Regeneration

I have a friend who is a nurse (probably the wrong title, but something like that) who told me that our body is constantly regenerating itself and every seven or so years we literally have a new body.  This is why some people develop allergies they didn’t have, or get over allergies they did have.  I was thinking in this the other day as I was remembering back to the car accident I was in because after my recovery I had a different favorite food. A different favorite color.  I felt like a completely different person.  I started wondering if these news tastes were due to regeneration that took place, and maybe people who went through something traumatic like I did that required healing, caused an increased regeneration that presented itself with these noticeable differences.  That then led me to think of my last pregnancy.  After I delivered my daughter there were some food that I had always been ok with, but now LOVE.  Wouldn’t this too account for a traumatic experience to our bodies that cause this regeneration?  I know countless women who have admitted liking one thing or another, but how tastes change after delivering their child.   I then starting thing about all the stuff you hear about organ donor recipients.  If our bodies are ever regenerating, and recreating ourselves it makes sense how these likes and dislikes are genetically imprinted within us. I however, think it would be hard to claim what is from the say kidney transplant and what is from the patient’s own recovery as it is once again something traumatic to the body.  Just some thoughts.  I would love to hear anything you have to add to this.

*Breath

My heart froze and my breath caught in my throat as a fire truck pulled up with flashing lights and parked right outside my door.  I watched anxiously as I heard chatter over their radios and intercoms and once again I was back at Paddock Place Apartments waiting and watching as my life burned in front of me.  Standing here at the window peeking through the blinds, I don’t see the parked truck or the unhurried movement of the firefighters as they talk in their truck.  Instead I see my old building in front of me.  I see the fire fighters rushing up and down the stairs.  My head spins as it tries once again to grasp the reality of what was going on…what went on.  I am safe, but I don’t feel safe.  I am scared.  I smell the smoke even though there is no smoke to smell anymore.  I feel tears pushing at the corner of my eyes and I feel silly for crying over the same thing all over again.  I try to steel myself against the feeling that still lie deep within my heart as I know I am still not strong enough to deal with them all.

That night I feel like I lost everything in my life except my son.  Even though my husband made it out safely, the façade we were living in burned with that apartment and I feel like I lost the man I knew.  I lost every earthly possession I owned and I lost the baby I carried in my belly.  It hurts to remember the things I have lost and it makes me feel like when I mourn my loss I am ungrateful for my life and that of my son and husband.

The flashing red light swirls into my vision, around and around with my thought and emotions.  They finally leave.  They never had to leave the truck.  I sit down and breathe.  Breathe.

I’m back

Tomorrow I plan on posting about something I have been working on for a while, but after my last post I thought I would just let everyone know I am doing much better.  I found myself wallowing in negativity and feeding the sorrow I was feeling, but I am back to myself and back on my progesterone and feeling level headed again.  I have awesome people in my life who shared their concern and love and I think this was something I needed to go to give me perspective. 

The time for our move is approaching and right now I am just trying to work everything out so we have a place to live when our lease is up and how to manage all our stuff while trying to juggle dates and other silly things with the Army.   What you missed while I was not posting: I made a buttermilk pie that I am now in love with.  I am excited to receive a radio flyer wagon so I can start walking regularly again (as my son will not sit in a stroller but will a wagon) and my family will be in town in two weeks for my sister’s wedding.  But the real posting begins tomorrow.  Happy Monday all!  

Absence

Absence

I know it has been a while since I have posted anything, but I have been struggling a lot the last two weeks.  I have no desire to do anything and I am lucky to even do the basic tasks needed throughout a day.  I knew if I wrote anything, nothing would be satisfactory or would have a negative undertone that I wasn’t looking to portray.  I keep snapping at the kids, bursting in to fits of crying, etc, etc.  A friend think it is a hormone change because my daughter if four months, so my breast milk should be changing and my husband thinks I have post partum depression.  I however I am just working on surviving day to day right now.  I don’t want to talk to people or go out and do things; I don’t want comments, I just want to explain my absence.  I was wallowing for a while, but now I am working on getting back to myself.  Hope to be posting soon.

Bathroom Floor

I don’t know why, but it is the perfect place for a good cry.  We purge our bodies of the excess waste in this room, so why not our emotional waste as well.  There is something about lying on the cold, hard floor that focuses what you are crying about.  To me, it makes me feel cold and hard too: numb and inanimate like the room that cases me.  The cold hard floor’s discomfort distracts me just enough to deal with my problems.  I cry and hear the echoes of my sniffles.  I always cry in the bathroom.  Nowhere else is good enough.  I can curl up on the floor and release all that has built up.  All the fears, worries, sorrows, and upsets.  The bathroom protects me from the outside world.  I am more likely to be left alone in this room than any other.  I can cry and be unheard. 

Answer in a prayer

Last night I went in to get my temple recommend renewed.  I was talking with the counselor and he asked if he would see my husband in here soon as well.  I answered that he would not and couldn’t help but thinking of all the reasons my husband would be unable to renew his recommend.  He said I would have to work on him and we continued our conversation although I stewed over his remark as I have been doing everything in my power to keep the spirit in our home and try and encourage Josh of the reality of God and church without being pushy.  I have prayed many times over what I should be doing as I feel I am not doing enough, but come up blank when I try and think of what more I could be doing.  I was asked if we could begin the interview with a prayer and of course I consented.  To be honest I couldn’t tell you what was said in the prayer because in my mind I finally received the answer I had been looking for: just love him.  Simple I know and I probably received the answer before and just thought it wasn’t enough.  Now I know I am supposed to love my husband and do my best to show him, but I have been so caught up in all we have been going through that I didn’t really consider that my love for Josh might be the only way Josh is able to accept and feel the love of our Lord.  I felt a strong peace and knowledge in my heart and for the first time in a while I thought, I can do that.  I am so grateful for the man holding the interview that he was in tune to be a conduit for the spirit that I might receive that confirmation.  I love my church and my relationship with the Lord as it is through these things that I survive each day

Do you hide?

I feel like for most of my life I have tried to hide within myself.  It started around puberty when I began putting on weight and felt like my family members looked down on me for my appearance.  I was lectured on my health and looks and started at an early age with a declaration of not caring what others thought, but it was a lie.  It cut me to the quick that people could think less of me due to my appearance.  Of course this idea only got worse as I entered High school and the world of media.  When my sister would come home with flowers and boyfriends and my chunky self had only the attention of boys who for good reason did not have girlfriends.  It was my junior year in High school that I began dressing in layers.  It was not uncommon for me to wear two shirts and a jacket, hopping that somehow I was hiding the belly or large breasts I was carrying around. I felt safer the more I had on, because then there was more of an excuse:  The heftiness was the clothes. No one could see the awful curves I was hiding.  I felt more protected like the more layers I wore, the less people would see of me.  This mental hiding only progressed from there.   I began hiding my dark depressed thoughts deep within myself, writing obscure vignettes and poems to express the me within that I didn’t know how to process.  I put on a smile and executed all the things that were expected of me.  In doing this though, I felt like no one knew who I really was, and in truth I felt like I didn’t even know myself.  I went from being social and outgoing, to more of a homebody as I felt more in control over how I could present myself and how in my opinion, raised the odds of being accepted. I am assuming I am not the only person to do this.  Why is it when we are not feeling well about ourselves (bloating, sick, etc) we opt for the large bulky sweatshirts and pants big enough to fit two of us?  Yes, they are comfortable, but more important; they allow us a little bit of anonymity.  I know there are other ways to hide and have addressed ways I revert to when I am down.  How do you hide?  

OLD

After my car accident I lost a lot of weight as the medication I was on killed my appetite.  For close to two months I lived off of protein shakes as that was the only think I could stomach.  This on top of physical therapy, I shed my extra pounds quickly, but still had all the self doubts and disgusts with myself as I had with my large body as I still saw it that way.  I lost close to thirty pounds in two to three months, but still hated my body, especially as I struggled to come to terms with the purple scars that spanned my entire back and right side.  After I moved out of my parent’s house I continued on my very limited diet and would often only eat an apple and a slice of cheese to maintain the weight I was at.  Due to my physical handicaps at the time I was still unable to do much working out and practically starved myself to avoid gaining weight.  I got used to the light headedness I often felt and the ache in my belly and always justified it as just eating my portion size.  As I am only five feet I just didn’t need a whole lot of food.  Even though I was the skinniest I had been in years, I still hated my body and to societies standards I was still on the plumper side of average.   Then I got married.  I gained weight and I gained weight quickly.  A large part of that was Josh saw the little amounts I was eating and insisted I ate more; so I did.  At the time I was unaware of my PCOS, but due to the high sugar levels in my blood my weight gain was rapid and within a year I had gained forty pounds.  Now I was fat again and I hadn’t even appreciated the time I had been thin.  I wish I could have had the confidence I had always wanted and I look back on those pictures when I was thin with longing; hoping one day I can look like that again.  I had recently remembered these pictures and went to look at them today in hopes they would inspire me to be more dedicated to watching everything I ate and increasing my activity, but instead it depressed me.  I know I will never look like that again.  I was feeling pretty down when my two year old came running up insisting I read a book to him.  My daughter started cooing, indicating she had woken up from her nap and it struck me: those pictures were taken eight years and two kids ago.  It’s hard to believe sometimes that so much time has passed.  It also put my thoughts into focus.  No, I was right in my original thought, I will never look like that again, but I can still become a better healthier me and be a better version of what I am now.  Who knows, I may even like that better than the 19 year old healing girl in the pictures, even if I don’t make it to the same weight I was then.  There is always room for improvement, maybe I can learn the lesson that I should always try and love myself despite the room for improvement.