Happiness is...

For whatever reason MUSC doesn't give their students a fall break. So I decided this past weekend that I would give myself one. Wait, didn't you need to study for a statistics test and write a presentation and review an article and organize your speaking points for a symposium? Why yes I did, but when fall finally hits Charleston it is tough to resist it!

And so, Friday night I changed my summer clothes out for my winter clothes, Saturday Brandy, Brittany, Jen and I went to Jen's lakehouse and sat and talked and then came back and made s'mores, and then Sunday after church Allison, Angela, Jen, Sarah, Brandy and I celebrated 'all things pumpkin' or Iron Chef Pumpkin as it were. A four course pumpkin meal all prepared by Brandy...we are talking homemade pumpkin ravioli here people, this was no child's play!
To finish the fall break off Jen, Alli and I shared pumpkin cheesecake and decaf coffee before heading to bed to start our crazy week.

It was truly glorious...but now back to logistic regression...

Some Moments

There is nothing like reality to make your self proclaimed 'doing fine' attitude about grief come tumbling down. It's usually random, rarely expected, and almost always shockingly painful. And you really were doing fine up until that moment.

Grief is an interesting process. I really haven't contemplated the process itself in a while. I did often at first but then I think the actual act of going through it took over and took all my energy. Now that the immediacy of the sting is gone, the process itself is more obvious again.

At some point someone said 'you will never get over it, but you will get through it'. I am through some of the worst of it but I can tell it never goes away. There is no easy way to learn how to live without someone that you miss so much. And so some moments I find myself caught off guard by how real that pain can still be.

Back towards the beginning of this whole process I remember realizing that I was the little girl being dropped off at the nursery and having no concept of time, being heartbroken because I just wanted my mom back. I have no concept of God's timing when I will get my mom back and for lack of a better adjective it's stinks. I may at this point be the little girl that has finally stopped crying and started playing again, but every once and a while I look over at the door and wonder why she couldn't have just stayed and played with me. God knows why...and I have to keep learning to rest in that fact...

What a year can do

It is interesting what a year will bring.  The other day I was thinking about how utterly different my life this year is than it was last year.  I had just gone through what will be one of the worst losses of my life, I was working full time at a job I loved, I had no real plans other than a vague idea that maybe I would go back to school at some point, I was technically still married, my sister lived four hours away, my best friends were just trying to get me through the day let alone expect anything helpful out of me, and I didn't really have any ability to see out of the deep dark hole life had thrown me in.

This morning, Brandy and I got up, I made coffee while she straightened her hair for her orientation in the Charleston County school district (for those that haven't heard yet, she's in Charleston for the next year).  I fed the dogs and packed my backpack, and we drove downtown where I've been sitting in the library writing a bible study for tonight and studying logistic regression and disability for the past three hours.  I thought of something funny and texted it to the girls to make them laugh.  I heard the song Amazing Grace and smiled rather than cried.  Sometimes I get a little melancholy thinking of not being able to tell my mom about how crazy it is that life is so different, but the fact that the melancholy feeling doesn't send me into a crying spiral of disaster is itself a testament of what a year can do.  In one year, and probably the worst year of my life to be quite honest, God gave me a new purpose, a new hope, a new future, a new love of Him and a new life.  So, for those in the pit I just crawled out of, hang tight, call on God and He will meet you there to help you climb out...I promise.