Here and Now

This morning, for the first time in almost 2 weeks, I had the energy to lay Karen‘s clothes out for work, tidy up, make coffee and Karen’s lunch (including scrubbing her lunch box), check email and try to get Karen out of bed in time to grab a real breakfast before her long shift at Safeway…

I had this great post planned in my head as I was lying in bed with my family, enjoying the moment. There was a moment that my hand fit in Karen’s and Xavier was lying on my chest with his paw on my cheek. It was sweet. One moment where we were all holding onto each other. I got some great sleep last night, even before I fell asleep it was sweet and silly. I have been really sick all month and I finally decided to stop living with the pain and vape a bit of high CBD so I could relax. I have been using the same cartridge I bought in September 2019, so I obviously don’t do this often.

>Read Learning About Cannabis for Pain

That great post is gone now but I will try for something great…

Last night ended up being great night! I couldn’t talk and that made me laugh. I could feel my body letting go of the tension, first in my face and head, then my hands and then slowly, my midsection. Xavier decided to lay on my stomach for a while and it seemed like much longer than usual. He and I are both very anxious creatures so he generally does a check in and then gets overly stimulated and has to walk away for a bit. He is terrified of being under blankets so if I put my hands under the blanket he leaves. But last night he was happy to sit and purr and didn’t care if I slipped under the blankets. I was pretty inebriated so I can only gauge how long the visit was by the amount of time he spent on me while we watched SNL…even by that measurement, it was a longer and more peaceful sit than we have had in a long time. I think he must have been enjoying my calm.

Being Sick

I have been miserable for the entire month of January. It seemed like all my chronic conditions each wanted to host their own rager…I have a lot of them so it has been quite the ride. I was never much of a partier so I am ready for peace. That said it has been a month of total blessings right along with the trials. Although I have been dealing with symptoms that left me exhausted, and in fact the last two weeks I have hardly been able to stay awake long enough to use the restroom and drink ridiculous amounts of water. The inflammation in my abdomen had effected all of me so I was forcing myself to eat small amounts, in order to just have enough calories to function. I could not cook or do the laundry or any of the things I do to maintain our home and Karen as she works her 2 jobs, on top of trying to keep Wellness Works NW open during a pandemic and all that implies, so Karen had those things on her shoulders too, which I feel bad about but she says I shouldn’t…

As I could do little but sleep, I would pray. I couldn’t sit up long enough to read my bible so I figured I would use the time to just talk with God as He inspired me to. During my moments of lucidity here are just a few things that bless my so much!

• Karen is so devoted to our family and always figures out how to make everything happen. She even figured out how to do the laundry and only shrunk 2 shirts!
• Xavier is good at taking care of me. He knows when I need to take meds and does what it takes to get me up to do that. He has figured out how to grab my arm and just hold it to show me to try to relax. Even when he is too anxious to interact too much with me, he sits and holds his gaze on mine to remind me that we will be ok. He is the perfect Emotional Support Animal for me.
• My sister Jamie is a rock. Even in her trials she learns from mistakes and blesses everyone around her. She had her own COVID-19 scare and made it through with a negative test result, while praying for her caregiver, who does have it. She is so smart and not over-emotional so she is a great help to me when I don’t know what to do.
• One of my oldest friends, Sarah, got her dream job! Praise Jesus!
• One of my siblings reached out to me and used the word “Trust”. This is huge. I didn’t overreact or over-serve…this too is huge!
• There were many chances to pray for people on Facebook and watch the blessings flow…I love that!
• I learned that I LOVE SEAWEED SOUP from Chinese Garden in Longview, WA. It doesn’t smell great, but if you can take a bite you get over it and it is so full of goodness!
• God carried me through, as always.

Crazy is REAL and COMMON

I crashed yesterday. You can only try to maintain through pain so long…While I have been sick I have been having lots of nightmares. I would wake up and talk to God about them. Most of my nightmares are either real events I have lived through or symbolic of real trauma situations or relationships. I don’t want to hold people guilty for things they can’t undo, especially when I know they are just as exposed, if not more, to emotional neglect, mental and physical abuse…I can’t hold someone guilty forever without hurting myself and I don’t want to hurt them either. Most of these people are smart, good, hard working people and they were just surviving; the neglect and abuse, no matter how much it hurt me, was in most cases, just them living the way they know how to live.

But I keep hearing a moment in Blue Bloods (Season 10, Episode 16) where Erin says to her ex-husband, Jack, “You hurt me.”

They say a few more lines and then Jack asks her how he is supposed to respond and Erin says, “You aren’t.”

There is a universal truth to this conversation. Many times when people hurt each other, it is only our responsibility to handle our pain. The truth is there are people who hurt me. I know I have hurt them too. The revelation seems fresh to me, however it isn’t. I carry pain inside me that has been with me forever. I don’t mean to. Scientists have proven that our muscles have memory and we carry our trauma with us. Even if that is true, I want to be honest with myself so that I can walk forward and not worry about the past. God wants me to live in the moment. In Genesis 19, Lot’s wife became a pillar of salt when she looked back as they fled for their lives. God told them not to look back. She may have become overwhelmed by the very site of God raining down His punishment on Sodom and Gomorrah but either way the woman lost her life because she looked back instead of living in the moment, like God said. I don’t want to be like Lot’s wife.

I also really want Jesus to bless these people who aren’t with me right now. I want them to be healthy, successful and happy. I don’t want to make a painful situation worse.

Emotional Break was Imminent

Besides this revelation, I had another this week: I have had migraines since at least 6th grade and I didn’t know it. I have a ridiculous pain threshold. I thought the whooshing sound I heard in my head was a hallucination or stress because I never had a heart attack or stroke and they usually happen when I am torqued. I had been checking my temperature and Karen had been checking my pulse and they were normal as it sounded like troops marching in my ears and felt like someone was shoving golf balls through the veins at the base of my neck. I felt sorry for my 10-year-old self who had way too much responsibility. I had to fight back the guilt laden tapes of people begging me to go to the doctor when I was a girl, that I rebelled against because it was the only thing I could control and I would not be allowed to go alone and I didn’t want to be the reason for someone else’s mental break because I wasn’t the child they wanted or needed me to be. I had read the Mayo Clinic website several times trying to take in what it had to say while memories of my younger self flushed over me.

Another reason for my crash, besides the normal stress of living in a hotel and trying to find housing, being chronically ill, both physically and mentally, COVID-19, politics and all the other normal challenges of life is a choice I made. I kept seeing this #senioryearchallenge and I know I needed to stay clear of it. I knew it would not help me. But in a moment of being sick and wanting to find a way to feel less disconnected I answered the questions.

I know it seems harmless enough but it opened a chasm of old tapes, feelings and partial memories; kind of like a volcano of hurt.

Every time I have a hurt or a memory or dream I try to give to to God ASAP. I really do. My brain and body have lived through things they can’t forget. I can tell myself it isn’t happening anymore, it wasn’t as bad for me as other people I know, but even that seems like not honoring myself. There are people in my past that wanted me to be like their version of me and they refused to acknowledge that it is ok to not like a certain item, regardless of the great deal they got on a such a high quality item or how thankful they think I should be for whatever they are trying to make me want. On a normal day I can move on. When you are sick it is really hard to get out of your head…Although I tried. I texted a few young adults I know, how proud of them I am. I searched Facebook for people to pray for. I listed good things that had happened in the last few days. I told God how amazing and MAJESTIC He is…

When Karen got home, I lost it. I can’t cry right now. I have had a migraine for a week now and crying with a migraine really FUCKING hurts! (I am sorry there is just no other way to put it) I also knew that with this chasm of old feelings freshly exposed, my tears, if they started, would get out of control and 45 years of soul wrenching sobs would scare the other guests here and I know there are children here. I wont hurt a child, if I can help it…So I threw myself on the bed and surrounded myself with pillows and tried to breathe and let my body convulse. In case you didn’t know, twitching is an anxiety response. Xavier meowed to let me know he was near but he was going to stay out of my way and my beloved stood ready to help and then honored my request to ignore me because I just had to deal with myself. I could hear my family watching TV and playing together (they are awesome) while I thanked God for holding me. It is the biggest anxiety attack I have had in a long time. When it was quiet I realized the prayers, essential oils, my tincture and all the tools I have learned in therapy were not enough and I quietly asked my wife to go buy me a new battery for my vape pen and she did.

We ate a quiet dinner. I got all our medications and supplements in their sorters for the week and made the bed ready for collapsing in and told Karen whatever didn’t get done by 11:30 pm didn’t need to be done…Karen really enjoys Saturday Night Live…she even went outside with me, although she would never use cannabis for any reason and then she helped me walk back inside. I think she really enjoyed this part because I was giggling so much. Even though I was really intoxicated, I realized how much I have healed in the last few years. It has been a year since I vaped and I never giggled like that, since I was 20 and not using cannabis for medical reasons. 🙂

I slept so well! When I did wake up it wasn’t from a nightmare but God was whispering to me, “Here and Now.” I am still only at about 85% but if you made it this far I want to thank you. Not only did you bother to read this short novel, but I want to convey that with the bad there is positive if you really look for it. The hurts I have would not be so terrible if there weren’t so many good memories that make me miss the people that I can’t be with because I am not able to make healthy choices in their presence. Or if I didn’t respect that they have the right to be themselves and they don’t have to want to change to make me better. Being in an EPIC flare was filled with sweet moments with Jesus, talking about people I love and thanking Him for choosing to save me and love me. Even in all the turmoil, Karen and I have continued to support and praise each other for our successes while being authentic and honoring of each other…even though I can often hear venom in my voice which is only because I am suffering and that is what pain sounds like.

I still maintain that I am a blessed woman. I hope you know you are blessed too.

Feel free to leave your comments below!

My name is Summer. That is how you can call me. I hope that I am a blessing to you. I am not perfect. I will fall again. But I am forgiven.

Do you know Jesus? Do want the Holy Spirit to fill you and give you understanding and salvation? Ask Him. Want someone to pray with you? Contact me.

If you would like to know Jesus as your friend, but want to make this amazing commitment by yourself please pray something like this:

Thank you Jesus that You are the Son of God, the God that created heaven and earth. Thank you Jesus that You came to earth in the form of a man so that You would be able to empathize with my humanity. Thank You that You did this in order to fulfill the promises You made at the foundation of the world.

I realize that I am a sinner and do things that hurt myself and keep myself away from you. Thank You that You died for my sins so that You could defeat death and bring me into Your life. Please forgive me.

I ask You to be Lord of my life. I ask you to heal my hurts and show me what my new life, empowered by You looks like. Thank You for Your mercy.

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