Thursday, January 22, 2009

making preparations

Tonight you will find me baking cakes for Seth’s fourth birthday party bash. This is ironic since I resigned from birthday party planning altogether after last year’s party. Alas, a year has gone by and I have once again taken over the invitation mailing, the food purchasing, the activity planning and the cake making. A wise and altogether realistic person would go easy on herself and buy the sheet cake from Publix but I find that completely uninspiring (and expensive) so now I will spend the better part of my Friday creating a largish cake with a tall skyscraper upon which the Spiderman candle I spent three days searching for will perch. I think Seth will need a ladder to blow out his candle. And that is OK. You only turn four once, why not celebrate with a very tall cake.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

tubeless wonder

I am trying to negotiate this recovery period as deftly as possible. I am up and writing, which is a good sign. Writing always makes me feel a bit more alive so I am counting on that. I would have written sooner but whatever pain medication they had me on was causing some pretty strange hallucinations – there were the three dancing little pigs and these worms with barracuda teeth – and also I was having a hard time spelling and choosing words correctly. This is a very big reason why I do not do drugs.

I feel the sudden urge to get a little rest but I did want to tell you about the piggies so I have accomplished that today at least.

Saturday, January 3, 2009

finding faith

Monday, January 5th is the day. Before yesterday, I had made up my mind to look forward to this surgery – to anticipate it even. Then, of course, Friday happened. Friday is the day that my doctor informed me that upon further inspection, my tube - the only one I have left, does not appear to be in good shape, leaving only a small chance that he will be able to clear it.

My mental response: No tube, no baby - at least not without a test tube and a whole lot of money. Sigh. Sigh again. Stomp feet. Wonder “Why in the heck I am going through with this nonsense?” (I mean, besides the fact that I’ve already paid the hospital $450). Try deep breathing exercises. Shed a few tears. Sigh. Sigh some more.

So now I am face-to-face with “the essential pain of life” – that is how a very good book I once read described it. It is the pain that comes when you realize there is no fairness in life; that life's circumstances occur in a realm outside of your control; that you cannot always possess whatever it is you think you want or need.

If I could, I would run away from the essential pain of life, or go hide in a closet, or eat a whole lot of chocolate until it leaves but that would do no good. It is completely inescapable. So there is nothing left to do but embrace it – to feel all of the normal human emotions that accompany it and then move beyond it to a place of peace. Peace that I find when I accept my inability to control this situation and entrust it all - my life and well-being, my future and all my hopes - to a God whose power and wisdom is far greater than my mind can comprehend.

Perhaps this is how we learn to live by faith.