My Kryptonite List

Photo Credit: mypixbox via Compfight cc

Photo Credit: mypixbox via Compfight cc

{CONTENT WARNING: Strong language and raw subject.}

In my little world, I had a list.  It was a list of things I was convinced I could not do without.  My Kryptonite List contained what would destroy me if it was taken away or was harmed.  The list included people and situations.

Once I was defined by my work.  I sacrificed everything for years before realizing work is a means to an end.  It’s not the means or the meaning for life.  Scratch that from the list.

Church was my end all and be all.  Who I was in the pews or on the platform mattered more than anything.  That is until it didn’t matter as much as marriage, sanity and safety.  Check that one off.

My children were everything.  Identity, self-esteem, self-worth all wrapped up in little wiggly bodies gnoshing on mac-n-cheese.  Until mental illness, insidiously connected to mothering through postpartum depression, taught me I was still a distinct human being from these creatures.  They needed me whole and my job was to help them remain whole.  Check.

My dad was my safety net, my rock, the mirror in which I could peer and see good things every time.  As he took his last shuddering breath, he left my list.

One of the only pieces of kryptonite remaining for me was my husband.  Big, goofy, funny, smarter than anyone, and a good guy, that’s my husband.  He stayed on the list because he chose me.  When we were dating and I went through a dark time, he stuck around and married me anyway.  Postpartum, situational poverty, job loss, death, he was there.  Until now.

A few days ago the kids called me at work and said dad wasn’t moving and was on the stairs.  They were trapped upstairs.  I raced out of the building to find him there, the kid’s terrified eyes staring at me.

I called 911 when he couldn’t make eye contact with me or respond.  I called a friend who is familiar with medical emergencies to get the kids.

His blood sugar was 28.  Normal is 70.  He was minutes from a coma.  The doctor said I saved his life by calling the ambulance.

Three days later, he is still in the hospital.  They have theories on what is wrong, but they can’t confirm anything.  We simply don’t know why his body produces so much insulin that he needs to be on two IVs with glucose to be close to normal.

I’m alone with the kids and I don’t know from day-to-day what will happen.  People keep asking, “How are you?”  I can’t say what I really want to.

I’m pissed off.  Seriously? After EVERYTHING we have been through?

I’m scared.  What will I do to get through the days alone?

I’m sad.  I recently was praying for a breakthrough in our lives.  I got an ambulance.

I literally can’t walk.  How can I heal my ankle when I have to navigate a two-story house and two active little fellas?

My husband is now off my list.   There is nothing left on it.  I need to figure out how to get rid of my Kryptonite list.  I’m thinking I need to replace it with something a little more positive.

Tonight here is where I am starting.

James 1:2-4 (AMP)

2 Consider it wholly joyful, my brethren, whenever you are enveloped in or encounter trials of any sort or fall into various temptations.

3 Be assured and understand that the trial and proving of your faith bring out endurance and steadfastness and patience.

4 But let endurance and steadfastness and patience have full play and do a thorough work, so that you may be [people] perfectly and fully developed [with no defects], lacking in nothing.”

I want to lack in nothing.  I don’t want to stand in the way as these times do their thorough work for my full development.  Though I am angry, sad, scared and most definitely alone and hurting, I refuse for this to be for nothing.

Tonight as I ache at this life which has chosen me, I make a choice.  I’ll take God up on his offer from James 1.  I’ll let this situation do it’s work.  I’ll pray more than I ever have.  I’ll love God more even though I am mad at Him.

Maybe soon I’ll have a different list, one with miracles on it.  Earlier I saw my first entry.  Tonight I stood in the corner and watched my husband with our sons.  Though tired and uncomfortable, he was giggling with them at goofy YouTube videos.   Love and laughter might be the antidote to my kryptonite.

Hospital video giggles.

 

Big Boot to the Backside

12 weeks ago I sprained my ankle.  I doctored it myself.  “What would the doctor tell me to do I didn’t already know?” I thought.  Unfortunately, I re-injured it.  Like tree sap flowing down the side of a pine tree in winter, I slowly continued to tear apart my ankle by walking on it.

Finally I went to the doctor when I couldn’t bear weight on it.  MRI was nasty.  To me it looks like I have spaghetti instead of muscles in my ankle.   Vertical split tear…partial interstitial tear…tenosynovitis…inflammation into the bone…that, dear one, is one class A, super-stupendous ankle injury.

Now I have been told there is a s-l-i-m chance I can avoid surgery if I am ‘compliant’ and don’t walk on it.  I have a boot cast which I’m allowed to remove for the shower only.  Now I am stuck in the middle of having a very busy life and not being able to move through it, save for crutches and a wheelchair.

Coincidentally, I have embraced a new way of eating and have lost 10 pounds.  I couldn’t wait to ‘heal up’ so I could add exercise to my new commitment to health.  Cue flushing noise as all of that goes down the toilet.

Or does it?

This past weekend we celebrated Thanksgiving in New York City.  We borrowed a wheelchair from church.  While my husband braved frozen rain and sleep deprivation to share the parade with the children, I was on the couch in the apartment.  Depression settled on my shoulders like a heavy, wet, cold blanket.  My Doxie was my companion for bad movies and endless napping.

Even Frank knows the Big Boot needs some love.

Even Frank Knows the Big Boot Needs Some Love

I put on a brave face as my husband hefted me through Manhattan.  I even managed a smile for the lovely Scottish tourists who chatted me up whilst the kids skated Rockefeller Center.

IMG_2965

Big Boot at Rockefeller Center

As they ‘parked’ me in various corners to get coffee, I attempted to shrug off my all too familiar companion-failure.  Of course I wouldn’t be able to continue the eat less part of this journey.  How could I? Four slices of Ray’s pizza and three diet cokes later, I fell into a carb, fat, sugary slumber as the car made its way home.

Big Boot Needs Caffeine and Yes That’s An Angry Bird Blanket

I have a choice.  I can, once again, do what I have always done and give in.  I can agree with the destructive self-talk of defeat, blame and pain (physical AND emotional).  Or I can take this boot into the backside to push me forward.

The boulders in front of me are HUGE.  I have to trust those in my life to care for me when I barely know how to care for myself.  I have to stay committed to filling my plate and my heart with good things.  I have to choose, minute by minute, not to give up.  I have to stand up to the challenges before me and decide to go through, over or around because standing still is no longer an option.

So, in what areas of your life is standing still no longer an option?  Share in the comments.  We can climb the boulders together!

Ain't No Mountain High Enough to Keep Me from Me!

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough to Keep Me from Me!

 

 

 

Rolling Up the Quinoa, Rolling up My Sleeves

I’m awake, refreshed and coherent-BEFORE my alarm goes off.  I quietly sneak downstairs, a plan has already formulated in my thoughts for Bible Study-which isn’t for another 3 hours.  This blog is sitting on my shoulder and demanding to be written.

I can’t recall a time when I didn’t as much get out of bed but fall out of it, dragging myself to the nearest coffee pot.  Planning through the morass of thoughts/insecurities/fears/pain was more like trying to run through a wall of cobwebs-sticky and binding.  Writing was an abstract, a luxury, a passion I had to steal from my other ‘worthier’ causes to spend time creating.

Photo Credit: demandaj via Compfight cc

Photo Credit: demandaj via Compfight cc

Why the drastic 180 degree change?  Did I suddenly find the will power my mother and others have always said was the only reason I was fat and unsuccessful?  Did I suddenly discover a pill to take away all the stresses, strains, pains and peeves which kept me under their thumbs?

Nope.  I simply started to eat real food.

Seriously, I’m a clean eater.

This blog is based on the premise of “Eat Less.  Pray More. Love Abundantly.”  A topic I rarely explore is eating.  The reason?  It’s hard to write about addressing your drug of choice and secret shame.  It’s an invitation for judgement when you say you are eating well and then reach for a cookie at an event.  It’s hard, disciplined work with moments of failure on display for all to see in your too-slowly changing sizes.

I wish I could say I had an epiphany towards health and eating.  I would love to have one of those inspirational stories where I suddenly realized I was worth it (cue instrumental music and images of people running through ocean surf).  I didn’t have one of those.  Instead it was more mini-moments of clarity which strung themselves together into one of those rope bridges across a cavern.  I simply chose to walk across the bridge and deal with the height, the wind blowing the ropes, and the churning waters beneath me.

I didn’t tell anybody except those I knew who were solidly in my corner.  I just shopped differently one week.  I cooked differently.  I ate differently.

10 pounds later (coincidentally the weight of spinach I’ve eaten AND the amount of weight the scale has gone down) I sit, in the early morning writing this blog.

When I hit publish, I’ll go and make special Sunday breakfast.  I’ll roll up quinoa and sausage in a lower fat, higher nutrition version of breakfast.   I’ll roll up my sleeves and package up a week’s worth of breakfast/lunches and dinners all made with mostly clean, whole ingredients.  I’ll bake with the apple sauce I made yesterday in my crock pot (I felt like a modern day Pioneer Woman).

Another thing I’ll do?  I’ll write.

Today, what will you do?  What’s one minor or momentous thing you can do to take  step towards health and wholeness?  Share with me.  Together we can take this journey to eat less.  Maybe share a recipe or two.

What Happens When I Play With A Food Processor

What Happens When I Play With A Food Processor

 

Gossamer Parachutes

A tiny silver flash caught my attention on my car.  These silver splotches were everywhere.

K. Robertson

K. Robertson

I looked it up and found these are how baby spiders release from their nest.  They leap into their future, riding the breeze of destiny with nothing more than gossamer parachutes.

Recently, I’ve written so much about grief and loss.  Time to write about their cheerier cousin, hope.

Hope says the glass is half full and the sun will shine again.  Hope stands beside loss and reminds us tomorrow is another day to live.  Hope tosses aside broken umbrellas and lifts her face to the rain.

My hope was sorely lacking.  In fact, if I stumbled over it and stepped directly in it, I wouldn’t recognize it.

Hopelessness is a pretty dark and lonely place.  It’s poorly decorated with uncomfortable dreams too broken to sit upon.  The mantle has photos of people long gone.  The mirrors have cracks shaped like accusing fingers.

Photo Credit: purpleslog via Compfight cc

Photo Credit: purpleslog via Compfight cc

Hopelessness, for me, is a choice.  Minute by minute, second by second, I can choose to step into that space.  Or I can choose hope.

Choosing hope means listening more to the giggles of my boys than the accusing voices in my head.  It means seeing possibilities instead of problems.  It means looking at the road rather than the roadblocks.  It means focusing on the miracle in the midst of the mess.

Hope is a gossamer parachute, delicate, spun from the depths of ourselves.  I’m spinning mine from the threads of smiles from friends, my husband’s cologne, a snarfy kiss from my ancient doxie, a texting connection with my future sister, hippie soul sisters in my office and crushing hugs from my sweaty boys.

I’ll jump into my life.  Not sure where I’ll land, yet knowing I will land.

What is your gossamer parachute of hope spun from?  Share in the comments.

A Dinosaur Ate My Inbox

I wanted to call Linda.  She was my Father’s nurse who continues to be my personal ‘Guardian Angel’.  Her number was gone.  All my contacts were gone, as were my pics and my calendar.

Earlier that day my seven year old downloaded a DinoDestroy SomethingOrOther game.  The game involved avoiding death by veloceraptors and various firearms.  It’s, in his words, ‘glitchy’.  Apparently, the dinosaurs ate my inbox.  After IT support from my author friend in Montana whilst she sat in a Greek restaurant gnoshing baklava, my phone was somewhat restored.

Everything came back…from September of last year.  Pictures were hyper bright of the chemotherapy lab, Dad wearing my sunglasses because his eyes hurt.

Only Dad could make chemo look this good!

Only Dad could make chemo look this good!

The texts were with frantic family members as the gravity of his illness settled like a wet blanket over our lives.  The calendar was full of appointments for specialists and tests, none of which were to cure only to prolong what we knew would be the inevitable.

I’ve done my best not to grieve.  I’ve packaged the past and placed it on my emotional ‘do not fly’ list.  Quite simply, my soul is too thin and would shred.  Seems as though my iPhone, and maybe God, had other plans.

Thanks to the Dino disaster of my phone, I am now experiencing what I had no time (or the steel ovaries) to feel.  I can’t live in the space of the 15 second sound bites I give to persons, “Doing well.  Thanks for asking.”

It’s messy and requires many tissues, napkins and paper towels for these ugly cries.  My chest implodes and breath leaves my body.  Every annoyance attaches itself like sand on sweaty legs at the beach. I want booze, chocolate, sleep, church and mindless movies-often at the same time.

As suddenly as it comes, it goes.  I wipe my eyes, steady my heart and keep on going.  I can keep walking.  I can keep hugging my kids breathing in the promise of goodness, laughter and sugar cookies.  I can laugh at and with my husband about crunchy hair and moronic political pundits.  I can blog.

Death ate the future I wanted with my Dad and too many others.  “Glitch” the dinosaur ate my inbox.

I can eat this bitter fruit of grief and loss until I find the seed at the center.  Then I can plant it, water it with tears, sit beside it and seek out the sun.

Let It Go

“Don’t let them in, don’t let them see
Be the good girl you always have to be
Conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them know
Well, now they know!”

One can’t be within 5 feet of a girl under the age of thirteen and not hear this Princess power anthem.  I’ve read feminist blogs heralding it as the next, “I am Woman Hear Me Roar”.  I’ve also read blogs by men decrying the fact that young women are emotionally brittle and being ‘bad’ is now the new ‘good’.

I’ll admit, I’ve sung it at the top of my lungs.  Once I startled the pharmacy tech. at Rite Aid who then joined me in a tinny verse through the microphone.

For a very long time I’ve identified with Elsa.  Conceal. Don’t feel.  Don’t let them know.  Don’t let them know what?  I’m a hot mess.

So, now ‘they’ know or are beginning to suspect.  My kid’s school expects me to be the parent who races a check or a permission slip to the office, days late.  My husband has given up on a clean house and learned to step over the unpacked suitcase from a trip three weeks ago.  My kids consider protein bars or cereal perfectly acceptable dinners.  I recently was futzing with pictures and discovered I’ve had these double chins for over a decade.  Those are all facts.  Facts which might be changed.

I’ve been in the fight/failure/free fall for so long, I don’t know how to do normal.  Sounds weird but I don’t know how to do this life without some crisis looming over my head.  No one is unemployed.  Every debt is paid.  No one is dying or divorcing.  We can pay our bills.  I have a couple friends who have my heart and my back.  My kids are healthy and my brother is basking in the love of a great woman.  Things are good.  Frankly, things are better than they ever have been and that terrifies me.

Went to see the movie, “The Fault in Our Stars”.  Had an ugly cry.  Cancer. Death. Love. Courageous beautiful young people.  Won’t spoil the ending for you, however, it’s all about letting go.  They let go while holding on to the good stuff.

What will you let go of?  I’ll start with letting go of a myth.  Like Elsa, I believed I needed to conceal and not feel.  It’s a myth because we all feel-all the time.  Even if we choose to conceal, it’s there, bubbling under the surface.  Anger, fear, insecurity all can fester under the surface until they swell and explode.

For me grief is what I have concealed, and it began to come out at the theatre during the “Fault in Our Stars”.  Poor people sitting around me.  I used all my napkins as  I snorted and sighed and sobbed so much my t-shirt was wet.

I want to say that the same peace which carried me through watching my father die was with me.  It wasn’t.

I want to say I wiped up, stood up and bravely faced the world.  I didn’t.  I ran out of there and sobbed and yelled at God the whole way home.

I want to say I feel better today.  I don’t.

I feel, that’s a fact.  A fact I need to deal with and then let it go.

I saw this on Pinterest and will close with it.

Let it Go

I need to let go and not allow the past to attach itself to my future.   That begins when I stop concealing and start feeling.

What will you let go of?  Share in the comments.

 

 

The What and the Why

Eat less.  Pray more.  Love abundantly.

These are the themes of this blog.

One problem.  Food is my drug of choice.  Eating less means walking away from a dear old friend.  It also means losing my ability to numb by sugar and fat.

Well, time to put on the big girl pants and deal.

I signed up for a 30 day challenge hosted by Jon Acuff.  He’s the author of:

Punch fear in the face. Jon Acuff

Punch fear in the face.
Jon Acuff

It’s day two.  Apparently I deleted day one, however, I am now caught up.

Day one is to define WHAT you want to do.  I want to eat healthy and drink more water.

Day two is to find the WHY.  As I huffed my way through a game of catch with my 6 year old, I discovered it.  I am sick and tired of feeling sick and tired.  I want to feel well enough, strong enough, happy enough to play catch with my favorite fellas.

I will start tonight.  It’s nine p.m. nothing but water for me.

I’ll keep you posted.

What will you start today?

Through the Fog

I took this video on a recent morning commute.  The ‘back way’ is ignominiously called Hogback.  A few homes look like the set of Coal Miners Daughter, replete with black and neon crocheted curtains.  Others are bastions of middle class living.

It’s a circuitous route, winding through woods and dumping out in short order onto the cracked pavement of our dying city.  That morning it was foggy.  Not the whispy, smokey setting from Casablanca, rather the heavy, humidity laden curtain weighing heavily in the air.

I recorded the short journey.  It was a physical manifestation of my life.

For so long it was clear cancer and caretaking were my focus.  Treating it and beating it whilst maintaining a family and work consumed my every moment.  That’s over and buried.

On the foggy path to work that morning, I couldn’t see the next bend in the road until I was right on top of it.  Unless I was moving forward, I would have remained engulfed by the heavy curtain.

Unless I keep driving forward, I’ll never get to the next bend in the road of my life.  I probably won’t see the next bend until I arrive upon it.  I must eat less, pray more and love abundantly to see what’s next.

How will you keep driving through the fog?

Question

Why did I stop writing for so long?

Did this project eat less, pray more, love abundantly suddenly disappear?

Would you be wrong to think it?

I don’t think you would be wrong, do you?

What kept me out?

Was it a worthy cause so big it sucked the oxygen from my lungs and the strength from my imagination?

Was it a challenge which some days cost me dearly in time and tears?

Was it a commitment which brought more miracles in the midst of the messy than I ever could have anticipated?

Is it now something I am suddenly thankful for and wax eloquently on how I became a super human as a result?

Don’t you think life is a little more complicated than that?

Would you believe it is my 6 year old funshine who gave me the strength to write again?

Do you think there was ever a better teacher than his?

What is the one question my dearest, funny, tenderhearted boy would ask God?

Photo Credit KRobertson

Photo Credit KRobertson

How did my Pappy get cancer?

How did my father, the one solid rock for so many, get cancer?

Why him and why now?

Wouldn’t you think 50 days is enough to put the breath back in my body, strength in my bones?

Are the connections to children and spouse too thin to rebuild?

Is the armor I’ve encased myself in too thick to ever be removed?

Why did I ever stop writing?

I’m glad I’m starting again, are you?

 

Birthday Gifts

It’s been 8 months since cancer showed up in my father’s body and all our lives changed forever.

We thought we would only have 4 months and have been given the gift of twice that and are hopeful for much, much more.  When first diagnosed, my no-nonsense, take no prisoners friend Rebecca, told me to get over my Mommy guilt.  She said living with and learning to care for ‘Pappy’ would be a gift to my sons’ character and lives.  She was right.

Feeding Pappy

I spent my 39’ish-sorta-again birthday, not at a fancy dinner or party.  I didn’t open gifts and left cards on the kitchen table unopened.  I spent it in the hospital with my Dad.

photo 4

The night before he whispered, “Happy birthday!” as I quietly tucked him in for the night.  I reminded him my birthday wasn’t for another day.  Without missing a beat he looked up at me and said, “I know.  I just wanted to be the first to tell you.”

Marriages can shred under economic pressures, new jobs, and caring for an ill parent.   We are experiencing all of the above mixed with the general mayhem of raising two curious, energetic and old soul boys. While my husband and I have a few bruises and cuts from these sharp-edged realities, we are finding a new way.   We are realizing what a gift we are to each other.  I couldn’t get through some days without him.  I believe he would say the same about me.

He sent me flowers to my office for my birthday.  I’ve spent the last 25 birthdays asking for him to do that very thing.  This year, he did.

photo 3

47 people wrote birthday greetings on my wall from Facebook.  47.  I didn’t know I knew that many people.  They ranged from, “What are you, like 60?” (from a high school friend who still retains his lovable snarkiness); to “Happiest of happies to KimRo on this, the day of her birth. May the words pour forth and Snow White sing you a merry tune while doing the “back it up” dance.  Humor and good will for you and your coming year.” (from a writing sister who I swear is Snow White undercover).    Others shared heartfelt sentiments on how I was a gift. 

In the all-consuming tyranny of the moment I forget these threads both thin and thick which tie me to people.  The gifts of simply worded wishes on a cyber screen were so powerful I couldn’t read them until the next day.  The gift of a text or a quick call to say, “How are you?” which really  means, “I know it’s tough and you are hurting and overwhelmed and alone.  I can’t make it better.  What I can do is to help you remember you are not alone.”

I saw a picture on Facebook and the saying was a gift to me.  I share it as my birthday gift to you.

The best kind of people are the ones that come into your life,

and make you see the sun where you once saw clouds.

The people who believe in you so much,

you start to believe in you too.

The people who love you, simply for being you.

The once in a lifetime kind of people.

Thank you for being my once in a lifetime people.

You are the few, the proud, the readers joining me as I step into another year eating less, praying more and loving abundantly.