Today marks the halfway point of my year of writing this blog. I am halfway there. From the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, being halfway there means “to have done something that will allow you to achieve something else.”
Halfway there is a good feeling.
When you’re halfway to your weight loss goal, you’ve really accomplished something. It helps create momentum to carry you to completion. Continue reading
Getting away for a brief respite recently, my husband and I went for a walk. We were in a touristy locale of shops and restaurants among many others out enjoying the warm, sunny summer day. It was good to be away and focus on having fun together, creating some new memories and building our relationship. We joked as we walked, as we so often do. Amid the joking, I said, “As long as we don’t talk about babies, children, or gender, I’ll be fine.” It was a little funny, a little snarky, and more than a little true.
These days, people regularly talk about trigger warnings, which are defined as statements that occur at the beginning of a piece of writing, video, speech, etc., alerting the participant of potentially distressing material contained within that might trigger a traumatic reaction.
Trigger warnings began as an internet phenomenon and have spread into print and other media. Their usage comes on the heels of the creation of the diagnosis of PTSD or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in the 1960s. The concept of PTSD originally focused on the experiences of soldiers returning home from war, but has since become more widely used to diagnose the aftereffects of all kinds and levels of traumas. For some interesting reading on the topic of PTSD and the development of trigger warnings, take a look at this May, 2015 article entitled “Generation PTSD: What the ‘Trigger Warning’ Debate is Really About.” Continue reading
The Lord of the Rings trilogy of movies is a favorite for our family. We’ve watched all three movies in one marathon day-long adventure several years back, as well as watching one each night for three nights in a row the first summer we moved to the desert. Continue reading
In August 2017, my husband and I became empty nesters. It was a time which we had looked forward to throughout our 21 years of parenting. Now it was here, and it was so freeing to have only the two of us to consider when deciding when and where to eat, what to watch on television, when to go to bed, and on and on. It was a fresh start. Continue reading
Plans for “top surgery” are on track yet this month for our youngest twin. We’ve exchanged some thoughtful messages via email and on the phone over the past couple of weeks. I’ve appreciated our ability to communicate without overt conflict. There has been a tone of love and respect from all of us. It’s a disconnected feeling to step outside yourself and philosophically know you’re able to cope with a situation while at the same time experiencing an undercurrent of anxiety and heartache that isn’t alleviated even during sleep. 
I wrote a final message today to express some feelings and thoughts before leaving the ultimate decision up to them. Here is the excerpted version: Continue reading
Do you remember the climate control panel in older cars? The slider could move all the way to the blue side for completely cool air, and all the way to the red side for completely warm air. In the middle, the red and blue colors overlapped giving you a combination of hot and cold air. You could mix it just right to generate your optimal air temperature – directly in the middle for an equal mix, or slightly to one side or the other for a warmer or cooler effect on the air flow. Continue reading
Live and let live is a proverb that embodies tolerance, even without agreement.
We recently had a wonderful dinner and heartfelt conversation with friends who described their church as “live and let live” in ideology. They attend a United Methodist Church that has embraced being a reconciling congregation. It is a part of the UMC’s Reconciling Ministries Network whose guiding principles in part state: Continue reading
I feel like my hands and feet have been tied behind my back, and I’ve been thrown into a deep pit of water. I can’t breathe.
If the blog of my journey were a record album, I would want to push the needle down hard into the grooves and scrape it across the entire story, destroying the totality of it with a primal screech before breaking the album into pieces on the floor.
Fortunately the voices in my head are stilled by the more objective voices of friends – friends who can stomach my extremism without judgment. They can share my strong emotions, but talk me back from the ledge of my fears. They speak hard truths, but with compassion.
I thought that being in the middle would be a place of balance.
I thought that bringing together all the feelings and facts
would help me find a sense of peace and understanding.
I thought that the middle would be a more comfortable place.
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