begun to emerge from their frozen cave of winter. Irises, I think. Its beginning to be spring. Did you know that?

And tonight, just a couple days after last fall when we wound the clock-hands backwards, we wind them forward again, signifying the glorious return of something past 4:30pm: daylight.

Most days this winter, I’ve been awake before the sunrise & home well after it’s tucked itself in for the night. A senior resident told me that I’d rejoice the first day I walked to my car after work & saw those last few rays of sun before the moon rocked the sky. REJOICE I did. It’s been a long winter. And a challenging one; one in which I’ve questioned why I started this journey (again), one of growth & discipline & reprimand & emotion (okay, there might have been tears) & exhaustion. And of all the things this winter has been, looking back & sweeping away the smog of bitterness that I’ve let settle in my personal bubble, I realize that it has also been good.

I read this last week.

And I wanted to shout AMEN! at the computer. Because I hope she is right. I hope it does get better. I hope the workdays get shorter & the sunlight stays longer. And I hope to spend more nights in my own bed, beside the man I love. I hope to keep liking what I’m doing, even when I’m not loving it.

I know this is a season. One where I seldom have time to write thank you notes. Or take pictures. This is a season where creativity is sacrificed for sleep, instead of the artist in me who thinks it should be the other way around. This is a season where the holidays fly, Ash Wednesday is slept away, & the thought of one more cafeteria meal makes me want to barf. A season where my jeans are tighter because of the eight pounds I’ve gained & the yoga mats downstairs aren’t showing as much wear as they should be. All in all, it’s a season of “hold on”, of “maybe next time”, & of the dreaming of the Light at the end of the tunnel.

She said I’ll look back on this time with fondness.

And you know what? I think she’s right.

For all the complaining about West Virginia I did, for all the hours I spent banging my head against the wall (literally), I really did enjoy it. It, too, was a season. Certainly not free of frustrations or disillusions, but also full of new memories, new joys, & newly discovered sustenance. I was ready to move on, as I should have been--& I did, gratefully.

And now, the tides have changed. I’m readying myself, once again, to dig in--& really, to keep digging. The long hours. The lone calls. The demanding insurance companies. The misunderstood patients. And the learning. One of these days, I’ll be ready to move on from here, too--& I will.

In the meantime, I’m taking small steps. In noticing—the new spring blooms, the cleaning Jon did while I was gone all day; in embracing—the employment challenges, the long duty hours, the hospital call nights; & in remembering—why I’m here, who I am, and Whom I belong to.

What sort of season are you facing?

wind.

it's an odd wind lately. like an out of place Chinook blowing the autumn leaves...or an arctic breeze whisping through sweaty summer strands. and i'm not sure how i feel about it. because of all the things winds can blow away, this one has brought a plague of disappointment.

 

i was talking to a friend this week. no one ever told us our twenties would be like this, we commented. 

not that "this" was ever that bad in the first place, but certainly the hope that college infused is slowly bleeding out--and this not-so-gentle breeze that came subtly in the night has suddenly found us bloodletting the hopes & dreams of the "this" that was supposed to be. and before i go on, i'll make it clear that we are blessed. us, personally, and us, as a whole in this country. we complain because of the excess--the excess cars to make pollution & food to make fat & groceries to make garbage. but all-in-all, we are blessed, indeed.

 

i think the mindset of "this" comes from something that we'd dreamed up that never came to be. our hearts wished, just like Cinderella said they should, but the dream never came true. and here we are, living in the perpetual world of real-life REM, frozen beyond Stage III of waking. Of course in sleep, our REM world renders us immobile--unable to run from the vivid bad guys or swim in the rising river. I guess the real life feels that way a little right now, too: frozen.

 

and its the disappointment that has invaded our hearts in the meantime, the bloodletting of our former hopes & dreams, the broken mirror & the drowning wish...

 

it's kind of hard, actually.

 

kind of hard to face the day when you didn't get chosen for the job or the school or role. kind of hard to face the moment when it seems just too big to handle; when the right decisions you made three months ago suddenly seem so wrong & when the prayers you prayed so hard were answered but seemingly in the wrong way alltogether. it sort of makes one wonder if the prayers we prayed so fervently at the beginning of it all were misdirected wantings. 

much of the time on most of these days, it is hard to see beyond the "this"--hard to see above the expectations, through the veil of now, and into the future. the uncertainty prevails in these hours and we find ourselves clinging. clinging to ourselves. to each other. to peanut butter & warm baths & candles & each other. 

oh, and jesus, too. 

which is what i haven't been so good about lately, the clinging--to the right things, the right One, at least. I've clung to my schedule, the lack of consistency. i've clung to my comfort foods--lately it is caramel kettle corn & apples + peanut butter (not together, of course). i've clung to my sleep. and my To Do List that never seems to get checked. most mornings, after i've battled half asleep with the idea of waking two hours early to work out & then face a 12-hour-work-day, after i've fallen asleep in the shower, i leave my dust-ridden Bible in a flurry of rushed. 

instead of clinging, i leave. 

we're all in the midst of transitions. the beautiful souls in our small group are battering down the hatches right alongside us, suffering their own afflictions of the disappointed "this". its an honor to be part of it all--the centering, the supporting, the living. i guess you could say i'm getting used to it all, the unpredictability of this new wind. and just like any weather pattern, the beauty & mystery of storms is that they roll. the winds will surely change. when exactly, none can be sure. 

in the meantime, we'll keep clinging. we'll keep facing the plagues of heartache, the winds of change, & the uncertain "this", certain that the "this" will soon become the "was".

holding hands.

They held hands.

Not in the way they used to, of course.

Her hair was curled—a white a-line bob. Crows feet framed her eyes. “He’s an ornery man,” she said. I wasn’t sure if the wrinkles were from years of joy or months of pain.

He gurgled.

And coughed.

And then tried to spit.

But that strong, 6-foot-2-inch man was no longer coordinated enough to even expectorate his own sputum. In more ways than one, he’d become a child again. Cooing. Gurgling. Pointing. Pulling at his gown, then her jacket, then the tubes and lines and electrode’s.

The words I imagine she once used in adoration toward the father of her children, words like “strong”, “handsome”, “helpful”, “leader” had turned into something entirely different.

“Isn’t he cute?”, she giggled, “…just adorable.”

And if I didn’t know better, I might have guessed she was talking about her grandchildren—the ones who never knew their grandfather for the strong, handsome, helpful leader he was.

It hit him hard about five years ago. And to everyone’s surprise, he made his way into the Emergency Room because he “just wasn’t feeling right.” He left with a new diagnosis: Severe Progressive Dementia, Alzheimer’s-type. Low-and-behold, the atrophy had started. Amyloid plaques & neurofibrillary tangles set up house. Then ever-so-slowly and almost instantly, her big, strong husband regressed.

He forgot her birthday.

And then their anniversary.

Eventually, he forgot her.

And that’s when the words changed. The world’s changed, too.

But still, they held hands.

She said no treatments. And he couldn’t move his right side. Paralyzed, both of them—one by a stroke & the other by the stinging pain of love. She filled out the bright green form:

NO INTERVENTIONS.

We disconnected the fluids. Took off monitor stickers that were so bothersome in the first place. The medicines were stopped, Hospice was started. And we waited. She waited. And he kept on grunting.

All the while, they held hands.

I saw those crows-feet again. And I knew. I knew they weren’t from pain. Or joy. Or even age.

They were from LOVE.

And it was then that I realized: love really is choosing the highest good for the other.

Even if sometimes, it means calling them cute, holding their hand, & letting them go…

in the meantime...

This might just be the year-that-the-blog-writer-got-sucked-into-the-hospital. Or not.

But gosh, these days it sure feels that way. Good thing? Sometimes.

So yes, in summary, I’ve been sucked into the hospital. Back in December, I was on OB catching babies & sewing up crotches (yes, I just wrote crotches on this G-rated space). And I realized about a week before Christmas when the cookies were coming in my the dozen & my scrubs were getting tighter that hey! Its Christmas next week! Which happened to be the exact same time I realized that hey! I haven’t bought any presents yet! Which, if you know my present-buying-one-year-in-advance-having-things-wrapped-by-November-obsession, it was so not me. But then again, I was nearing work hour 100 of that week…and barely remembered how to drive myself home after 26 hours on call…so all things considered, perhaps I wasn’t so out-of-it afterall.

And in the meantime, I do know that it is now January 21, 2011, today thankyouverymuch. I’ve only slightly re-entered humanity this month—don’t hold your breath, though, because I’ll be slipping away again into the venus fly trap called the hospital again for the next two months in just one short week.

Things at home? Well, ask Jon. He’s been totally amazing. Fixing up our house like Norm on This Old House. Doing laundry. Making dinner. Cleaning, even. Holy poop I’m  a lucky girl. And to top it all off, he still listens to me complain about work and time and unchecked-to-do-lists. He’s been awesome.

And me? Well, I’m just hanging on.

I hear this year, this intern year, is rough. And for the residents with kids & families & like, other real people to take care of, KUDOS to you. because I can barely find time to clip my toenails.

The truth is that this has been a reality-laden transition for me. I—me, my own self—has always been the manager of my time, the control freak with the calendar, the weirdo with the day-planner tucked sweetly under my wing. But this year? ALL OF THAT CHANGED. And suddenly I was finding my schedule—my DAY LONG LIFE SCHEDULE—in my mailbox at work. And next to it, my lecture schedule. And next to that my night-call schedule. And next to those, my evaluations and articles to read and prescription requests to refill from patients. And it was around mid-November when I finally had that holy crap moment that I realized: life has changed.

Me? I’m no longer in charge of my own time. And jon? He’s still awesome. And while we try to hang on in the  meantime; while I make more messes at home than I clean up, dirty more laundry than I clean, & eat more meals than I make, I’m learning slowly to accept the fact that I just have to get through it. no shortcuts. No easy-outs. Just holding hands. And wiping tears. And writing orders. And refilling prescriptions. And coming home to hugs from Jon. And falling asleep on the couch even before dinner is made. And just existing.

I have four months of call left for this year. Which means I have four more months to make it through long shifts. And erratic schedules. And long days and short nights and exhaustion and not seeing daylight. From now to then—then when I’m done & might be able to enjoy more than one afternoon off in the sunshine…I’m just holding on. I have a billion stories to share. A million things to pass along. Some hilarities in between.

We’ll get there…eventually.

And now if you’ll excuse me, I have deadlines to meet, patient charts to complete…and toenails to clip.  

playdates & dinosaurs.

we played dinosaurs for 20 minutes.
my leg fell asleep squatting on the hard tile floor.
his little red wagon had been wheeled out to the nurses station.
his room empty, dark, lonely.
his mom disappeared days ago.
she left him with a little dinosaur.

i made the dinosaur eat his toes.
and then he shared his socks with the plastic creature.

he asked for water.
i filled up a girly cup covered with silver sparkles.
this four-year-old boy didn't care.

he bounced balloons on my face.
we had a dinosaur fight.

the nurses wheeled his little red wagon back to room #253.
where he curled up, plastic dinosaur in hand.
and went to sleep, alone.

it was the best playdate i've had in months.

craziness.

so since this whole residency-thing started, i've felt a little...overwhelmed.

ehem.

that might be an understatement.

i've been wandering around the hospital, as one of 'those interns' (you know, the one you certainly don't want to be) with patient discharge summaries STAPLED TO MY BACK. the janitor ran after me in the hallway and asked if i mean for a packet of papers to be dangling from my sweater. good thing the elevator FULL OF PEOPLE didn't mention anything. that would have been embarassing.

seriously.

and although i'm handling it day-by-day, inside i'm a mess most of the time. the emotional breakdown has not yet approached but boy-howdy has it been close...

no tears have been shed in the making of this intern.

i confessed to jon tonight that i feel like my life is, once again, on hold. you know, come to think of it, this medicine adventure actually does require a lot of sacrifice. i was excited to learn before & just okay spending my days & nights cooped up in a little cabin in the middle of West Virginia. But now. now that he is home. now that we have a house. now that we have friends and wow, feel sort of --do i dare say it?--SETTLED, now i'm feeling the annoying stabs of this sacrifice.

certainly, don't get me wrong...i actually like what i'm doing. at 2:30 this morning when i was wandering the halls of the hospital, rummy & tired & trying to round on my last patients & discipline rambunctious teenagers that happened to think it was party-time, i whispered to myself, hey...this is kind of fun.

and it was.

i braved the 12-inches of new-fallen snow, and came home. after working 31 hours straight. made soup. and slept. until it was time for dinner. which is when i threw in the towel (literally) & we ordered a pizza. i plopped myself on the couch & painted my toenails... we watched Harry Potter while i caught up on emails & blogs. and in short, the night couldn't have been more perfect. more normal. more this-is-just-what-i-needed.

come to think of it, life right now is just-what-i-need. everyday, really. it is exhausting. i'm getting gray hairs. my dark circles around my eyes have been accessorized with a generous dose of pink eye over the last two weeks (stupid asthma kid who coughed in my face!!!). the dirty laundry piled up to explosive levels...and then was left in the washer too long so it soured. the leftovers have gone bad in the fridge. and my cleaning list has been covered in dust-bunnies. but this, right now, is right where God wants me. wants us.

and we're okay with that. 31-hour-call included.

psalm 139.

i volunteered to pick up a new patient. and, thinking it would be an easy add-on to my already bulging list, i picked her. or rather, she picked me.

i opened her chart to find a "doctor's orders" section already 1-inch thick. daunting. and while most patients are admitted for a miniature list of problems, hers spanned five pages & well-exceeded the longest five-paragraph essays i have in my repertoire.

crap.

while i likely should have welcomed such a learning opportunity, i did not. it wasn't for lack of interest, or rarity, or even compassion. mostly, it was because before i'd even met the patient, i already hated her problems. i might even surmise to say that i hated her.

i hated her rare genetic disorder--the one that could never be fixed & would make our efforts embarrasingly futile.
i decided i didn't like her parents, such selfishness they had keeping her alive all these years, trapped in a dying body.
i couldn't find the empathy for her delays, caused by genetic chromosomal abnormalities so severe that she would never walk, never talk, never communicate in an audible or interpretable way.
i was annoyed by all the "failures" listed next to her vital organs & processes: developmental failure, renal failure, liver failure. the first from her genes, the last from the 'food' we'd pumped into her veins, her PICC line, her stomach tube.
i was mad at God--wondering why he didn't just take her, quickly, painlessly; mad because we all had to watch her suffer.
and i was sickened by all this 'modern' medicine that we so proudly claimed was helping her.

...or was it?

and two hours later i walked into her room. mom attentive at her bedside, lovingly stroking her course black hair while the nurses cleaned the diarrhea that covered her lower half & was smeared about the sheets beneath her. the infection that raged in her colon was the culprit--another diagnosis to add to the list. she moaned. she moved. she breathed, occassionally. and all the while that loving, petite pretty mommy rested cheek to cheek with this emaciated, groaning patient--loving her the only way she knew how.

i'd only walked in to tell her we were shoving a catheter up her daughter's urethra to get the pee out of her atonic bladder--news delivered in the kindest way i could muster.

as luck would have it, i walked out 10 minutes later in tears, ashamed.

crap.

i'd missed the boat. overshot the target. fallen off the bandwagon. and i'd totally, misjudged.

praise songs to Jesus played in the background.
a Bible rested on the bedstand.
a prayer journal overturned on the meal tray.

they are a Psalm 139 believing family. a family who believes this little black haired, nonverbal, diarrhea covered little girl is a gift from Christ himself. who believes that He renews their strength every morning, every evening, and at every moment in between. they are a family who is learning the joy of suffering, finding His Will in sorrow, & navigating this difficult choice to let their daughter continue to live day-by-day. they are a family who believes that they weren't chosen because of what God knew they could give, but because of what they could receive through the fragile spirit of this little miracle.

and suddenly, somewhere between the bed and the hallway, i realized i've been right & wrong all along. i was right: modern medicine isn't helping her. in fact, in many ways, we're making her sick: aspiration pneumonia from the surgery, antibiotics from the pneumonia, colon infections from the antibiotics, diarrhea from the antibiotics,  urine infection from the dirrhea...

but oh! how i was wrong in thinking that this is all about healing. i was wrong in thinking that i, we, medicine is the only one with something to offer.

afterall, the truth is that she's the one helping us. helping us learn. helping us grow. and somehow in the middle of the moans and the process of her problems, teaching us how to believe.

believe in miracles.
believe in hope.
believe in survival.
believe in Psalm 139.  

For you created my inmost being;

you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful,

I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you

when I was made in the secret place,

when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my unformed body;

all the days ordained for me were written in your book

before one of them came to be.

How precious to me are your thoughts,[a] God!

How vast is the sum of them!

-Psalm 139: 13-17

fanny pack.

the waistbands of my pants are all stretched out. and i didn't figure out why until tonight.

originally, i'd thought that poptarts & yogurt for dinner might be the culprit. but surely my body knows that when the hospital cafeteria is closed, calories don't count....

and when i tried to pee tonight & my pants nearly flopped in the toilet, i finally realized that perhaps it is the TEN POUNDS of technology attached to my waistband.

seriously?

left to right: name badge. pager. on-call cell phone. personal cell phone.
not pictured: 2 pens. clipboard. stack of reading material. water bottle.

****
as a HILARIOUS side note about my pager...i asked tayte (sister, 17 years old) what it was.

an insulin pump? i didn't know you were diabetic!

a gum case? seriously!?!?!?!? they make those?

a cell phone? wait...where are the buttons?

and no folks, she'd never seen one before. neither had the paint boy at Home Depot who asked me what the heck that black thing was i happened to be wearing on my belt.

which is either a sure-fire sign that i'm getting old. or that i need a fanny pack.

if this isn't just ridiculous...

...then i'm not sure what is.

SERIOUSLY!?! JULY!?!?!?! where the heck has time gone? and who stole all the calendar months?

needless to say, i guess time has, indeed, passed. and in the meantime, a lot has changed for us. a lot for the good. a lot for the stressful and busy and work-filled and God-waiting and ....well, a lot has changed. and we are here, finally back at "home" in the Pacific Northwest. adjusting. settling. and enjoying.

it feels so so good to be back. to have full seasons. crispy fall leaves currently covering the ground. forecasted snow in the next couple of weeks. and the potential to skip through the mountains (real! mountains!) this winter just makes me giddy.

life has been too full to summarize. but like all our stories, they'll come out one way or another. and part of the beauty of life is that some stories are locked in little boxes that play music with dancing ballerina's when we open them. in the meantime, they'll rest safe inside our memories. and for us, that is okay right now. it has to be.

we've been busy. like really busy. but not any more busy than the rest of America, i'm sure. and right now, for us, busy is good. like, really good. we're soaking it in. and although i wish i had a few more hours in the day to read and blog and exercise and make wholesome, healthy meals, i'm taking it all with a grain of salt--knowing full well that life will change and a new season will be upon us shortly, waiting with its own musical ballerina box for us to open & enjoy.

shortly after our last blog post, we left north carolina. not without living in an apartment with only an air mattress, 2 spoons, 3 bowls & 4 plates for 16 days though. oh yes, and did i mention a broken air condition in 900-something percent humidity? (at least it felt that way...). the movers came, boxed up all our stuff and hauled it away. we were left with just us. a bottle of wine. a few bags of popcorn. a pantry to empty out. an airmattress. the aforementioned dishes. and a whole-lotta potential & excitement about what was coming 'round the bend next.

and you know, we had a reason to be excited. life, for the first time, was aligning for us. this was, of course, by choice. and brave, generous, ever-supportive jon make that sacrifice for me. which still boggles my mind each morning when i get up to trudge to the hospital once again. so he made that choice for us...which, for the first time in 3.5 years of marriage, is letting us be together.

jon stood in his last formation. and humbly accepted an award for working so so hard over the previous 12 months of deployment. he saluted for the last time as an active duty captain...and we walked away & into starbucks. where else would we have celebrated this crazy heart-breaking-breath-taking milestone?

we packed up the car. ehem...JAM packed the car and bid adieu to friends i hope cross our paths again (many, many times again!)...and we were off. i have a folder packed with photos. of landscapes. and red vines bags. and (disgusting, ate-for-the-first-time-in-a-decade) mcdonalds fries. and state signs.

for now, though, i'll just leave you with my feet. they've taken me a lot of places since i snapped this photo on our way in to new life.

we arrived in Washington and ransacked jon's parents house for about a month. before our own house was ready. i started work just 3 days after we pulled into the town we'd call home...and have been busy every since.

i guess they don't call it intern year for nothing.

but moral of the story is that i am LOVING my job. i'm loving my days. even the one like today, where the clock at this moment marks hour #18 that i've been in the hospital...with 12 more hours to go until i can finally roll down the windows of my car & hope i make it home in one piece.

so in summary, we are ALIVE. and we are loving life right now. loving being settled, close to incredible people, plugged in & involved at church, blindly making our way through the 24-hour-sequences God gives us to be salt & light...and fill up dancing ballerina boxes of memories.

more to come. more to read. more stories to share. more pictures to download. there is more certainly more.

and it will come. in time.

so don't give up on me. i'm still alive. out there.

and now if you'll excuse me, i have adorable sick babies to check on....

moving.

I’ve found the only non-plastic-wrapped couch cushion & am sitting in a sea of boxes.

THE PACKERS CAME YESTERDAY…and the movers come to finish the job today.

The sky is threatening rain—which is totally ironic but no surprise as all, as we danced in the thunderstorms (more like monsoon’s actually) last year when we packed up the PODS after waving goodbye to Jon for a year.

A whole year. Was it really that long? It felt long. And short. And medium. All at the same time.

And today? This summer feels the same way. I want to know who stole July—because surely it can’t be the end of the month yet. I’m not ready; not ready to move or start over (again) or umm…care for people. I don’t feel ready, like, at all.

I didn’t feel ready for the single-man-packing-show to arrive on our doorstep yesterday & stay for 10 hours, boxing up our memories of this state, this place, this life into cardboard containers labeled “this end up” & “handle with care”. Yes, PLEASE!, handle with care I wanted to scream…THIS IS OUR LIFE!

But we are both making every effort to remember that we’ve got a new life waiting for us. It is scary & exciting & horrifying & thrilling & long-time-coming & stressful & well, new.

So here’s to newness. And moving. And “handle with care”. Here’s to bike rides & river rafting & actually skiing in the winter; to crisp autumn mornings & cool summer nights. Here’s to long hours working & short days together & date nights & mountain hikes & hopeful trips to the lake. Here’s to close-by family & oh-so-amazing-friends & new church’s & Jesus meeting us there. Here’s to scraping paint & stripping wallpaper & Jlyn learning how to paint once-and-for-all; to gardening & harvesting & canning & preserving in the “Grandma House’s” garden. Here’s to unpacking memories & to ripping the tape off fresh ones like a bandaid.

And most of all, here’s to growing up.

{pixels} the C family

new post up @ the photo blog!

stories of summer: the summer of "we"

I once thought braces were sexy. Not in the tousled hair, pouty lips kind of way, just…awesome, I guess. I was in the seventh grade. And aside from my then-unappreciated perfect vision, aligned teeth, & face-of-zits, I totally wanted braces. And glasses, too, but that is another story.

Everybody had them, those glowing metal railroad tracks that made their mouths beautiful. And I kind of thought it was magic—the foodstuffs once tucked between the rims & saliva that hung from the rubberbands was turned into a gleaming white smile when they finally got them taken off. And I was just left with straight teeth, sans crystal chicklets where my chompers were.

I’m sure there were other things before the braces: dolls & earrings & new snap bracelets from Claire’s in 1992 & sticky hands from the pizza parlor $0.25-prize machine. But the absurdity of me actually wanting them at age 13 is something laughable now as the first real, tangible thing that I’d considered saving my own pennies for. Dentists visits were never painful, only sourly disappointing when I heard the “welp, see you next time” & got a doggie bag of new flossers & a neon toothbrush without mention of referral to an orthodontist. I don’t remember laying awake at night or pining for the savory snacks stuck in those sweet colorful rims…but I do remember that them, the braces, the railroad tracks, the bleached chicklet teeth that came after, those were a big freaking deal.

And now, another 13 years later, I’m thanking my lucky stars that I have straight teeth (& no cavities thankyouverymuch). Which makes me wonder what I’ll look back on in another 13 years and laugh at the absurdity of my jealous tendencies toward something so…ridiculous.

I’m kind of like, growing up. Last week when I stepped on the scale, I realized (to my dismay) that the age of muscle-for-fat-exchange has come upon me. Those extra pounds don’t shed as easily. My ganglion cyst in my wrist joint has arthritic properties that make me feel like I’m 65 years old with arthritis-something-fierce. In case you were wondering, I still gets zits. And life? WOWZA. Nobody told us it would be this…this… challenging.

In many ways, with each passing birthday I feel like I return to that 13 year old straight-teeth-zitty-faced girl who looks at all the others with their shiny rims & newly-chicklet-ized teeth and wishes, if only it was me or mine or part of my life.

As a result, we are trying to be more intentional about our lives. I feel like I’ve gotten so caught up in wanting, in paying attention to things outside myself, that I’ve lost touch with who I really am. Kind of like stuffing yourself so full of corndogs & elephant ears at the state fair in August that you lose touch of what hunger feels like until October.

I was so proud of Jon when he agreed to get rid of cable. The TV sits silent in the evenings now & our dinner conversation is filled with well, conversation. I’ve committed to no more clothes-buying, which is difficult for me—although admittedly laughable that a twenty-something loves clothes this much. We’ve stopped buying pop & treats & sweets at the grocery store because we want them to be special again. Our dates, instead of dinners out, now consist of coffee & dessert outings—something our pant size & perfectly-full stomachs have thanked us for. And, though the process is long, we are both working on reducing our wants, paring down our yearnings, & focusing on what God wants us to have through what He’s given us right now.

The best part is that we’re on the same page, finally. In it together.

And so a couple of weeks ago when he came home from work and told me he had a surprise for me, I knew I’d like it.

The red car pulled into the parking lot with the red sign. We both got dipped cones, his chocolate & mine butterscotch. And we walked around the parking lot holding hands & eating our ice cream cones before they melted in the North Carolina heat.

Nothing fancy.

$3.78 later, I still had straight teeth. "You know, I really like this," I said to him.

"Good," he said, "we'll have dates like this again."

And with that, we both crunched on our cones, carefree of stored food specks during akward seventh-grade-dates.

It was perfect.

irreplaceable.

I had trouble at my graduation. Showing excitement is not my area of expertise in the first place, and stacked on top of my God-given personality traits (Lord help me, sometimes) were the sometimes complicated-overly-excited-family that had come to shower me with well-wishes and well, love. But the truth of it is that yeah, big deal, medical school is over. Residency is starting. But all the “aren’t you so excited to move on”’s, truth-be-told, got a little annoying after awhile. Because yes I’m excited to move on; on into the HOLY CRAP I forgot everything, into the “don’t kill anyone at work today,” onward to the 80-hour-work-weeks & the life-is-not-my-own. And in a way, I felt, I’d be moving backwards. All assumptions I was making, you see, but still backwards. Back to the ‘do I study or shave my legs for the first time in two-weeks’ attitude that ohmygosh my to-do list will never end.

And so, I had trouble at my graduation. And the ohmygosh’s have just gotten worse. But despite the occasional (or not-so-occasional) freak-out’s, I’ve had time to do something I haven’t had the privledge of in, well….ever. I’ve had time to think.

The pace is slow here, for the time-being at least. When I roll over in bed at 7:30 & realize that it’s been two hours since Jon got up & left for work, I usually don’t see any reason in greeting the day with gusto. And so I lay there. Letting my back sink into the memory foam & letting the fan blow around my bed-head a bit longer. And its there that I think. And sometimes, on days I’m feeling particularly adventurous, I think about those eighty-hour-work-weeks and choosing to shave my legs and kissing homemade pedicures goodbye for the next three years. Most of the time I get carried away with the ohmygosh thoughts; women have babies & raise children & start cooking blogs during residency for gosh sakes. But then I remind myself that I’m not them, that I had trouble at my graduation, & that I always have to prepare myself for the worst as some weird coping mechanism I probably picked up at 32 months-old when I started Montessori.

I lay there for longer than I’d care to admit usually. Dreading my workout (thankyouverymuch p90x), wanting to workout, wanting a PopTart, hating PopTart’s, eventually turning eight again like it is 1992 & daydreaming about growing up. Wrapping my thoughts around things like eating chocolate for every meal (that ohmygosh has to do with my pant size) and little people that will hopefully someday inhabit our house (Mom, I said someday, not tomorrow) and work.

Yes, I said work. But they aren’t the “Jlyn saves the day!” daydreams. More like “JLYN YOUR PATIENT IS CODING, DO SOMETHING TO SAVE HIM!” daydreams. Or should I call them “daymares”—nightmares except in daylight? And in the midst of these thoughts, somewhere between the trouble-at-graduation and the daymares, I decide unofficially who I want be. Like, the toenails-always-painted girl who doesn’t use the name “doctor” because it feels too official & who keeps a clean desk, despite the crazy wordload, & eats oatmeal everyday for breakfast because, you know colon health. Or like the go-with-the-flow’er who downs coffee like its water & who has bundles of energy & rides her bike everyday to work & grows a garden just for fun girl. Or like something else entirely.

But this thinking time, it’s good for me. Some things are matter-of-facts, no compromises, nothing-gets-in-my-way for-sure’s; things like oh being nice, showing Jesus, giving grace. You know, the normal stuff. But then there’s those other things—the things that come out when you leave the patients room or they call their best friend Sally & tell her about their ‘rather young to be a doctor’ Doctor. And it’s those other things that I’ve decided my back-in-memory-foam-fan-blowing-hair thinking time is about the other things.

And since I’ve mostly devoured the literary candy of Kelly Corrigan since I picked up her book last weekend, this morning during my thinking time I thought of her.

"...Coming down the hall in a silk Banana Republic scarf that I thought made me look professional, I could hear the booming voices of my aunts & uncles & cousins & I was glowing with tribal pride. I was a Corrigan. When I turned the corner, Greenie said my name so loudly that the whole room started laughing & clapping & tearing up while Greenie & I hugged & rocked back & forth & laughed into each other & my dad called out my name again & again:

"'Love-E! Love-E!'

"Until I became a mother, it was the most irreplaceable I'd ever felt. I had "made the night". But then I watched him greet Rocky Shepard & Chris Burch & Betty Moran &

I realized that making people feel irreplaceable was his gift."

--Kelly Corrigan, The Middle Place, p. 145 (emphasis mine)

Now, I don’t own a silk Banana Republic scarf. And I am certainly not a Corrigan. But my morning times, those daymares and those ohmygosh’s have all come together in the perfect pinnacle of thoughts. I’ve decided, once and for all, who I want to be when I grow up.

And I feel like the trouble at graduation is now justified. Because it wasn’t about graduation at all, really. It was about celebration. Celebration of a milestone, an accomplishment. And mine happened to include a velvet unitard & mushroom hat. But not everyone’s does.

For some, like my pretend future patient in room #502 with a bowel obstruction, it will still be about celebration, accomplishment, passing a milestone. And the future momma in Room 8 on the obstetrics floor will need celebrating for her work in bringing new life into the world. And the kid with the respiratory infection and the grandma with the broken hip and the brief-case-carrying business guy with newly diagnosed prostate cancer; they’ll all have their own accomplishments, pass their own milestones, run their own races & win their own medals (metaphorically speaking for some broken hips, of course).

And I’ve decided. And I want to be there, present & in the mood for dancin’. I want to be that crazy Patch Adams-like-doctor who throws the chart into the air & dances with Mr.-Room #502 about his successful bowel movement, who hugs that momma with all I have in me because a new life breathing this Earth’s air & the physiological miracle of it all is too overwhelming. I want to be the ‘professional one’ who rips off those stupid yellow contact precaution gowns when the respiratory infected kid no longer needs isolation & who dances when the grandma with the broken hip takes her first step with her new Cadillac walker .

Because gosh dang it, somewhere along the line I got two new letters after my name. And with those letters come a lot of ohmygosh responsibility. But at some point this whole gig needs to stop being about medicine & start being about people. And celebrations. And yelling “Love-E! Love-E!” at the top of my lungs, just like George Corrigan.

And on top of all that, I’ve decided something else: I want that gift, too. I want to make people feel irreplaceable.

Simple as that.

freedom.

Last year, he was gone; across the sea & around the world. And this year, he came home. Just over a month ago, he walked off that airplane & back onto American soil. Which means many things, like Jason’s Deli & Downy fabric softener & the occasional Snickers bar & kisses from his wife. But really, it means one thing in particular: freedom.

He hasn’t talked a lot about life over there. Sure, the meals & the sightings & the sirens & the packages have come out in conversation. And I haven’t asked many questions. I know the stories will come out someday. He’ll see a watermelon & remember this one time, because, did you know?, apparently there is a lot of watermelon over there. But in the meantime, as we are adjusting to life together once again & basking in the bliss that comes after such a long separation, we haven’t forgotten. The friends. The fathers. The mothers & sons & daughters & children that are still over there. Still fighting. Still waiting for their this one time story to be told. Because for them that will mean American soil & freedom, too.

And this July 4^th, as we tip our hats to Uncle Sam in the community parade; as we set up the slip-n-slide for the energetic little ones & feast on red velvet cake & freshly grilled hamburgers, as we eat our own watermelons, I’d like to remember them.

The ones that are still over there. The soldiers. The friends & fathers; mothers & sons & daughters & children that have left a spot empty at the picnic table, an extra shirt at the family reunion, and a rolled up sleeping bag at the yearly summer campout. The ones still risking, still sleepless, & still homesick.

And in the two souls that exist in this tiny little apartment, amidst the celebrating & ‘thank you’s’ & “WELCOME HOME!” signs, we haven’t ignored the presence of the chance that he wasn’t going to come home at all. I carried around a power of attorney, a contact list, & his burial wishes in my purse for an entire year, tucked lovingly right behind my monthly gift receipts.

And so I’d like to remember them, too. The ones who won’t ever come home. The ones who died yesterday, last month, last year, last century. The ones who fought brothers & crossed state lines; who sailed oceans & scaled beaches. Those ones. The friends. The fathers. The sons & daughters.

The ones who, instead of leaving an empty stop at the picnic table, left an empty hole in the family tree.

I forget about those ones.

And you know who else I forget about?

The people. The people in that place called ‘over there.’ The ones who grow the watermelon. The ones who are part of the this one time stories, who will never have faces or identities to me or you aside from the sporadic sightings on the nightly news, but who are very much ALIVE. Those are the others I forget about.

They don’t have community parades or slip-n-slides or Independence Day barbecue’s. They don’t know what it’s like, this freedom gig.

And so, this July Fourth, instead of just celebrating OUR Independence Day, we’ll be doing something a bit unconventional: we’ll be praying for theirs. That’s why they are fighting, after all. That’s why our fathers & friends & children leave, pack their bags, wipe their tears & trudge onward. That’s why we hold prayer vigils & light candles & wear yellow ribbons & post “Support Our Troops” on the billboards & posters & bumper stickers. It’s why Aunt June’s quilting ladies get together to organize toothpaste drives & Uncle Harold’s church sends boxes of used playing cards from 1965. It’s why first grade classes write letters asking if they’ve seen Santa and if their guns are real or if they just shoot marshmallows. And it’s why we, the ones they leave behind, stand & wave goodbye with tears & smiles & miles of prayer. They, the watermelon-growing-sporadic-appearing LIVES are why.

And that’s why,

over there is why,

watermelon is why,

WE are why some of them never come home.

FREEDOM.

date.

July is not the time to be outside in these parts. Humidity is not my friend, although it does wonders for my skin & gives my sweat glands quite a work out. I stand my ground that I still don’t particularly like it. And so I said “yes” when he came home & asked if I wanted to take a trip to our favorite bookstore last night. To sit among the magazines or plop myself in the midst of that new-glue smell sounded perfectly delightful. Plus, it is air conditioned. And to make it even more enticing, he promised coffee would be involved.

Sold.

He settled fairly quickly beside a stack of magazines with white Apple headphones & Dave Ramsey in his ears. Me? I browsed. I walked among the self-help aisles, laughing at the titles & how easy they made life seem. I thumbed through the red-sticker-marked “Last Chance” tables in wonder at how many books are written each year & the overwhelming ideas contained in them. I stopped in the Children’s section & tried to remember when children’s stories were about virtue & character instead of pink shoes & new video games, back in the day.

And finally. Finally I settled in a wooden chair not far from his holding a graphic design book & a sale-priced memoir. As the smooth sound of “Summertime” played in the background, I breathed it in. Glue-smell and all.

I’ve been in the midst of a mental battle lately—fighting between what my selfish heart wants & where I feel God leading me. Not to mention the tough self-realizations that come with it the war. And so I wrestle, argue, talk to myself (& Jon, he listens so gracefully) in an effort to curb the self-serving attitude. Some days, usually the days when my pants are feeling tight & I spill half my breakfast & my hair won’t cooperate & I feel guilty for the Poptarts I snuck yesterday, my self-service wins. On the other days, though, I feel different.

Yesterday was a “different” day.

He is home. It is bliss. We’re in the same household & on the same page, finally, about finances, decisions, future, weekends, toothpaste, & toilet seats. We’re communicating. The TV is gone. The lets-dress-up-in-Sunday-best-for-ice-cream has taken over & the “just because” way of thinking has rolled in for the season.

It’s a good season, really, this summertime. Just like the song, actually—sweet & smooth, the kind you tap your foot to & think of the bygone days. We’re both settling in to our “new” life at different paces, sometimes it just depends on the day. I’m working on the serving part, I think he is too. And the truth is that in many ways, this summer feels like an escape. An air-conditioned retreat from life & all the complications that seem to run along beside it. I’m totally, completely, sold.

Amazing what dates at the bookstore will do for your soul…

{pixels} an orchard + friendship

new post up @ the photo blog!

the *other* Pritchard's visit....

The whirlwind continued the day I returned from out West in the form of minature Pritchard’s & their lovely parents. Our “storage” bedroom & tiny apartment prevented us from hosting them, but we still got to enjoy time with them and other fantastic friends.

We ate.

Celebrated my birthday (woohoo!...i think).

Went to the pool (Joelle was not a fan).

Took a day trip to the beach.

And fed little babies…and ourselves (again, way too much yummy food).

Our four days together flew by and soon enough, we were on an airplane to Boston….

{sorry Justin & Beth, we do have more photos that include your beautiful faces...they just aren't posted...yet}

she grew up...

She.

Is beautiful, amazing, kind, lovely, hilarious.

She is graduated.

And I.

I can’t believe it.

I decided to surprise the girls—Tayte for her 17^th (gah!) birthday, Korryn for her high school graduation. As chance (& schedulers) would have it, Korryn’s graduation was the weekend after mine—as in, 5 days later. To say it was a whirlwind might have been an understatement. So we left West Virginia from my graduation, hosted (from a hotel since our “extra” bedroom turned into a storage room) Rusty & Gay for 3 days, and then the very next day I flew out to Washington.

If I would have known that Tayte’s adorable friends were planning on pulling her out of bed at 11:30pm & brining her blindfolded & screaming, bra-less & shoe-less into the airport, I would have had my camera ready. Alas, I did not have my camera ready & missed out on what might have been the best blackmail material ever.

Korryn, thinking she had the right to a social life or something, didn’t find out I was home until the following day. Jerk face. (just kidding).

And then the moment came: with borrowed clothes & accessories & shoes (I literally carried underwear & my purse on the trip), we walked into the giant arena & watch the little miss graduate.

There were tears: mine.

There was cheering: ours.

There were air horns: tayte’s.

There were snears: people around us.

And then there was the graduate: beautiful.

I can NOT wait to see what God does in her life. She’s grown into an incredibly stunning young woman. Plus, BONUS!!!!, we get to live in the same city for the next three years. DARN excited about that (little Taytie? Will you come live there too?).