On Confronting a Mental Disorder

Burn #210 by David Nadel

It is quite difficult to bluntly admit one's weakness, to lay bare one's closely-guarded, mangled pieces without excuse or explanation, without mounting some defense or plea of extenuating circumstances. Easier to lay charge on some environment factor, to impugn some abtruse agent-- school, work, weddings... or perhaps to construct some detailed analysis of the influencing factors. If this, this, and that coincide, then this failing is the inevitable result. Such constructions lead to false hopes: once this is done, all will be well and normal again; if we just make it till Christmas, till graduation, till the 5th of March, this won't bother us anymore. 

But the circumstances change, the deadlines of change come and go, those influencing agents mysteriously fade away, and the gaping wound remains, unhealed, unchanged. More explanations can be sought, perhaps even convincingly found, but the facade begins to slip, paint peeling, frame sagging. Those willing to look will see the straining timbers beneath the plaster and cheerful signs. Much longer and down it falls.

The honesty begins with oneself, for the excuses, though to them told, are not so much made for the others. Acceptance of these flaws is often feigned but rarely carried to full term. It's the schedule or the assignment, the sheer number of demands or the short time in which they must be done- it must be. A change of scenery would cure it, but since there is so much to be done here now we must grit our teeth and suffer through. It's easier to believe this than to grapple with the fundamental shift required to cope with a permanent impediment. 

Mental disorder is a term quite apt for application to anxiety and panic. One's thoughts are constantly asunder-- leaping from thought to thought and task to task propelled with an impending sense of doom. The inability to stop the mind leads to flurries of business, the harnessing of thoughts for productive activity or their preoccupation with stories and news of the day, for at the moment they are left to their own devices comes the overwhelming wave of dread, the paralyzing sense of failure, the seemingly prescient clarity that nothing will end well. These thoughts, if captured, are easily dismissed as irrational, but the feelings are not, nor the physiological response they provoke. The clenched jaw, the racing heart, the perspiring palms and quickening breath, the trembling frame, weighted chest, sudden faintness all spell fear, choking, inescapable fear. At the surface these fears bear names: the deadline-missing-fear, the offending-fear, the being-mistaken-fear. But at their heart something unnameable lies, no matter how often one tries to conjure it into words in the middle of the night. And after the weddings and paper deadlines, the moves and illnesses, the self-imposed deadlines, the thing remains, evidencing its persistence and forcing a new reckoning with the frustration and shame of admission that one cannot control one's own mind and hasn't the slightest idea how to change that. 

The last few weeks have been full of projects, opportunities, exciting news, nasty flu, tasks checked off and more tasks to do, and they have brought with them the difficult realization that I have once again underestimated my anxiety disorder. My deadlines have passed, and the terror remains, whether the week is busy or calm, whether the deadlines are short or long, whether the project is going poorly or splendidly. It feels like a continual drowning: treading water on the good days, flailing and gasping on others, whittling away at the last shreds of patience, stealing any sense of hope or calm, wearing on the ability to function reasonably, trapping me in my own thoughts, unable to claw my way out of a perpetual state of semi-isolation. The feeling of having little to know control over one's thoughts leads to perpetual frustration and exhaustion.  And at this point it is difficult to know how to cope with this unwanted companion. I know the practical steps: the breathing, the centering, the reframing; but such small tools seem vastly inadequate in the shadow of the monolith that towers above me, like spoons in a  sinking ocean-liner. Still something else whispers that this is all in my head while another suggests that I am not trying hard enough. Another points out that hearing voices, metaphorical or not, is evidence enough for a lack of sanity. I wonder sometimes if turning toward pharmaceutical solutions would be a wise choice or a cop-out. The winning feeling seems to be paralysis. 

Yet even with the realization of these last few weeks come comforts, most of all that even in this we have begun a marriage. In all honesty, it probably took a marriage to provoke the final blunt admission that things are wrong and cannot easily be righted. And though my anxieties wear on him-- the volatility, the crises, the moments of despair-- he says that he knew what he was getting into and that this does not change his love. Together we'll struggle through and find something that helps. It's by no means easy, but it is incredibly reassuring to not be alone. 

Part of the practical reality of the moment means that I'm not sure how much I'll be writing at the moment. I'm beginning to learn that I need to give myself grace, and, with a house still half in boxes and a number of key school projects and important interviews coming up, I'm finding it necessary to carefully conserve my time and energy. I'm not sure how long this process of managing this anxiety will take or what it will look like, but I know it needs to happen now. And so I start and hope for the best. 

On a Reception and Such

On Saturday night we had our last wedding reception here at the lovely Tucson Museum of Art. The night was fun, relaxed, and festive, with great food and drinks and wonderful company. It marked the end of the last eight months of wedding planning, and I can't say that I'll miss it very much. I want to write a bit in the next few weeks about what I learned from the wedding process- about weddings, about marriage, about family and friends, and about myself. But for right now, I'm content to bask in the glow of the well-wishes and revel in the wonderful return of the routine. Never did a week of simple coursework and little things around the house seem so nice. For some long-awaited rest, I am thankful.

PS: All of these photos were taken by our wonderful, talented friend Blake and his fantastic camera

My mom made all our desserts from scratch! (And they were DELICIOUS)

We used Carte Blanche Catering and the food was awesome!

My best friend Hannah and I

Particularities

There's nothing quite like significant life milestones or periods of extreme stress to shake out all sorts of things you never knew about yourself, or at least all those things you suspected but never wanted to admit to. Being the over-achiever that I am, I decided to roll at least of three of these events into a period of a few short months, and the result has been an avalanche of uninvited self-discovery. (A note to anyone tempted to try writing a thesis, getting married, moving apartments, and graduating all around the same time: It will unleash insanity. Be forewarned.)

Probably the most uninvited of these discoveries: I am a very particular person. 

I think I've suspected this, but I like to masquerade as the happy-go-lucky, go-with-the-flow, laid-back type. Do whatever you want-- I don't care... Oh, that can go anywhere. Routines? Oh, I don't have those. There's nothing like combining your life with another person's to quickly shatter that illusion.

It drives me nuts when people squeeze from the middle of the toothpaste tube instead of the end of it. I really do want the furniture to match. I need at least one hour a day, preferably in the morning, to sit quietly, read, or do something by myself without interruption to preserve my sanity. Dirty dishes need to be in the sink, in the dishwasher, or washed immediately (none of this countertop-lolly-gagging). 

This sort of particularity is actually normal, okay, and even good. Everyone has their own personal quirks that create unique little particularities that make clutter on the coffee table odious or form a tolerance for squash only when it's baked with butter and maple syrup. In fact, if I had to hazard a guess, I would say that most of those happy-go-lucky, laid-back types out there are probably closet people-pleasers like myself. It's not that we don't have particularities, we'd just rather hide them than risk offending others. Of course, such facades can only last so long, and they can crumble in quite ugly ways. Rather, it is best to put away the pretenses and expose one's idiosyncrasies with grace. Some will have to be put away for the time- the dishes may always find their way to the countertop, but better than the kitchen table; the toothpaste tube may always be slightly squished around its waist, but such things will not matter for more than a few moments. Other particularities can be accommodated with ease-- so be it. 

Most of all, I've learned that one must release that false hope that everything will one day be "just so." Right now the house is filled with boxes-- hopefully in a week it will no longer be, but it may never be completely spotless. Lived-in houses rarely are for more than a day or so. Best instead to focus on pursuing the reasonable: a comfortable, inviting place to host friends and family or to simply enjoy now being two together from formerly-autonomous ones. With that I think I can be content.  

Image: Merrily Merrily Home by Ashley G, available on Etsy

Happy Returns and a New Year

 Morning Light over Lanikai Pillboxes, Oahu, Hawaii

I'm back! Nate and I landed in Phoenix on a red-eye flight from Honolulu at eight o'clock yesterday morning and drove down to Tucson just in time for me to make my first class of the week. Since then it's felt a bit like we've been thrown into the deep end- classes have started, work is making daily demands again, schedules need adjusting, homework has begun to pile up, the thesis is still waiting, one more reception begs for our attention, and on top of it all we're moving to a new apartment this weekend. It's still a crazy sort of time of change and new beginnings.

First of all- we're married! It's been ten days since the wedding and I'm still not sure it's hit me yet. We're still in the early, gawky stages of combining all our earthly possessions and figuring out how two schedules will fit together and how two apartments worth of stuff will somehow coalesce into one new home. At the same time, we're just beginning to peek ahead at where this year might take us- beyond the next six months (and my graduation), we have no clear idea of where exactly we're headed, but we're eagerly awaiting the next adventure. 

In the next few months I look forward to processing it all- the wedding, marriage, living life together with another person, finishing school, planning for the future- and this will be one of those spaces where I process. I'm hoping to add in some serious discussions that arise from my area of expertise- questions of politics, inequality, conflicts, and ethnic relations- from time to time. And on the lighter side, I have a new apartment to decorate, new pictures to share, new recipes to try, and new music to explore. In short, I have all sorts of new content that I am incredibly excited to share with all of you, and I hope you'll join me in this new year.

photo by Kara Haberstock, 2013, all rights reserved

On Support

Bridges need support too!! :P (photo by Kara Haberstock, all rights reserved)

This last week has taught me a lot about the immeasurable value of support.

My anxiety disorder decided to display itself in full force this week, probably more severely than it ever has. Panic attacks came everyday. I had trouble sleeping and near-constant nausea. Eating was a struggle. Small tasks could reduce me to tears, and prolonged social exposure could be overwhelming. I was not at all a "fun" person to be with. But through all of this, Nate supported me, in just about every meaning of the word. And I learned a great deal about the incredible benefits of partnership and the support that comes with it.

According to Merriam-Webster,"support" can mean the following:

1. to endure bravely or quietly2. to assist or help3. to pay the costs of
4. to hold up
5. to keep from losing courage
6. to keep (something) going

And support took all of these meanings this week.

Nate sat with me on the floor of my bedroom, in the corner of the bathroom, and in the car in the dark, quietly holding my hand until the tears and the shaking subsided. He made me food and convinced me to eat when I didn't want to.  He prayed with me and for me, listened as I tried to verbalize what might be causing my anxiety to flare up like this, and told me I wasn't crazy or defective, that this wasn't my fault or my choice. He reviewed applications before I submitted them and reminded me that it's perfectly okay if I'm not accepted, that it's more than fine to take a year off, and that what I do next year in no way defines me.He served as a buffer with friends and family when social interaction got to be too much. He was patient with my changing moods and general unpredictability. And now we're going through the process of finding a therapist for me together. 

It wasn't very much fun to need support. I hated the fact that my mood was so volatile, that seemingly anything could trigger a surge of adrenaline and fear, that even simple tasks could seem like too much. I hated feeling like a different person. And I'm terrified that this all could happen again. But this I do know: I have support. Nate and I are a team; we support each other. We're all in. And that is a source of comfort and strength.

P.S.  

1. The American Psychological Association has some great resources concerning anxiety/panic disorders if you'd like to know more.

2. This APW post is one of my favorites about panic attacks and marriage

3. If anyone can recommend good therapists in Tucson, I am still in the search process and would love a recommendation!

On Changing One's Mind

via Suburban Misfit

Wedding dress shopping completely terrified me. First, I don't really like trying on clothes in front of people. More importantly, after some browsing the internet for a while, I was quite convinced that I would never find something I liked that was "wedding" enough for my family and that didn't cost a fortune. My requirements were simple:

1. It must not cost more than my laptop (which is infinitely more useful than a dress)

2. It must not preclude me from using the bathroom by myself  

3. It must not be fluffy, foofy, or reminiscent of a cupcake

4. It must not be covered in sparkles, glitter, sequins, or other excessively shiny things

5. It must not prevent me from walking through doors like a normal person

6. It must not have things which I might trip over (read: train)

7. It must have straps.

I was going for something simple, easy, and preferably flowy and elegant.

The dress I brought home (after a wonderfully un-terrifying experience) is flowy and elegant. It is not sparkly or shiny, excessively fluffy, or terribly expensive. I'm fairly certain I can manage bathrooms and doorways without too much trouble. However, it is in that dreaded mermaid silhouette, the one I derided as weird and poofy, saying that it made it look like one had a second waist at the knees. It is also strapless, though it does have optional spaghetti straps. And I really, really like it. 

And in this process I came to a distinct realization. I hate changing my mind. It makes me feel embarrassed and somewhat guilty. I was ashamed that I had changed my mind about the type of wedding dress I wanted.

And this shame (unfortunately) isn't limited to wedding dresses. It extends to my plans after college. What if I tell people I'm going to go abroad after graduation but then I decide I'd rather stay in the States and enjoy being married for a little while? What if I say I'm applying for graduate school but then decide to take a year off?

It applies to the social commitments I make.

What if I tell someone I'm going to be involved in some organization but then realize that my schedule won't allow it? What if I say I'll be somewhere but then I don't feel well?

It applies to most of my life decisions in general.

How do I tell people I'm getting married young after I was so adamant about staying single until my career was established? How do I explain why I decided not to study abroad my junior year? 

I think the shame stems from my fears of others' expectations and thoughts. I've always wanted to be thought of as a person of my word. If I say something, I'll do it. And changing my mind sometimes feels like I'm breaking my word. I'm afraid I'll be given that label that's so often affixed to the female gender: "fickle." I'm afraid that I'm admitting that I was wrong, and, in so many of these cases where others whom I respect have encouraged me to pursue a particular direction, I'm afraid that I'm telling them they're wrong too. I'm afraid that I'm second guessing myself, making the wrong decision, chickening out. 

But this is wrong. 

Like it or not, changing one's mind is a key part of life. One cannot just go steamrolling through life on one set course and expect things to turn out well. Successful living requires constant reevaluation and recalculation. (Even my quirky little GPS takes time to recalculate, granted generally at the most inopportune moments.) No one expects me to know exactly where I'm going-- as events unfold and I mature and learn and grow, I will change my course. Keeping my word is important, but so is the ability to reassess, to admit shortcomings and oversights, and to try something different. Honestly, I don't think anyone can say they know exactly where they are going and how they will get there. That would be unreasonable. 

And so I must continue to remind myself that it's perfectly reasonable to change my mind. It's okay that my dress looks a bit different than I thought it would, that my post-graduation plans might not turn out how I've envisioned them, and that my interests and commitments are ever evolving. Reassess, recalculate, move forward. It's life. 

Wedding Planning and Life Skills Acquisition

**Case in point: Hexagonal Wedding Cake. Also, must one wear shoes at one's own wedding?

Confession: I hate wedding planning. 

After the last few weeks, I can confidently say that weddings are not my cup of tea. This came as a little bit of a surprise, though it probably should have been expected. After all, event planning has never been something I particularly enjoyed. But given my creative bent and love of DIY projects, I thought I would have much more fun with wedding-related details than I am currently having. I've instead realized that I would much more enjoy planning someone else's wedding- a situation in which I could happily do my creative projects without worrying about everything else* that goes along with planning one's own wedding. The creative projects (like designing invitations) are fun. It's the everything else that gets me. 

*What the Everything Else includes:*

1. Being the center of attention.
For some reason, my introverted self didn't realize that having a wedding meant becoming the center of lots of attention until she got engaged. Then she panicked. 

2. Having opinion on all sorts of things one normally never considers in the course of one's life.
Are hexagonal cakes preferable to circular cakes?** Is white or off-white a more flattering shade? Do you like green-teal dresses, blue-teal dresses, dark-teal dresses, lighter teal-dresses, stormy ocean-teal dresses, pleasant weather ocean-teal dresses, muted-teal dresses, or hey-everybody-look-over-here-i'm-bright-teal dresses? (I swear there are actually this many different shades of teal.) 

3. Spending lots of money. Lots of money. On one day.
I know it's an important day, and we aren't spending extravagant amounts of money, especially in the realm of weddings. But this is going to do be the most expensive day of my life so far, except for perhaps the day I was born (babies are expensive- thanks Mom and Dad!). And while our families are incredibly generous and pitching in lots, it's still hard for me to accept spending this much money, no matter whose it is.  

4. Talking to strangers.
I was a very shy child, and I never outgrew my fear of talking to strangers on the phone. Or even emailing them. It's still slightly terrifying. (And so I procrastinate until Nate finally makes me get over it and email people. I know it's good for me, but still...not fun.) 

5. Talking about wedding details. All the time.
This really threw me off right after we got engaged. All of a sudden all sorts of people wanted to see my hand and talk about dates and locations and colors and other wedding-related things. I was a bit miffed ("I'm doing research! I'm going to Texas! I'm writing a thesis! I have a life besides getting married!"). After a little while, I got accustomed to it and began to realize that people were aware that my wedding was not my life. Rather, weddings are big, happy occasions that people like to celebrate and talk about. They're just happy for me- not trying to ignore everything else going on. But there are still days when the last thing I want to do is talk about the merits of one-shouldered vs. halter dresses or anything else wedding-related.
(On the other hand, I'm terrified that on certain days I might become that girl-who-won't-shut-up-about-her-wedding. Please don't let me do that) 

6. The Unknown.
Believe it or not, I've never planned a wedding before. And so much of this whole process feels like: "I think we need to do this now. Okay, how do we do this? Maybe like this? I don't know what I'm doing..."And weddings come with expectations (I think)- expectations of traditions and activities and invitations and other things. The last thing I want to do is hurt anyone, especially those many people we love and care about. So it's been tricky to figure out what things are really important and what things we can let go, how to be considerate of all our loved ones while doing what works for us, and when to ask for help and when to do things alone... Basically, it's a learning process.   

7. Life doesn't stop.
Weddings, unfortunately, don't come with a "pause life" button. There's still coursework to do, entrance exams to take, graduate schools to apply to, and a thesis to write. Bills still need to be paid, grocery shopping done, and dishes washed. And having pressing deadlines for applications and thesis components while keeping track of all the time-sensitive wedding-things can be a wee bit stressful.

Really, in all of this though, I can't complain because our community has been amazing in pitching in. Nate's mom, my future mother-in-law, is a wedding planning wizard and has been figuring out so many of the details for our wedding and reception in Hawaii, which has been a giant blessing. (And she's wonderfully creative too!) Many, many friends and family members are contributing little pieces of what we need. Nate has taken on certain aspects as his "stuff" and we're doing a lot of this together. (I really don't understand why it seems that the girl is expected to manage everything with minimal help from the guy. Things are so much easier when you work as a team.) And  Hannah is willing to put up with my (hopefully infrequent) wedding-related ranting.

And weddings, as frustrating as they might seem, are important. No, it's not going to be the "best day of my life." (I sure hope not- that means everything is downhill from here.) It's not really even "my day." Rather, having a wedding gives Nate and I the chance to make our commitment in front of our community who loves and supports us and to celebrate with them. Our wedding is not a show and hopefully we won't entirely be the center of attention. And all those things I hate about wedding planning? Well, maybe they'll help me learn something:

1. You can't be a wallflower all the time.
Some things require being in the spotlight, at least just a little bit. And it's important to learn how to manage those situations with grace. 

2. Figure out what's really important.
Some things really do matter. Other things are just the icing on the (hexagonal/circular/dodecagonal) cake. And it's more than okay to delegate. But learning to be decisive is an important skill. This is a good chance to practice. 

3. You can't save all the money all the time.
Saving money is important. And we're going to try our best to do this in a cost-efficient manner. But some things are important and require spending some money, possibly even more money than your very-practical-and-useful car is worth. Weddings are probably one of them. And that's okay. 

4. Overcoming fear.
Lots of things in life require talking to strangers, so you need to get over this fear. This is your opportunity.
5. Let people celebrate with you. And set boundaries.
People like to talk about happy, pretty things, and it's fun to indulge them. But at the same time, it's more than okay (and probably healthy) to declare some days wedding-free zones.  

6. Life is unknown.
Better get used to it. 

7. Life never stops.
See #6. But never hesitate to ask for help.

So maybe planning a wedding teaches important life skills-- I'll get back to you on that. In the meantime, I need to start writing some emails to strangers. Wish me luck.

Cooking Creatively

I have finally accepted that I am becoming one of those crazy-diet people. Not in the crash-diets, only-eat-cabbage-and-protein-shakes, scarily-unhealthy diets way, but in the I-can't-believe-you-don't-eat-that, how-do-you-survive kind of way.

Crazy-diet people used to scare me. Vegetarian- you mean you don't eat meat? Ever??? Vegan- no cheese? Gluten-free- I would DIE without bread!

But this crazy-diet-ness just slipped into my life slowly and quietly.

I discovered in high school that I have a dairy allergy. Feeling really terrible after every meal is not normal-- surprise! Soy milk (now rice milk) became my best friend as I begin to cut much of the dairy out of my diet. (Didn't completely cut out the mac'n'cheese though-- that stuff is delicious.)

In college I decided to try a raw food fast one fall. And I felt so good that I didn't bother to put meat back in my diet. My skin cleared up. I had more energy. And so I became a loose vegetarian (I cheat with sushi, and out of courtesy I will eat anything served to me at someone's house. After all, I do it for health benefits and not for any moral conviction, so I can be flexible.)

Now, I'm marrying someone with Crohn's. And after doing some research and talking a bit, Nate and I have decided to go gluten-free. The health benefits for Crohn's seem to definitely outweigh any inconvenience. 

So at this point I like to embrace the title of "free-etarian" bestowed on me by a dear friend. I'm a soon-to-be gluten-free almost-vegetarian who eats occasional fish, goat's milk products, some hard cheeses, and eggs for the protein. But as flexible as I am, I'm pretty sure I fall solidly in the crazy-diet category. However, my body is much happier now, so I'm pretty sure it's all worth it.

And, because our bodies are amazing things, I've found that our tastes can change quite dramatically over time. My favorite foods are now mushrooms, avocados, spinach, sweet potatoes, peaches, strawberries, bananas, chevre, and peanut butter. Probably in that order. My six-year-old self would be disgusted. But the healthier food I eat, the more healthy food I crave. As sugar has slowly been cut from my usual foods, I find myself wanting less and less of it. And it's gotten to the point that any meat besides a little fish makes me sick (it's something about not producing the proper enzymes to break down those sorts of proteins any more).

And I've also learned so much more about cooking. I would say I've always been a pretty good cook, but forcing myself out of the routine cuisine I grew up with has forced me to be much more daring and think outside the box. The result has been pretty fantastic so far. I mean, there are recipes I try where the general consensus is that such a thing should never ever be cooked again. But I've learned so much more about flavors and how to combine unexpected ingredients while cooking with fresh, in-season ingredients in a way that's not full of fats and sugars. My body is quite happy for all of this. It does take a bit more time and preparation, but I get more efficient as I go. And I can't wait to keep experimenting-- it's going to be good!

And since Nate and a few other friends have gotten on me to actually write down the recipes for what I make (I don't generally measure things when I cook), for the next few months I'm going to try to post at least one recipe a week. Some of them will be my renditions of recipes I've found around the Internet, and some of them will be my own creations. All of them will be gluten free, vegetarian, relatively healthy, and fairly easy to make (I'm lazy). So come back on Tuesdays for some healthy, easy food!

Finally Home

Thirteen hours of driving across the southwest corner of the country gives one a distinct appreciation for home. A bed, a pillow, the ability to stretch one's legs-- these are the simple comforts. The flurry of family and friends is always nice, the necessary grocery runs and dropping-by at the nearest Walgreen's a bit of a hassle, but a warmly familiar one at that. One never gets accustomed to the summer heat, true, but the always-stunning sunsets and thundering monsoons are well-worth the discomfort. The well-worn road from Tucson to Phoenix and back seems much simpler after one's cross-country treks. Home-cooked food is never to be complained about.

But the most telling signs of home are the simple looks, the smiling faces, the arms outstretched at the door. The familiar embrace, the shared laughs, the first night spent up a bit too late-- now I am home. Waking up to the sunlight in the bed from the southern window, breakfast on the burner that always smells a little hot, fresh-roasted coffee at the table in the corner-- now I am home. The scuffed floor, tangled sheets, water just-a-bit-too-hot--now I am home. 

I missed you Tucson.


Photo by Kara Haberstock (my room- yay!), all rights reserved

The Nature of Trees

What is it of the natures of trees that we find them so wondrous?

For what reason do we fashion them into metaphors and myths?

The tree of life. The tree of knowledge. Wood nymphs and dryads. Ents and sylvans. 

Why do we find them so majestic? For what purpose do we imagine they speak? From where do we assume their strength and wisdom?

Is it their sheer breadth? The awe-inspiring grandeur of the massive oak or towering sequoia, and the thought that even the smallest of these we find could one day become so tremendous?

Is it the bark which clothes them, finely spun, in ever undulating patterns that rub roughly against well-worn fingertips?

Or is it their lines and curves-- the stark perpendicularity of a proud pine against the gentle arc of a spreading willow?

Perhaps it is the voice of the wind as it plays through the gentle leaves overhead and the glimmers of gold amidst the quaking leaves.

Do we envy the stability of their roots, that strong anchor against whatever storm may come? Is this why an uprooted giant is mourned as such a tragedy?

Is it the cool shade they provide, their abode for birds and other small creatures, their gift of aesthetic beauty? Do we see in them humble generosity?

Perhaps we sense in them a timelessness, their slowly unfolding growth a contrast to our fleeting journeys across these spaces, and we take comfort in knowing their steadfast presence at this very moment in their place no matter where our feet may take us.

Or, perchance, they simply remind us to stop, stand still and be.



All photos by Kara Haberstock, all rights reserved

Why the 28th of June was a good day

Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images via Slate

I'm always a bit hesitant to bring up my own political views on this blog, but they are an important part of my personal experience. Thus I will write about them from time to time. I acknowledge that these are merely my opinions, and I respect your right to disagree with me. All I request is that any discussion this sparks be thoughtful and respectful.

On the 28th of June, the United States Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to uphold the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), commonly known as "Obamacare," sparking a flurry of responses from commentators, politicians, and other citizens of social media and Internet spheres ranging from despair and anger to joy and elation. I was quietly pleased, but I know many others weren't. Perhaps your views on politics and the role of government diverge from me. Perhaps you already have a job that provides wonderful health insurance. Perhaps you have a major that will guarantee one of those jobs.  Perhaps you are older than twenty-six and health insurance falls at the very bottom of your financial priorities. Perhaps you have no pre-existing health conditions. Perhaps you just honestly despise every piece of legislation proposed by or endorsed by Obama. Really, the reasons for not sharing my reaction are nearly endless, and most of them are fully justifiable.

However, as the events of the last few weeks have unfolded in my life, I have gone from pleased to extraordinarily grateful for the ruling to uphold PPACA. Honestly, this legislation has changed my life for the better in many ways, and without it the events of the last week would have been potentially crippling for the future Nate and I are planning to share. And this is why I felt the need to write this piece. 

But before I delve into my personal experience, I'd like to take a moment to look at what PPACA does. This series of articles by the Christian Science Monitor does an excellent job of explaining what PPACA means for the ordinary citizen in plain English. I'll try my best to hit some of the major points here. Basically, PPACA requires that all citizens must hold some form of health insurance. If someone does not have employer-provided health insurance, they must purchase health insurance from a newly-created health exchange that sells policies to individuals. Those who choose not purchase health insurance must pay a penalty (deemed a tax by the SC). However, in order to prevent undue hardship on those with low incomes (a large portion of the uninsured), federal subsidies will be available to those with incomes that are less than four times the federal poverty level. These subsidies will cap the cost of health insurance for these individuals at a certain percentage of their income (for example, individuals making less than $44,000 per year will not pay more than ten percent of their income towards health insurance).

Simultaneously, PPACA is reshaping the healthcare industry in several other key ways. Young adults may remain on their parents insurance until the age of 26. Insurers may no longer charge women more for health insurance than men. Insurers may not refuse to provide insurance to individuals with pre-existing medical conditions. This last provision is part of the reason why the insurance mandate is necessary- the influx of new healthy customers buying health insurance will offset the risk brought by the influx of new customers with pre-existing conditions.

Back to my life. As most of you know, Nate had a nasty Crohn's flare-up last week, a flare-up severe enough to cause some complications and land him the ER three times and finally in the hospital for a couple days. And suddenly, the benefits of PPACA became extremely clear in my personal life. Nate, being younger than 26, is still on his parents' health insurance plan as allowed by PPACA. The hospital bills, while still expensive, are much more manageable, and we should be able to pay them without falling deeply into debt. His medications are covered by the insurance plans he is currently on, which also means that we can afford them.

Without PPACA, Nate would not currently be allowed to be on his parent's healthcare plan. Fortunately, he does have a job with medical benefits. However, Crohn's disease is considered a pre-existing condition. As such, without PPACA, Nate could easily be denied affordable health insurance or health insurance coverage at all. And without health insurance, the hospital bills from this last week would be astronomically expensive and extremely difficult for us to repay. Compounding this, without health insurance, Nate's current treatment regimen for Crohn's would also be out of our financial reach (with insurance it still costs nearly as much as current rent expenses). And without this treatment, his medical situation would be much worse-- likely leading to more hospital bills-- leading to more debt....I think you can see where this cycle goes.

PPACA also provides benefits for my the rest of my family and I. As a female, before PPACA, I would be charged more for my health insurance than a male in my same situation would be because the state of Arizona is one of 37 states that has not banned gender rating by health insurance plan. (This does not include maternity benefits or costs associated with pregnancy-- this is only for the same basic coverage.) My sister, who is moving to California, would escape this if she stayed in that state (California has banned gender rating). My mother has a rare genetic disorder that, like Crohn's disease, could be considered a pre-existing medical condition. Without PPACA, if my father ever lost his job, she might not be able to find new health insurance.

At this point I must apologize to all healthy males over the age of 26 who now must buy health insurance or pay a penalty-- I am benefitting from the mandate which has imposed this cost on you. So are all the women in this country. And everyone who had a pre-existing medical condition. And everyone under the age of 26. For young people like Nate and I, this legislation makes the difference between lives that are sometimes marked by significant medical expenses to lives beneath a crushing amount of continually accruing debt. It means we can afford the treatment and medications he needs. It means that we don't have to think twice when he needs to receive medical attention. It means that we don't become a drain on the medical system when we can't pay the hospital bills like so many other uninsured people with serious medical conditions.

I suppose this might be selfish of me, but I like living in a country that has passed this sort of legislation. I like living in a country that is moving just a little bit closer to following the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. I like living in a country that is beginning to end discrimination based on health and gender. Given my experience with loved ones with serious medical conditions and with medical problems in my own life and in the lives of those around me, I see the very real need for health insurance. You never really know what's going to happen (as someone who's been hit by a car more times that she would like to recount, I can fully attest to this). Good health is a blessing that is not guaranteed. I am immensely glad that in this country there is now a way for health insurance to be affordable for everyone and that the Supreme Court has upheld this legislation. So at least from my view, the 28th of June was a good day. 

Musing: All In

Just over a week ago, my favorite blog, A Practical Wedding (note: way more than just a wedding blog)  had a post about the dreaded question: how do you know? As in, how do you really really know if you're ready to get married? And it was open for discussion. As you know from the frequency of my writing on the topic, answering that question has been a bit of a struggle for me. I worry that I'm too young to be making this sort of a decision. I worry that getting married isn't compatible with my career goals. I worry that getting married is letting down my little feminist self that knows her strengths and wants to do big things and who shudders at the thought of being stuck in a house all day (that never turns out well, even with my introverted-ness). And the morning that I read that post, I was incredibly stressed on my second day of a three-day twenty-seven hour work binge to get a crucial but tedious part of my project done, and I was rather upset with Nate due to something he'd said during a phone call that morning. So as I was brooding and trying drum up the willpower to get back to work, I wasn't feeling all that confident in my "knowing-ness." 

The impatient moments of waiting for the plane to finally get moving and get off the ground at the beginning of every commercial flight are always marked by the safety presentation, in which a flight attendant smashes words together in order to speak as quickly as possible while her fellow crew members pantomime uses of seatbelts and oxygen masks with tired gravity. When they reach the part about emergency evacuations, three thoughts generally cross my mind. First, what are the odds that this plane is sufficiently intact following a crash to actually use the fancy doors and slides and such? Second, even if all the doors and slides work, what are the chances that we passengers will be calm and coherent enough to follow all these instructions? Will I actually remember to wait to inflate my life vest until I'm outside the plane? Where are these red pouches you speak of? Third, I know you say to leave everything, but is there anyway that I can grap my laptop? It's kinda my life...

But sitting on a plane bound for Texas on Friday night, when the hyper-speed safety briefing reached the evacuation portion, that third thought suddenly changed. Can I grab my laptop? Who cares-- I've gotta get home.

I'm not saying that being in a relationship or deciding to get married has made my life worth living-- far from it. I was a very happy, fulfilled, adventurous single person, and I'm pretty sure I could have stayed that way for a while had circumstances been a bit different. But this process of moving toward marriage has changed my priorities quite a bit, as it should. After all, in marriage two become one, which means I have more to consider than just my opinion when making even hypothetical decisions such as this.

But let me back up-- there's a very long, difficult week between the moody-wedding-post-reading episode and the laptop-dilemma realization mentioned above. At the end of my too-long, TMJ-inducing, stress-filled weekend, I found out that Nate was in the ER in Tucson due to a Crohn's flare-up. And for the first-time since I've known him, I couldn't be there. It was hard, but I knew that our wonderful friends were taking good care of him, and he seemed better the next morning. Then he ended up back in the ER for a second night in a row, and I started looking up flights and waking up in the middle of the night with somewhat-irrational fears that he could die. I felt guilty for not being there with him and for putting such a burden on our friends who have full-time jobs. But in the morning he said he was feeling better and I felt that finally, things were looking up. At three p.m. on Tuesday a friend called to let me know that Nate had been admitted to UMC because an obstruction had shown up on the CT scan. I sent off a flurry of emails and phone calls and booked the first one-way flight to Tucson the next morning. I worked most of the night before, unable to sleep and trying to get as much done as possible before I left. Deadlines were approaching in a week, but most of my work could be done remotely. But, honestly at that point, it didn't really matter to me that much what my work situation was like. I needed to get home and to that hospital.

The first time I think I ever really came close to "knowing" with Nate was actually on a trip to the ER. It was so frustrating to sit there helplessly holding his hand when he was in such incredible pain, waiting and hoping that a room opened up quickly, but I knew that I never wanted to be anywhere else but right there when something like that happened.I wanted to be there to fight through the incredibly hard, painful parts of life with him. (And he's been there through the difficult, painful parts of life for me thus far.)

And this time, again, being there in the hospital, some questions were cleared up for me. That nagging career v. marriage question? I would choose Nate over my career in a heartbeat. Fortunately, I don't have to: he's very supportive of my career aspirations, and he knows my strengths and wants me to use them. Am I young to be getting married? Yes, according to national averages. But I'm also graduating college at younger age than average, and no one fusses about that. And it makes sense to get married at this age, especially for practical reasons such as health decisions. "Fiancee" is an improvement over "girlfriend" in the hospital, but "wife" will carry much more weight. And regarding my feminist self...APW has some wonderful posts about that. Maybe in time my feelings towards "housewife" will change a bit; maybe that won't. (For the record, I do enjoy cooking and keeping a relatively tidy house because I enjoy having a well-working house and hosting people in my home. I just don't really want to be a full-time housewife.) Either way, feminism is struggle to achieve equal rights for women, part of which includes the right to choose how we will live our lives. So no, getting married does not equal failing or selling out as a feminist. And if getting married isn't selling out or career suicide or a young-stupid-kid mistake, then what arguments do I have left?

A little after twenty-four hours after I arrived at the hospital, we were homebound. The obstruction had kindly resolved itself with the help of some drugs to reduce inflammation and an Ng tube. We spent the last twenty-four hours together quietly while trying to get a few practical things done (wedding planning and apartment hunting). That persistent small fear that this all could happen again the moment I left made it a bit difficult to let him out of my sight (a technological mishap precipitated a walk to his house because I was terrified that something had happened and I couldn't get ahold of him because his phone was dead). As expected, this week's events did not do wonders for my anxiety disorder. And as much as he's promised to not get sick when I'm two states away, life, and especially life with Crohn's, is very uncertain.

In the end, I think I can say that I "know." I know not in the way that says things are going to work out the way I want them too or this is the 100% best possible choice I could be making right now. Love and marriage are inherently risky. There's no guarantees concerning what will happen in our lives. And there's always the possibility of loss. There's no knowing that our lives will turn out just the way we want them too. That's where trust and faith come in. And we are both inherently selfish people who will try our best to get beyond our own self-interest, but many times we will fail. That's where grace and mercy come in. But I do know that, from this point on, I'm all in. The laptop has been demoted. I am choosing to commit the rest of my life to learning to love Nate well, and together we're going to be a pretty awesome team. And I know that I am ready as I'll ever be to make that choice. 

And just to clarify, Crohn's by no means defines our relationship. It's been an unfortunate (but thankfully infrequent) interruption that has sparked some moments of introspection and realization. But most of our time together is happily healthy and mundane- evenings spent working together or lazy weekend afternoons, ventures out to explore a new part of the city or a nights spent in cooking and cleaning afterwards (a regular part of life sans dishwasher). I hope that most of our married life will just be the mundane stuff and the fun adventures. But it's good to know that we can get through the hard times too.

My Mind and I

There are a lot of days when I feel like a crazy person.

Not crazy in a good or fun way. Crazy as in off-my-rocker-mind-long-gone-down-the-rabbit-hole crazy. Definitely not the good kind of crazy.

See, I have an anxiety disorder. I've had it for a while. And I've (mostly) learned to cope with it. My mind works a little differently than other people's does. My mind excels at finding the worst case scenario. It likes to run in circles around some terrible thing like an over-excited terrier chasing its tail. It can write a novel out of single glance or pause in conversation. It conspires with my sympathetic nervous system to create physical effects akin to that one might experience if one were being pursued by a bear. And of course, this happens late in the evening when I'm curled up on my living room sofa and all of a sudden I feel like I should be running a marathon, except that all I really wanted to do was sleep and really I can't go out running at this hour because (A) I'm not that fond of running and (B) running in Tucson at this hour might just make some of those worst case scenarios my mind so lovingly drew up earlier come true.

I officially discovered the name for my mind's quirks in my second year of high school after going to the doctor for some of the physical symptoms (dizziness, tightness in my chest, racing heartbeat, etc). Looking back though I can see its traces long before then. I've always been a perfectionist, but the perfectionism-anxiety link seems like a chicken-egg conundrum: I'm not sure which came first. But the minor crises and near-breakdowns about little things- classic mind trick. In all likelihood, the anxiety played a bit of a role in my struggle with depression, and probably a few other things I struggled through, but there's no way to know for sure.

The strangest part of this anxiety must be its simultaneous normality and abnormality. Taking note of all the emergency exits seems so routine, the clammy palms and trembling fingers an everyday occurrence, the terror of a room of people I kinda-sorta know a common practice. It can be tricky to remember to tell my mind to shut up and take a chill pill because going to hang out at someone's house for the night in no way equates or matches an encounter with an angry grizzly. But at the same time, the abnormality remains so isolating. Normal people don't break down when invited to two different events, unable to choose which to attend for fear of offending someone whom they care about and have no desire to offend. Normal people can watch movies in the theater without shaking involuntarily or go to a concert with pounding bass without having to take frequent breaks to go outside and let their heart rate return to its normal level. Normal people make me feel absolutely nutty. 

Over time, I've learned quite a few coping strategies to outsmart my quirky mind. Don't go see anything more intense than a kids movie in theaters unless you really know the people you're going with. Avoid concerts with cranked up bass. Stop and breathe. Remember that it doesn't really matter what this person thinks of you. Do yoga in the mornings. Get plenty of sleep. Go easy on the caffeine.

It's not all bad. My quirky mind does have a few benefits. I'm very perceptive-- I catch the little things that others don't, and I read relationships and people well. My overactive imagination excels in creative projects. And nervous energy directed into an intellectual project generally yields great results. My anxious mind has shaped my struggles as well as my areas of excellence. How else could I sit in a coffeeshop for hours on end obsessing over syntax? (I always took some comfort in the fact that, according to my high school English teacher, all great writers were either depressed or crazy-- there is hope for me yet!)

Relationships remain my mind's favorite affair. Other's expectations (real or imaginary) might just be scarier than spiders and rattlesnakes put together, and disappointing someone I care about is probably my worst fear. My coping strategy for a long while was thus to avoid close relationships- it's harder to disappoint someone if they don't really know you and, besides, who cares if you do as long as you don't care about them to much. Slowly, however, I learned that this coping strategy was far less than desirable. So I made friends and endured the anxiety that came with them. And over time I found that it got easier. See, once you have friends you know you can trust, you suddenly have much less to be anxious about. 

But then a friend and I decided to embark on this adventure called dating, and my mind has since had a field day. So many expectations to imagine and conversations to read too much into. So many decisions to agonize over and opportunity costs to worry over. Then we decided to get really daring and try talking about marriage. The anxiety kicked up into high gear- so many expectations, gender roles, cultural expectations, career ambitions, and other major issues to run all over. The what-ifs piled up. We made it official and all those expectations became public. And they weren't even all in my head anymore (People have some interesting assumptions about engaged girls). If even normal people go a little crazy when it comes to wedding and engagements, I don't even really know what happens to people like me. Marriage books terrify my little feminist heart, and wedding planning is a perfect storm of expectations and relationships and people I care about-- my quirky anxious mind has never been quite so zealous. (Note: this is not due to my family or anything like that. They have been absolutely lovely about all this, which I greatly appreciate.)

These next months are going to be quite the adventure for my mind and I. There have already been days when it feels like an elephant has taken a seat on my chest and an Alfred Hitchcock movies soundtrack might as well be playing in the background because I can't shake a feeling of overwhelming dread and I can't think of any logical reason why I'm experiencing either of those feelings and I want to do is cry. Those are the days when I feel like a crazy person, and there are probably going to be a lot of those days. But I do know a few things for sure. First, I have friends and family and a fiance who know my quirks and love me in spite of my tendencies to get over-excited. Second, my struggles with my own quirks has given me a much greater capacity for understanding of others' struggles. And third, these quirks of mine are a part of me that I wouldn't really know what to do without.

Besides, do normal people really even exist anyway?

Photo by Kara Haberstock, Prague 2009, all rights reserved

Musings: Overwhelming Happiness

Play me first!

Every so often I have one of those moments of overwhelming happiness. I can feel it in my heart-- a sort of surrounding, bubbling, rising warmth, a noticeable lack of anxiety or heaviness, something like the feel of a soft knit wool sweater. The irresistible turn of lips upward.

It happens somewhat unexpectedly.

The drive home on a Texas highway after a wonderful evening of conversation, good food, and a great movie with a new friend.

The contentment of a quiet moment on the couch with an old friend.

That realization walking to school on a crisp clear morning that I was sincerely happy to be alive for the first time in a long time.

A Sunday afternoon spent hand in hand, curled up and drifting towards sleep, not a word being said.

The family reunited on a favorite simple outing.

The moments after a breath-taking question when I realized just how blessed I am in love and friendship.

An hour spent alone in a coffeeshop with a warm drink and a book, or perhaps just some paper and pen.

A familiar song in an unfamiliar place.

That moment in which it's undoubtable that you are once again home.

A rainy day spent indoors watching raindrops trickle their way down the window.

The glimpse of sunlight through the trees that dips the edge of everything in gold.

So Much Happiness

Naomi Shihab Nye

It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness.
With sadness there is something to rub against,
a wound to tend with lotion and cloth.
When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to pick up,
something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs or change.

But happiness floats.
It doesn't need you to hold it down.
It doesn't need anything.
Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing,
and disappears when it wants to.
You are happy either way.
Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house
and now live over a quarry of noise and dust
cannot make you unhappy.
Everything has a life of its own,
it too could wake up filled with possibilities
of coffee cake and ripe peaches,
and love even the floor which needs to be swept,
the soiled linens and scratched records…..

Since there is no place large enough
to contain so much happiness,
you shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you
into everything you touch. You are not responsible.
You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit
for the moon, but continues to hold it, and share it,
and in that way, be known.

from Words under the Words

Photo by Kara Haberstock, 2010, all rights reserved

Monday's Musings: "The Most Important Decision in Your Lives"

I saw this movie Saturday night with a friend in Dallas, and I absolutely loved it. It might possibly be my new all-time favorite movie. (Go see it!)

Anyways, this scene in particular struck me because it feels so true. Getting married is likely "the most important decision I'll make in my life." (At least up to this point.) And unlike these two kids, I'm not in a hurry. I'm not so certain. I've thought about this a lot, and I'm terrified. I need a bit more time by the trampoline to talk this over.

See, I'm quite a bit older than Sam and Susy. I know myself a little bit better. I know a bit more about the world and how it works and the challenges that will probably come. (Or at least I think I do.) I can't just jump into this with wild abandon and child-like certainty. Commitment is hard. I'm a pretty selfish person, and both of us are far from perfect. What if something happens? What if we hate it? What if we drive each other crazy? What if we fight all the time? What if we both get into grad school/med school but in different cities? What if I don't have the career I think I want and I resent him? What if one of us someday regrets this? What if we're broke? What if our health fails? What if he dies? What if I accidentally get pregnant before we want to have kids? What if our plans don't work out?

I'm very talented at seeing worst case scenarios.

The last two weeks have been an interesting time for me and all these thoughts. The first week terrified me because, honestly, I didn't miss him. I dove right into the research work here and loved it. I was meeting new people and talking about theory and conflict and reading all day. If this is what grad school is like, I was sold. I was having so much fun. And suddenly, I worried that maybe I was making the wrong decision. If I could move to a new city and adjust this quickly and enjoy it so much, maybe I should be focused more on grad school. Maybe I want that more. And at the same time, I hesitated to tell the others on my program that I was engaged. In my field, twenty is a very young age at which to get married. And somehow I felt that telling people I was heading in that direction seemed the same as telling everyone that I was rushing into things and that I wasn't serious about my work and my future. (Not that that's in any way true.)

I went home the weekend after the first week for a lovely wedding and cried a lot. I spilled all my fears and doubts with Nate and talked about the mounting pressure I was feeling and this nagging fear that I'm not ready for this. (At the worst point, I confessed that I somewhat envied my friends that could just move in together without the commitment.) I told him about the negative stereotypes in my head associate with young brides and my fear that marriage meant I was chucking all my other plans and goals and identities out the window. It was hard. But I realized how much we already are a team and how much I lean on him.

This second week has been quite a bit different. While I'm still loving what I'm up to, I've seen the holes in my current life. I don't have someone to tell me to put down the books and rest and eat food (Nate usually does that). I miss having him around, talking with him, being with him. (I think a big part of the not-missing-him during the first week was due to the fact I knew I would see him that weekend.) Marriage is still terrifying, but I've met a few people who disprove the notion in my head that being married means you can't have a career and that you have to be a stay-at-home mom or something along those lines. My engagement came up in conversation, and no one looked at me as a "dumb kid" or someone who's not serious about my work. Turns out that stigma was just something I'd made up in my own head. (I do that quite a bit.)

I still want to go to grad school, and I want to marry Nate. And he wants to go to med school, and I want him to go. And I'm not sure how that's going to work. But we'll figure that out.

I'm still afraid sometimes that I'm too young to get married. I hear people talking about how they didn't "know themselves" at my age, and I think, "What if that's me? Do I 'know myself'? What does that even mean?" But I know that Nate and I are a good team, and we've been putting quite a bit of thought into this. (So many marriage books and marriage blogs and marriage articles and long discussions and questions and talks with mentors and talks with friends and talks with people who probably had no interest in my commitment fears and just couldn't figure out how to gracefully extricate themselves from the conversation...)

Those "what if's" are still rattling around in my head. And they probably will be for quite a while because I don't know the future and what it will bring. But I do trust that God would not intentionally guide me into a trap or something that will cause unnecessary misery.

I think that at some point, you just have to go for it. Not that one should rush into things, but there comes a point after prayer and planning and thought and counsel that you just have to jump. Because knowing myself, I'll never be 100% ready for this. I'm usually never 100% certain on these sorts of things. Driving away from the house after my first visit home from college, on the plane on the way to Russia, after hitting submit for the application to this program, I've had moments of panic, thinking "What on earth am I doing?!" I'm pretty sure I will have at least a couple of those moments even after I get married. Moments when I wonder why I ever though this was a good idea, moments when I question my judgement and worry about the mess I've gotten myself into. (At least this is what I've heard from some of the more experienced married couples I know.) But those will just be moments, and I think we've prepared enough to not experience those sorts of issues all the time. And we'll keep preparing.

Before we got engaged, I had been talking with one of my mentors quite a bit about marriage and my fears and uncertainties. And she finally told me that she thought I was ready to go for it because I'm "the kind of person who could always read one more book and talk to one more person, who could still be at the 90% sure mark three years from now." (Decisiveness is not my strong suit.)

We still haven't set a date yet. With so much keeping me busy here, long-distance wedding planning is not something I want to attempt to add to my plate. And at the moment I need a little bit more time to work through some of these nagging fears. (I promise we're still talking about it though. Hopefully there will be one set soon.) But I think engagement is slowly becoming something a bit more joyful and a bit less scary. I wouldn't say I love being engaged quite yet-- it's a bit too anxiety-inducing for my taste. (Wedding planning=terrifying. I'm not the party-planning type.) But I'm slowly figuring it out.

And who knows, maybe I'll get to the point where I can stand in front of someone, casually chewing bubblegum, and say that, yes, I've thought about this and I'm ready to get married, and I'm kinda in a hurry.

Monday's Musings: Fancy Pants

I arrived at my summer fellowship wearing my new fancy pants. And even though I soon discovered that a more casual wardrobe would suffice for most of my new activities, I still felt grown-up, professional, and awesome.

I am not normally one to spend much money on clothes. Most of my wardrobe comes from thrift stores, Old Navy, friends, or other assorted affordable stores or stores that have those awesome sales ever so often (H&M, Forever 21, etc), in that order. Generally I don't spend more than $15 on a shirt and $25 on a pair of pants. (And now that I'm in college, these shopping trips only happen about twice annually. Yay for being a broke college student!) So, all that to say, I usually would not be buying fancy pants. 

But, as I prepared to leave for this summer's adventure, my sweet, wonderful grandmother offered to take me shopping for some professional wear, which I thought would be good idea, considering that I didn't really own any well-fitting slacks or nice blouses. At first I stuck to my usual strategy- finding something that looked nice, checking the price tag, and backing away slowly because it cost as much as a month's worth of groceries. Finally my grandmother pulled me aside and told me in no uncertain terms to stop checking the price tags and try something on already because "she was old and going to die sometime in the not-to-distant future and needed to spend her money somehow." (Seriously- her words not mine.)

So we shopped a few different stores and found four nice blouses, a cardigan, a black blazer (finally!), and two perfectly-fitting pairs of slacks that I deemed fancy pants. Were they cheap? Definitely not. (They weren't incredibly expensive either, but I spent more on this trip than I've ever spent in one shopping trip) But were they worth it? I would say yes.

In this stage  of my life, it's really easy for me sometimes to get so caught up in spending as little as possible that any sort of purchase can induce guilt- even if I'm not the one spending it. And that was my temptation after getting home with my new professional wardrobe that cost so much more than I ever would have spent. But in the aftermath, I realized two thing. One, part of humility and grace and love is being able to let others bless you in the ways that they choose. If they have the means and the desire, and they are truly meeting a need, the last thing I should be doing is stressing myself. And two, it's often worth it to spend a litte more on very practical things that will last a long time and serve a much needed purpose. It's a little like an investment. A well-made pair of slacks is going to last me a long time, through many professional outings and opportunities. And there's something to be said for feeling comfortable and confident in your clothes. This isn't an excuse to run out and break the bank on clothing. But I am saying that in my book, you are perfectly welcome to go out and buy yourself a good quality pair of well-fitting pants and wear them to work or wear to that presentation or even just around your house and feel awesome because you're wearing fancy pants. 

Monday's Musing: Keeping Focus

All the workout videos say you're supposed to do yoga on mountaintops, or on cliffs overlooking the ocean

First, the big news: I'm engaged! My boyfriend-now-fiance asked me to marry him yesterday, and I said yes. Pictures and story will be forthcoming. I wrote this post over the weekend before all the craziness of yesterday, and even though my circumstances have changed a bit, I think it still fits, so I'm running it anyways. So...here it goes


Focus can be a challenge for me.

I am generally a pretty focused person in the smaller parts of my life. When I start cleaning the kitchen, the kitchen will be clean before anything else happens. I can work on a paper for eight hours straight in a coffee shop until it's done. I tune out just about everything else when reading a book.

But in the bigger aspects of life, focus can be much more difficult. It's much easier to jump from one task to another task instead of actually taking time to look at my life and evaluate how I'm allocating my time. It's much easier to focus on the here and now than anything else. And nowhere does this become more obvious than in my faith.

I want my faith to be the defining aspect of my life. If you asked me I would tell you it was. I would say that Jesus is my first priority. But my actual day to day life doesn't always turn out like that. It's easy to neglect my prayer life, put off the time I spend in the Word, to tell myself that tomorrow I'll have a good quiet time. It's so very simple to draw my worth from the comments my professor wrote on my paper or the affirmation of a friend or the complements of a classmate. My boyfriend's love for me is often so much easier to grasp than God's love for me. My love for him is easier to tangibly express than my love for God is. And it's easier to focus on building that relationship than it is to focus on my relationship with God.

But fortunately, just as it doesn't take more than a few moments to figure out that I forgot to put in my contacts, it also doesn't take long to discover that my life is out of focus. Anxiety worsens. Fears grow more intense. Insecurities creep in. My relationships suffer. Frustrations build. Because as much as it may be easier to focus on the here and now, on the tangible relationships, on friends I can touch and see, none of them can provide what God does. My boyfriend (fiancé) is amazing and I love him to pieces, but he's no Jesus. He can't complete me. He can't give me true purpose. I cannot derive my worth from him. I cannot depend wholly upon him or I will be sorely disappointed. Christ is the one who died for me and gave me life. Christ is the one in whom I find hope and purpose. Through the Spirit I find love and joy and peace and patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. I was created for God's glory. He is my Center: only in him do I find true, abundant life. If I put my hope in human relationships, those relationships will fail-- we humans are fragile and frail, selfish and greedy. Someone will be hurt; whether intentional or not, everyone you love in life will eventually die or leave you. But when my hope is in Christ and my faith is firmly rooted, I can truly love. I can give freely of myself when I am constantly filled by the boundless love of God. When my worth is secure in Christ, I don't have to fear what others think-- I can lay down my guards and enter into genuine, deep relationships with the people around me. As my fiancé and I step toward marriage, we are stepping into a relationship that is meant to mirror the incredible relationship between Christ and the Church. There is no way that will happen successfully unless both of us are first focused on the One whom we are meant to imitate. 

I know this all in my head, but, like most things in life, it's much harder to put into practice in everyday life than it is to put on paper. Tomorrow I will wake up and face another day of challenges. I must choose to discipline myself, to prioritize, and look beyond the easily visible unread messages in my inbox to that which truly defines my life. It's an ongoing struggle, but an absolutely necessary one. So I will struggle on.

[And keep doing a happy dance, because I'm engaged!]