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Cynicism
I’ve felt a shift in my soul recently, and I’d be remiss to not recognize a similar shift in my closest friends’ hearts as well. I feel tenderness where there were once walls. I sense vulnerability and a willingness to be cared for where there was once a posture of self-sufficiency. It is possible that this is simply the outcome of the passage of time or age. However, I don’t believe that is the case as some people will bare spiritual arms to the grave. Maturity doesn’t just befall people as do the lines on their face or the gray hairs on their head. Maturity is more so the unwinding…
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The Enneagram is ruining my life
I have to take a break in my final project and exam grading schedule to let you know what is absolutely ruining my life at the moment. First of all, it feels like winter, and I’m 100% ready for summer, which means I probably should pick up some vitamin D supplements today on the grocery run. Second, I was sick for a whole week with a fever and cough that turned into a snot-fest-ear-infection and led to 10 days of antibiotics. I felt very sorry for myself, and honestly, I still feel a little sorry for myself about it. Scoops was out of school for four days with his own…
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Raleigh Half-life
I have been looking forward to this year of my life, particularly this fall season. I am 36 years old and have been in Raleigh for half my life. Fall always signifies change is coming that I can feel deep in my bones. I still remember picking up a maple leaf on the back side of the student center, just outside a c-store, and saving it as a remembrance. I don’t know what year it was or what I was trying to remember. Perhaps it was when I had just ended my first ever dating relationship or perhaps it was just a still moment by myself, but I remember the…
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No More Peach Tree
No more peach tree. It was infested all up the trunks (there were multiple trunks due to poor pruning and management) with peach scale bugs that would have been difficult to treat, and after 8 years of losing crops to fungal diseases, we decided to call it quits. I shed some tears as this was a symbolic tree, the one we bought after a second miscarriage. In truth, we can’t just burry our grief in the ground and expect it to grow something beautiful. We must tend to it with a watchful eye and sometimes sharp shears to manage its growth and changes in different seasons. Sometimes a lot of…
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Thoughts
My husband has no recollection of ever having sobbed in his life, so yesterday evening when I was trying to explain how my bouts of depression felt, there was a clear disconnect in my ability to communicate. “Have you ever cried really hard? Like where your whole body is heaving?” “No.” “Okay, well…. that’s how it felt.” It was maybe Friday when my body and my spirit felt as if I’d just spent hours doubled over crying, only I hadn’t been. There was nothing to be sad about in that moment, but I felt emotionally drained and broken. Of course it passed. New days bring new feelings, new weather, new…
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The Stuff of my Heart
It’s been exactly two weeks since my son’s birthday celebration, and this afternoon I realized that I’d never set aside a gift card that was in note from one of his friends. The note was in a gift bag from another present, and the gift bag is no more. I can only assume that the bag with the tissue paper and note with the gift card were thrown out with the trash. I didn’t do it, because I rarely throw things away, but I did spend an hour going through the downstairs and my son’s room looking for the gift card. In the process, I found a five dollar bill…
