Sunday, October 18, 2015

Season of Aches

So much for going slow. 

On top of working full-ish time, taking most-ish care of all household duties, having kids and a husband in residency, taking on some leadership at MOPS, I started grad school.  For the most part, adding in school has been amazing.  It is invigorating and challenging and filled with hope and dreams and adults.  But there's also the fine print of deadlines and homework and seriously intense readings and papers(okay I love writing papers) and 4 am wakeups in order to get in the quiet time to work.  Yawn. 

Its been really nice this fall to have some intellectual distractions, but I'm afraid it may also be adding a little to the seasonal anxiety and stress I tend to feel during these four months of the year.  I noticed shortly after Jameson's birthday this year that I started having a hard time sleeping.  And my back and neck started to get really sore and moving started getting painful.  And probably owing to those things, I also started to get really tired.  My first thought was that my thyroid must be off, but after consulting with DocHubs, that is really unlikely based on my recent numbers. 

So then I started thinking back and last fall I had the exact same symptoms, but worse from the thyroid issues.  The previous three years were riddled with sleep deprivation and pain from pregnancy, birth, babies, insane amounts of flu and stomach viruses and therefore, hard to know, but also full of aches and fatigue.  But, judging by the timing, I really think part of my fall aches and pains are physical symptoms from grief and remembrance of those four months we spent in the PICU before he died. 

So.  I don't know.  I'm tired.  And tense.  And sore.  And having more headaches and migraines than normal.  And it kinda really sucks.  But I'm also busy(which is a really good thing).  And laughing a lot.  And learning SO much amazing information in grad school.  I'm happy.  And madly in love with husband and my kids and my life. 

The more of life I experience, the more I see how everyone has crosses to bear, everyone has brokenness.  And I'm grateful for mine.  I'm grateful for the pain, grateful for the perspective it provides, the way the fight for JOY makes everything sweeter, the way it connects me with other people.  Don't get me wrong, I would love to give back these crosses, to have my beautiful Jameson here and still be living on the shiny side.  BUT, some of the things I've learned and most of whom I've become because of this loss, because of this pain and because of this faith, I would not want to give back.   It isn't easy to reconcile, but I have to eat dinner, so to wrap this up, I'm just going to say that I'm here.  Broken and happy and ready for more adventures.