A better couple of days…

Thanks so much for all the notes. Just wanted to let y’all know that the last couple of days have been better. It truly is a process or journey, and for every 2 steps forward I make, I make at least one step back.  But I fear not being honest in this, because if someday, somewhere down the line, someone else reads this, that is going through something similiar,  I don’t ever want them to think that it is not "normal" to have ups and downs and I mean serious ones. And yes, as one person noted, some days the pain is as raw as it was in the first few weeks. It actuallly physically makes me ill at times.  I think it truly does help to stay busy, or even to run periodically. I think that there is only so much pain that a person can take in at one time, and being busy and focusing on other things, helps to break the pain up into manageable bites. I think I have said this before, but what is so shocking is just how raw the pain IS when it returns.  You think you have gotten past a certain point, and then some thought, action, memory or whatever just SLAMS you right back to where you were in those first incredibly painful weeks.  And it takes DAYS to recover from. 

One of the things that I’ve been staying busy with is our local campus ministry.  My kids were both involved with the UCM (United Campus Ministry…interdenominational ministry, supported by 10 local churches and 7 denominations) and the former director has, over the years, become a very close, personal friend.  When he left, I served as the Interim Director, until they hired a new one, last October. And I admit that I was not an immediate fan.  He is young and he made a lot of mistakes coming into a small town. He offended quite a few people that he depends on for financial support, including me, which is not a smart thing to do, but toward the end of last semester and over the summer, he truly seems to have smartened up and has worked hard to repair those relationships. And I’ve come to believe that he truly is the guy for the  this job.  So, Monday was the start of the new semester. It is our biggest opportunity to try and get kids into our ministry doors and get them and KEEP them involved.  One of the problems that we face is that we had become a place for misfits. Now we have ALWAYS had and ALWAYS want those kids that just don’t quite fit in. In the past, we have had really good kids that were more or less "normal" who befriended and supported those kids that just didn’t "fit in" anywhere, or that have physical, mental or emotional problems.  We’ve always prided ourselves on that. But, the problem becomes when that is your entire ministry population, and then "normal" kids come in and are overwhelmed by the other kids and don’t come back.  All it takes is a couple of good strong student leaders to bring in other kids that then learn to be supportive and caring for those less fortunate than they are.  But getting those first few kids with leadership potential is HARD to do, and the more kids you can get in the door, the more possibilties you have of finding those two or three core groups leaders.  And, you hope that it is sort of a revolving process where some graduate and others younger ones step up to the plate.  You can have a real problem, when you have a bunch of folks graduate, and no strong leaders to take their place and that is where we have been for several years now. So, we are working harder to try and get as many kids through the doors as possibile with the hopes of finding and building that core group.  Saturday was "move in" day and we passed out water, drinks, and cookies, and helped kids move in and invited them to lunch in front of 2 of the 4 dorms. Then we served lunch to mostly freshman and transfer students and their parents.  That kept me busy for part of the day. Yesterday was the first day of classes and we had passed out lots of flyers inviting people to an event we called "suds and dogs ’09.  We served hot dogs and root beer (no, we are not going to serve regular beer right across the street from the administration building to a bunch of mostly under 21’s…) we also had a great band playing.  They were a combo folk/bluegrass/fusion/some Christian music/ type band and they were really good.  They opened their first set with the theme from the TV show "The Office", which cracked everybody up, and proceeded to do some Cure, Van Morrison, mainstream newer stuff that I didn’t necessarily know, but liked, and later on proceeded to some real bluegrass, interspersing some Christian music into the mix.  I had been busy iceing down drinks, and serving hot dogs and then eating myself and visiting with some students and some friends when I looked over and realized that we had at least 125-150 students sitting on the grass in front the flat bad truck that we were using as a stage.  And still more sitting at tables and eating and chatting.  That is the largest number of kids that we have had at ANY event in YEARS!  It felt really good to at least  have hope that maybe this year, we will find that core group to build on.

Also, yesterday morning was the "howdy" fair. Churches, local business and non-profits around town all have booths and hand out stuff to the kids and offer information.  It was HOT. It was probably only in the lower 90’s but the humidity (which we usually don’t have a lot of) was oppressive. There were heat warnings out as the heat index was well over 100.  And we were only out until about 1:30, so I don’t even want to think about how hot it was by 3-4.  But, amazingly, by last night, it was much cooler with a nice breeze blowing. I came home between events and took a shower and ran my UCM t-shirt through the washer and dryer!!

Today was spent filling out a 37 page, yes, I said 37 page form from Social Security. I’ve applied for disability, and this was actually 2 forms, one of them a work history form and one of them a daily functions forms.  It took me all frigging day to do that. My hands have gotten pretty arthritic and bent so writing by hand is pretty difficult, and there was no online alternative, so it was a long process, but it is done and out for mailing.  Tomorrow I need to go pay the tax, title and tag my new car. I finally got all the forms I needed from the dealer. It is a bit more complicated since I bought the car in Texas and am tagging it on Oklahoma.  I’m also going to go to Walmart (the bain of my existence) since I have heard that they actually sell iphones and that I might be able to get my new phone without having to go to OKC for it.  We shall see…

And now I face the hard part

.  My body is very tired. It has been a busy few days and it wears me out and makes me hurt worse. And, I have learned from experience, that if I don’t take the time to rest, I risk getting really, really sick. But, if I take a few days to rest, which I need to do, I risk falling back down into the abyss.  So, what am I to do? I’m going to try and focus on a good book, catch up on some TV and hope that my body recovers pretty quickly this time. It might be worth making a trip to the city where I actually can rest some, but have people around me that doesn’t easily lend to falling back down.  In a few days….

Have a good rest of the week….