Tag Archives: silver linings

Jesus on Toast: A Paradigm Shift

Another two months without a post, despite working pretty feverishly. The broken bits of me have been so in control. So many days spent tending to my shattered heart blow after  blow.

“He wept because God was unfair, and because this was the way God repaid those who believed in their dreams… I’m going to become bitter and distrustful because one person betrayed me. I’m going to hate those who have found their treasure because I never found mind. And I’m going to hold on to what little I have, because I’m too insignificant to conquer the world.”

But, struggling or not, I continue to work slowly and deliberately toward a new and fresh sense of clarity. A shift in my own personal paradigm about what matters. About what makes life worth it.

“I’ve learned things from the sheep, and I’ve learned things from crystal, he thought. I can learn something from the desert, too. It seems old and wise.”

The big shift: I’m done with silver linings.

If I were running for president, you could call me a flip flopper. But good news! I’m not now and probably won’t ever. So… since I don’t actually have to worry about what the press and populous think of me,  I’m free to change my mind all I want. Also to inhale. And to have sexual relations with whomever I want.

I could have made much less boring choices…

But. Back to that change of mind, which was my point… change of heart, really.

“Listen to your heart. It knows all things, because it came from the Soul of the World, and it will one day return there.”

I started this blog on the premise of silver linings. The idea that, no matter how awful something seems, there’s always something good hidden inside — a pretty picture in the tapestry. And I believed it wholeheartedly. Mostly. For a while.

But there were some cases where it just didn’t fit. Like when I wrote about the death of my friend Nate. I said, even back then, that sometimes there really is no silver lining. The first crack in my neatly crafted narrative.

More recently, as I’ve struggled through infertility, miscarriage, hopelessness and depression, I’ve become less and less convinced of the master plan/pretty picture and looked harder, further, and wider for something else.

Even in this little video, where forest animals animate a snippet of Brene Brown’s TED Talk about vulnerability, empathy, and compassion, a silver lining comes up as kind of a gut punch… so in constantly looking for one, was I inadvertently delivering the punch to myself?

Jerk moose trying to paint silver linings in everyone's dark clouds. {Source}
Jerk moose trying to paint silver linings in everyone’s dark clouds. {Source}

I’ve never exactly been known for self kindness, but this seemed like a whole new low.

I was searching for something, but maybe I was searching for the wrong thing.

“‘Every second of the search is an encounter with God,’ the boy told his heart. ‘When I have been truly searching for my treasure, every day has been luminous, because I’ve known that every hour was a part of the dream that I would find it. When I have been truly searching for my treasure, I’ve discovered things along the way that I never would have seen had I not had the courage to try things that seemed impossible for a shepherd to achieve.'”

It started when my brother-in-law picked up my copy of Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning — a book written in two parts, the first a description of Frankl’s experiences as a clinical psychiatrist imprisoned in a series of Nazi concentration camps, the second a description of logotherapy, or the pursuit of meaning in life.

It’s a tiny book that packs a powerful punch. But in a way, I feel like the short length actually does it a disservice. When I was reading it, I was incredibly immersed, convinced it would change my life… but it didn’t take me terribly long to read, and I moved on relatively quickly.

As weeks and months went by and I slowly moved past the miscarriage and into another round of IVF, I felt really ready. But when I went through all of it again and still failed, I found myself back at the bottom of the pit, wallowing, binge eating, crying, so quick to anger, frustrated with everything and everyone — convinced that I am worthless, pathetic, and pointless. But also desperate to claw my way back out (and unable to run another marathon to do so).

Sometimes, like with the marathon, my desperation makes me almost manic. (I realize, of course, that I’m not using that term in a clinically correct way — but it is definitely a frenzied feeling, the need for action, to fix things and fix them NOW.) I thought about the book that Stu had ultimately taken home with him and chose that as my starting point. Because if the problem is that one lacks a point, then it seems as though the solution would be to find one,  to search for meaning, yes?

“You will never be able to escape from your heart. So it is better to listen to what it has to say.”

And so I read. I read and read and read… and am still reading. (See book suggestions below.) But the most important thing that all this reading has done for me to date is to really shift my focus. Away from trying to figure out why the cloud is there, from trying to paint the inside of it silver… and instead, trying to find meaning in the storm.

Searching for silver linings can be a fruitful personal pursuit and I’ve done an awful lot of it; sometimes they even exist to be found. It’s shallow, though. And I have come to believe that the search for meaning is more consistently productive and more fulfilling in the long run. Not only because humans are hard-wired for meaning (Rorshach test, anyone? no? What about Jesus in toast?), but also because meaning is determined from within rather than without. As such, meaning is within my control and subject to my will, not the fickle will of a chance-driven universe.

{Source -- and the article it came from is interesting, too!}
{Source — and the article it came from is interesting, too!}

I know that to say meaning is in our control is contentious… and I was unsure of it at first. But according to the experts in logotherapy that I have read (manically, maniacially?) over the past several weeks, there are three paths to meaning:

  1. Creative (what you make)
  2. Experiential (what you do)
  3. Attitudinal (how you feel)

While all three are technically equivalent, attitudinal is the one of the three that is always at our disposal. No matter what. Even in a concentration camp. Even in the depths of the darkest pit. We always get to choose our attitude.

“That’s what alchemists do. They show that, when we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too.”

Importantly, choosing our attitude is decidedly not the same things as putting on rose colored glasses or pasting a smile on your face. Because meaning is not the same thing as a silver lining.

For example, I truly believe that there is no silver lining to infertility. I am not going to wake up someday and realize that omg, it was so awesome that I spent five years unsuccessfully trying to start a family or that my miscarriage was the result of a baby that just “wasn’t meant to be.” I will forever grieve those things; they have changed me on a fundamental level. BUT I can find meaning in sharing my struggles. I can find meaning in supporting the women who struggled before me, alongside me, and will struggle after me. I can find meaning in the fact that the family I might eventually have someday will be intentional in a way that not many families truly are. I can find meaning in the education I received through the process — about how love changes hearts, about my own seemingly infinite capacity for hope, the necessity of equality in family building for same-sex couples, the universality of human struggle no matter what form it may take. And perhaps most importantly, I have been given endless opportunities to clarify my values and live an authentic life centered on the things that mean the most to me.

“The boy continued to listen to his heart as they crossed the desert. He came to understand its dodges and tricks, and to accept it as it was.”

After I miscarried, my dad told me that I’d find meaning someday — because the universe was teeming with it. It felt a little like a platitude, but I knew that it wasn’t, because my dad doesn’t speak in platitudes. He was just 10 steps ahead of me down this road, I think. Maybe that’s because it’s a road that can only really be known by experience. By crossing the desert, and listening to your heart as you go.

“‘Everyone has his or her own way of learning things,’ he said to himself. ‘His way isn’t the same as mine, nor mine as his. But we’re both in search of our Personal Legends, and I respect him for that.'”

Maybe you believe that meaning is to be found in a gift from the universe. And you can keep looking for your signs, omens, and silver linings. It’s ok if there’s where you think you’ll find meaning. But I know that I won’t. I can’t believe in meant-to-bes — because if I do, I have to believe that I’m not meant to be a mom. And I can’t believe in #blessed because what does that make me? #cursed? And I know now that silver linings are desperate and unfounded strokes of luck that seem like meaning, but really aren’t. Meaning is something more than that. And meaning is what I truly desire, in my heart of hearts.

Most importantly, when you find meaning in your life… you cannot also be pointless. A meaningful life is never pointless.

“No matter what he does, every person on earth play a central role in the history of the world. And normally he doesn’t know it.”

I’m getting there. To a point where, on more days than not, I can see meaning. I can feel it. And at the very least, that allows be to peek my head up over the edge of the pit.

Last week, on the brink of pregnancy, an implantation scheduled for two days away, I got a phone call from my clinic… canceling the whole thing. Nearly 60 days of drugs and injections, thousands more dollars, hopes as high as hopes could be over our 4 – 5 fertilized eggs and it all came crashing down one more time. I cried. There was snot. I had to call Seth. I went to the office next door to get kleenexes and comfort from a coworker. I worked late. I went home. I ate marshmallows and cried some more while my sweet pup licked tears from my face.

I experienced legitimate grief. Disappointment. Frustration. I dangled my feet over the edge of the pit and looked into the abyss. And then I took a deep breath. And another. Even thought it was nearly 8 pm, I got up, I went into the kitchen, and I cooked myself a nice dinner. I vegged, watched The Bachelorette while I ate. I snuggled Curly on the couch and went to bed. I knew my life wasn’t over. And by the end of it all, I knew we still weren’t quite done trying — because our hearts are broken, but they still beat family… family… family…

“The boy and his heart had become friends, and neither was capable now of betraying the other.”

When my dad told me that the universe teems with meaning, I thought of silver lined clouds and blessings-in-disguise. But I really understand meaning now and I’m letting it into my heart, day by day, little by little. It’s a better way… for me.

[All quotations above are from The Alchemist by Paul Coelho — with thanks to Nicole M. for the perfect and timely recommendation. This girl knows what’s up.]

 

Recommended Reading (if you like any of these ideas):

  • Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
  • The Will to Meaning: Foundations and Applications of Logotherapy by Viktor Frankl
  • Meaning in Suffering: Comfort in Crisis through Logotherapy by Elisabeth Lukas and Joseph B. Fabry
  • The Alchemist by Paul Coehlo
  • The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk

An interlude for an XX.

The letter L is coming, don’t worry, but today I must I interrupt your regularly scheduled programming for a very important announcement.

Baby Claire is here!

My champion Fisky sister was admitted to the hospital at 7:30 am on Friday, June 27th and didn’t stop (or eat any real food!) until she had herself a baby at 9:09 pm. And, as expected, she’s perfection.

World (i.e. readers of Under the Tapestry), please welcome my newest niece, Claire Elizabeth.

Claire 1

This is what really kills me though– Claire with her big sister. And Emma is being a top notch big sister. Turns out, she’s way less selfish than I was when my baby sister came around!

Claire and Emma 1

Could they be any cuter?!

It’s times like these when this distance is extra hard. My sister is so much more than just my sister, she’s my best friend, my confidante, my favorite person on this Earth… and Lake Michigan is IN THE WAY of all that at the moment.

WI to MI

Maybe it’s for the best though. Emma and Claire have two sets of devoted grandparents who need to squeeze those cheeks and spoil them rotten before it’s my turn. So I’ll leave them to it… for now.

But get ready, girlies! Auntie Rachel is on her way!

And don’t worry, Fisky Sister, I’m fully prepared for cooking, laundry, dog walking, diaper changing, Lifetime movie watching… whatever it is that you need. I’m even bringing you dairy-free banana muffins! Surprise! Best sister ever!

(Don’t worry, she won’t be reading this right now. She just had a baby… a SECOND baby. No way does she have time for bloggity blogs.)

First thing Thursday morning, I’ll be trekking across the UP (yesssss…) with several books on CD and plans to stop at the lovely little rest stop in Naubinway for a photo op on the dunes of Lake Michigan. Then across the bridge and downstate a ways to Midland, land of these little darlings.

Claire and Emma 2

Only a couple more days!

I will likely have some relatively shoddy internet in the interim (making an overnight stop at a cabin in the northwoods with my husband and his family), but I’ve got stuff cooking for the letters L and M… so you can expect them shortly. I just wanted to take this moment to share the most shiny silver lining of all.

True, I have no babies. And I’m having a lot of trouble trying to have babies. As such, it can be hard to watch other people have baby after baby after baby and know that I can’t. It’s hard not to feel broken. But then my sister has one… and wow.

The truth is that someone else having a baby has absolutely no bearing on whether I can or can’t, will or won’t, should or shouldn’t. It’s unrelated. And it’s amazing. My sister has brought two incredible little humans into this world, and even I am surprised at how deeply and how quickly I’ve fallen in love with them.

I’m sure it’s good to be a mama, but I don’t know that good yet. What I do know is that it’s great to be an auntie and awesome to be a sister. And I’m happy to be those things any day, any time.

 

PS: Seriously genetically clever title, right?! Acknowledge meeeee!!

She made it to Madison!!

Guys! I’m so crazy sad about my sweet puppy girl right now. I mean, I’m happy that she finally made it to Madison and is first up on the schedule for surgery tomorrow morning. That’s a good thing– this is necessary and if there’s even a chance it could fix my Curly girl’s leg, it’ll be totally worth it. But then I think about her down there in Madison without us, not understanding why we left her, and it breaks my heart. I can’t stand the thought of her being sad!

At least we did everything we could to make her last couple days before surgery awesome. She had three extra long walks yesterday (with a sling, of course) and got to play in some fresh snow (thanks, Wisconsin). Plus, Seth brought her down and picked up a surprise guest in Mosinee on the way down to Madison– his dad. And Curly loves her grandpa more than anyone else, so I’m sure she was absolutely thrilled about that. (Plus, I was super glad Seth had company for the drive.) I was so sad to leave her and go to work this morning, though. I made her hug me for like 10 minutes. (She hugs on command, btw, it’s so cute.) I’m pretty sure she thought we were having a battle, but I’m ok with that. Felt like a hug with growling to me 😉

No one was here to greet me at the door when I came home, there was no little nose fiercely sniffing up at my bowl of chili as I carried it to the table, and my house is so so quiet– so squeaking, no chewing, no pitter pattering, just me. My Curly girl is gone for now, but when she returns this weekend, she’ll basically be a robot. At least that’s what I envision the fixator is going to look like. I like robots… and I love Curly, so I can only imagine that this is going to be awesome. Just a couple of days.

Sigh. I can’t even imagine having to do all of this with a human child. There are some really amazing parents in this world! Parents to humans, I mean. Like my friend Aimie, but we’ve talked about that before.

 

Crazy news: Seth just got home. Apparently, the surgeons practiced Curly’s surgery last week on a cadaver. I guess that extra week may have actually been a good thing. You can never have enough practice. Especially when it’s my pup in your hands. Always a silver lining.

New thought: silver linings are kind of like brief glimpses at the top side of the tapestry, don’t you think? I truly believe that everything, even the things that seem super duper crappy at the time, has a silver lining. Recognizing the silver lining is like getting a brief and amazing glimpse at the way the threads all come together to make that tapestry I named this blog after. Remember that? Am I mixing too many metaphors here?

Silver Linings

 

And if not a silver lining, a silver platter at the very least, eh, Chim Lee???

 

Curly Lambeau, my sweet, silver-lined, puppy girl.

At this point it’s pretty safe to assume that when I miss big chunks of blog time it’s for one of two reasons. (1) Work got crazy and life got insane or (2) something happened to my dog. Since work finally calmed down a bit, this absence can be attributed to reason number 2.

As you’re likely aware, I have not yet been blessed with any babies of the human variety (ugh, we should really chat about that at some point). But I do have a dog.

If you have any human children or find yourself lacking in love for all things puppy, you’re probably going to hate me a bit for saying this right now, but that’s ok… my dog is my baby, and I totally treat her like one.

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I absolutely adore my Curly girl and love her more than I love myself. I’m pretty sure that if a car were careening toward my Curls, I’d jump in front of it to save her without a second thought.

Curly came into our home in October 2012, the same weekend my friends Ellen and Rob got married (such a happy weekend!), and my husband and I have been absolutely in love with her ever since. She’s a high-energy, super happy, double doodle (her parents were a golden doodle and a labradoodle) with cream colored curls befitting of her name (although she’s actually named for Curly Lambeau, the founder of the Packers).

Last fall, we started noting problems with Curly’s knees and our local vet recommended surgery to repair patellar subluxation (her knee cap is not where it should be). Doing what we thought was best for our sweet girl, we took Curls to an orthopedic surgeon in Appleton where she had her first surgery in October 2013.

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It failed.

And so did the next.

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And the damage got worse after the second failure, necessitating a more extensive third surgery.

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Which also failed.

Last Thursday, I took Curly back to the surgeon noting a decrease in her willingness to use that leg and the x-ray painted a rather grim picture, worsted only by the picture the surgeon painted me. Essentially, I left with two options, including doing nothing and hoping for some sort of adaptation to the new anatomy that would allow Curls some function in that leg or… amputation.

Ugh, my stomach.

The surgeon was apologetic, but resigned. Those were our options as far as he was concerned and that was that.

I had to call Seth and tell him the news. And then I had to drive the 2 hours home from Appleton, mulling it over in my head and nursing a nagging stomachache. I called my sister on the way home and, forgetting she’s preggo, ended up making her cry (hormones and all…), but she really is the best pup-auntie (or p-auntie– read it out loud, ha!) ever and it really helped to chat with her. Later on I talked to the incredibly kind and generous animal-loving folks I work with who were super encouraging and suggested we seek a second opinion at the University of Wisconsin – Madison vet school.

And that’s where we spent our day yesterday. So glad we did! We don’t necessarily have good news, per se. But we do have a new found cautious optimism based on the extensive examination and imaging studies they performed, the shocking amount of time the orthopedic surgeon was willing to spend with us talking and drawing diagrams and showing us 3D models and such, and the willingness of the folks in Madison to collaborate with the previous surgeon in Appleton as well as others to really think this through and come up with some better options (better than amputation, anyway) for our girl.

It was a long and exhausting day, but it was definitely worth it. And while I’m constantly worrying about the decisions we have made (Curls is essentially worse off at this point than if we’d never done surgery at all all– did we make the right choice?! should we have gone to Madison sooner? would they have done anything differently if we had???), I had a long car ride last night on the way home to think about what this has taught us, Seth and me, as future parents to more fur babies (pleeeeease, Sethy?!), human babies (hopefully), and as leaders of our family unit (said in my dad’s alien/robot voice, usually reserved for comments such as “hello, daughter unit…”).

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  • Second opinions are a good thing, medically or otherwise. It never hurts to get someone else’s take on something. Especially something big and important. (Like a career change and cross country move.) But even sometimes things that aren’t. (Like whether or not you should include a funding statement on a poster if there was no funding.) Knowing what we know now, I think we would definitely have had an additional medical consultation for Curly earlier. But when I think about it, it’s the same thing for my GI woes– it wasn’t getting better, so I kept pursuing alternatives until finally I found someone who did the right tests and asked the right questions and got to a diagnosis. When I have questions, or am afraid that the doctor might have questions of his or her own, from now on, I’ll be more willing to seek alternative advice, opinions, or just general thoughts. It never hurts to ask.
  • Collaboration is so worthwhile. Oy, this is ironic. Seriously. Group work? I’ve never liked it. Never. I begged and pleaded my way out of it through elementary school, I stressed and worried my way through it in middle school and high school, I just did all the group work myself in college, and made sure I had a very solitary, dependent-on-no-one kind of thesis project in grad school. And then, I entered the real world and figured out why all those teachers had been trying so very, very hard to get me to participate in a team setting for all those years– because it’s necessary and it produces better results. Every project I work on now is a team effort and cultivating good team relationships has become a key aspect of my daily life– and thank goodness for it! I’d be l-o-s-t without the biostatisticians and programmers and budgeting folks who can do all those crazy things that just hurt my head to even think about. And I suppose it’s truly no different in medicine, human or veterinary. I’m sure Curly’s first surgeon is top notch and used to success. He should probably have consulted someone else or suggested that we do ourselves, if not after the first revision, than definitely after problems arose with the second. That’s what they’re doing for Curly down in Madison, because that’s what’s going to result in the best care. An introvert’s nightmare, true, but there’s definitely some merit to this whole collaborative practice thing.
  • You don’t need much to be truly happy. Curly has been through a lot. Her first surgery was October 16th and she’s spent the past 5 months cut open, stapled and stitched closed, bandaged up, wearing a cone, confined to her kennel, limited to short leash walks with a sling, and pretty much continuously drugged. I’ve pulled at mats in her fur and cut her hair myself (and even accidentally nicked her once! it was the worst!!! I felt so horrible!!), I’ve spent an entire night wiping her backside and washing her blankets, I’ve sprayed her with stuff that stings and fed her stuff that’s bitter. Yet, through all of that, Curly still loves us and she’s still ridiculously and unreasonably happy. She goes crazy and tries hard to sit still despite her frantically wagging tail every time we walk in the door. She brings us toys and blankets to play. She bounds through the snow stopping to eat a bite here and there. She gives kisses and nuzzles my hand when it falls over the edge of the bed at night. She’s just such a happy girl. And that’s what every veterinary employee we’ve seen in the past couple of months has been amazed by– she should, by all accounts, not be this resilient. But she is. And thank goodness! We love, love, love our happy girl!

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  • Pets are a great source for giving and getting unconditional love. I love my pup. I love her like crazy. I know she’s not a human (seriously, I do know that) even though I often treat her like one. My mind is on her constantly and even if she ends up with no back legs, I’ll feel bad only at the thought that it could be somehow my fault, never about her condition. Because it truly doesn’t matter to me. She’s perfect, exactly as she is, no matter how ultimately functional or irreparable her leg ends up being. Taking care of her after surgery can be hard, but it’s worth it. Even the tough cares (seriously, the diarrhea after surgery #2 was not a joke) are totally worth it and done without a second thought because they’re done for her and I love her. Curly has taught me, for certain, that Seth and I are capable of great love– both for one another and for our family, whether fur or flesh. It’s a reassuring thought!

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This has been a tough few months, for no one more so than Curly, I’m sure. But she’s just done so ridiculously well. We can’t explain it, but it seems like she knows we’re only trying to help her and that trust is amazing. (The only thing she doesn’t trust is that the treat your holding doesn’t have a pill inside of it– that still requires some trickery. Trickery or salami.) I’m certainly not glad for any of this, but I am grateful for the small reminders day in and day out that our household is a happy one, bum legs and all!

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Coming up in the near future (in no particular order):

  • A second look at STEMinity
  • A more inclusive definition of family
  • The adult version of “If You’re Happy and You Know it Clap Your Hands”
  • A book club quarterly review

 

 

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2013: The year I crapped my pants. Twice.

It’s December 31st, 2013. I just got home from Appleton. We picked up my pup from her third surgery on the same knee. Here’s hoping that this won’t be the third failed surgery.

Curly in Cast

And that’s pretty much how 2013 has been. Except… EXCEPT! I started Under the Tapestry. And that has made all the difference! Because each time we chat, I’m reminded that for every dark cloud, there is a silver lining, and that each and every tangled thread I see is part of a much bigger and more lovely picture.

For example:

In 2013, I crapped my pants. Twice. We’ve been over this. My stomach was a MESS. A terrible, horrible mess. And I went through a lot of scoping and the like to be diagnosed as cra-a-a-a-zy lactose intolerant. But in the process, I was saved from a pretty much certain fate of colon cancer. So boom– turns out that was pretty awesome!

If that’s not enough to make me believe in silver linings and blessings in disguise, what could?!

For that reason, and many others, I am truly grateful for all the good, and especially the bad, that has happened in 2013. Of course, I wouldn’t mind a lesson or two less in 2014, but I’ll take it as it comes. After all, the bad often comes with a funny story to share and knowing it’s good blog material makes it much more bearable!

Best wishes to you and yours in the coming year, friends!

 

PS: Tonight, Seth and I are wearing comfies, snuggling our pup, watching tv, eating chips, and struggling to stay up until midnight. Perfection.

A new and personal kind of advent… or here comes 30.

According to Wikipedia (omg, a venue in which I can legitimately cite Wikipedia! hold on for a second while I savor this moment……….. consider it savored!), advent is “a season observed in many Western churches as a time of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus at Christmas.” Clearly, Wikipedia knows what’s up!

I’ve always liked advent, probably because of the candles, but have really latched on to it with greater fervor in the last year or two. Apparently, someone picked up on that because the day after I frantically scoured all of Marshfield looking for 3 purple candles and a pink one, my mother- and father-in-law dropped off a beautiful advent wreath as an early Christmas gift. (How did they know?! Seth swears he didn’t tell them…) Since I absolutely couldn’t stand the thought of candles that didn’t match, I had settled on four white, vanilla-scented glass votives clustered around a poinsettia. The advent wreath my in-laws gifted to me was much more beautiful and included its own little Nativity scene. I’m in love with it.

Advent Wreath

I have to be perfectly honest with you, I didn’t actually get to light all of the candles, and certainly not at the appropriate time. It just didn’t feel right to leave my kennel-bound puppy in the other room while we had a nice candlelit dinner (and she cannot be on linoleum right now without doing the whole Bambi-on-ice thing) so we mostly ate near the kennel as we waited for a miracle for the knee-that-simply-will-not-heal.

{Source}
{Source}

Even though I didn’t get to light all the candles in my own home, I was still able to reflect on what they mean and how important those things are to this beautiful season.

Hope.

Peace.

Joy.

Love.

And lastly, on Christmas day, the Jesus candle, which is in my mind all of those things (hope, peace, joy, and love) wrapped into one.

I had a truly lovely Christmas, enjoying a brief time (marked by an unfortunate ice storm) at my parents’ house in Michigan and a day of gifts and food and warmth at my in-laws in Mosinee. But with Christmas come and gone, my thoughts, as usual, turn to my birthday, which is coming up mid-January.

On January 14th, I will turn 30. And I’ve had lots and lots of feelings about that number, which I plan to discuss later. Thirty feels like it should be something of a big deal. True, there are no new privileges connected to it, like a driver’s license or the ability to rent a car, no major milestones, like your sweet 16 or “adulthood” at 18. (Perhaps you reached the maturity of adulthood at the age of 18; I personally did not. Hence, the quotation marks.) So I’m going to have to do something else to make it a big deal– to reflect on those years between 1984 and 2014 and to decide how I want to enter this new phase of my life.

To use the exact advent imagery might be blasphemous or heretical or something like that (though that’s certainly not the intent). So I think I’ll write some blog posts instead.

This week, I will write about my hopes for 30.

During the week of December 29th, I will write about making peace with 30 and finding joy at 30.

During the week of January 6th, I will write about love at 30 and I will highlight 30 years of silver linings in my life.

And finally, on Tuesday, January 14th, I will welcome 30 with all of the hope, peace, joy, and love it deserves!

30!

And cake.

Because I love cake.

And I can’t imagine that 30 is going to change that.

Silver Lining: Poo and the Proverbial Fan

I know you’ve been reading along since that first post because you couldn’t wait to find out how this blog is a silver lining… haven’t you?  Well, the wait is over, my friend.  I’m about to tell you that story.

I love my job.  As I’ve mentioned before, I really didn’t even know such a job existed, but I also don’t know that I could have come up with any better of a fit for me if I tried.  (And I mean legit job, things like beach bum and pina colada tester don’t count.)  As this is my first real job out of school, I was a bit unsure how to react, though, when things got tough.  Not the work itself, but the interpersonal dynamics of working in a team environment.  (I know, could I be anymore vague?  Just seems like a situation in which I ought to use a bit of discretion, putting it out there on the Internets and all…)  Long story short, I took action, the poo hit the fan, things got craaaazy awkward and tense around the office, and a professional third party was called in to assist.  I was pretty sure my life was over and work would be crappy forever and ever after.  And that was the truth, for about 5 minutes.

The third party came in and I was resolved to keep my mouth shut.  (Yeah, it’s like I don’t even know myself at all.)  So naturally, when things got silent and awkward, I filled that space up with WORDS.

ALL OF THE WORDS!

My mouth was like, “Ha ha!  Things may still be awkward, but at least that awful silence is GONE!”   But my brain couldn’t respond because it had totally checked out.  Yeah, this is a problem for me.

Except in this case, it really wasn’t.  I talked.  (Ok, let’s be honest, I suffered from a severe bout of verbal diarrhea.  At least it was just the verbal kind.)  But the good news is: it was contagious!  (Again, it’s cool, it was only verbal.)  And we all started talking and we had an honest and open dialogue and it was good.  Even more importantly, my favorite third-party-man told me about an article he’d read in Time Magazine about Sheryl Sandberg and it sounded interesting to me so he routed it over the next day.  Alarm bells went off all over in my brain (it had come back at this point)—I was excited!  I logged on to Amazon, bought Sandberg’s book Lean In, had it shipped overnight (seriously, Prime, best thing ever), and then devoured it.

I highlighted the book.  I called my mom and my sister and my friends from grad school and I made them all read it too.  I read passages out loud to my brilliant sister-in-law and I forced everyone in my office to borrow my copy when I was done.  I became an absolute Lean In zealot because I honestly believe it’s that important.  It’s empowering to know that even the brilliant and successful Sheryl Sandberg feels many of the same insecurities that I feel.  And she challenged me to do the things I would do if I weren’t afraid.  This blog is one of those things.

So, as usual, I’ve rambled, and a recap may be in order:

Work.  Trouble.  Awkwardness.  Third party.  Dialogue.  Lean In. Blog.  Silver lining.  Boom.

In addition to resulting in the conception and ultimate birth of this blog (waaaa!), I am grateful for the whole experience for several other reasons.

1)  I am an extremely sensitive person by nature and this whole experience really thickened my skin.  I endured a lot of crap in grad school and always expected that I would eventually develop that tough exterior, that I would stop taking things so personally, but I never did.  Until now.  My skin has grown so much tougher.  (Of note: my skin has literally grown thicker.  Just ask the nurse who did my IV before my endoscopy/colonoscopy.  I believe her exact words were, “Oh!  I’m sorry!  Your skin is much thicker than I expected!”  Totally worth the extra pinch to hear that!!)

2)  My confidence in the work place has sky-rocketed!  When I started, I was, to be blunt: mousy.  (Which isn’t that cute on a girl as big as me…)  I deferred to the opinions of others, rarely weighed in, and kept my head down as much as possible.  I don’t feel the need to do any of that anymore.  I express myself as calmly and professionally as possible, but I make sure that I am heard.  (The THREE of you I called “nerds” today at work may disagree; that probably wasn’t a very professional thing to say.  But you deserved it and you know it.)

3)  I demonstrated to my co-workers that they can count on me and I know that I can count on them.  We all went through this craziness together and although it wasn’t the ideal way to do it, I’d consider it a pretty good team-building exercise.  I work with some seriously amazing people and I love them.  I don’t know how I got so lucky!!

4)  Finally, I learned that there are a lot of different ways to make things better– even when the system is fundamentally broken, and that’s an important lesson for me.  Even when you can’t fix the problem, you can change your attitude and approach.  And sometimes that’s enough.  (At least in my limited experience, n = 1.)

So I guess my point is this: read Lean In.  And then do it– lean in, you won’t regret it!

 

(And by “you won’t regret it” I mean: you probably won’t regret it.  Who would have thought cloning dinosaurs would be such a bad idea?  Not me… but that guy leaned in, and perhaps he should have leaned back.  I think we can all agree that that’s a pretty extreme scenario.)

Silver Lining: No Mice

Have you ever gone to grad school?  If not, the most important thing to know about it is this: all you want, from pretty much the second you start, is to be done.  And the closer you get to the end, the further away it seems.  You spend an inordinate amount of time in the middle of the proverbial tunnel, unable to see the light at the end, and too far in to see the light at the beginning.  I can’t even tell you how many “last” experiments I had.  So, so, so many “last” experiments.  So, so, so many mice.  I have absolutely no desire to ever see, hear, smell, or touch another mouse so long as I live.  (Or taste.  I don’t want to taste one either, but that’s not something I ever tried anyway.  Figured I ought to throw it in for the sake of five-senses-completeness.)  However, when I was nearing the end and I was gearing up for another one of my “last” experiments, all I wanted were those little ladies to come in so that I could get started… and subsequently get finished, and fast!!

Right before Thanksgiving of 2011, I was expecting a big old shipment of genetically modified mice and I was pumped.  Ready to go, even though it meant working through the holiday.  No biggie.  My then boyfriend, now husband, was already safe and sound in Wisconsin, ready to watch some football without me, and that was fine.  So, day before Thanksgiving I find out: NO. MICE.  None.  Not-a-one.  I flipped… my… lid…  I immediately got on the phone to the hubs and, no preface, just said, “Fly me to Wisconsin.  Immediately.”  A few hours later, I was at Reagan Airport and a few hours after that I was in Wisconsin, ready to eat turkey and pie and mourn the loss of the mice I never even had in addition to the loss of my impending graduation.  Woe was me.  I was practically drowning in anger and self-pity.  It was not a beautiful thing.

While in Wisconsin, one is customarily expected to drink.  Like a fish.  And upon a previous trip to Green Bay (you know, the holy land), we discovered Captain’s Walk winery and the best white wine I have ever had the pleasure of meeting.  (Disclaimer: I am definitely not a wine connoisseur and have been known to enjoy what those who are would call swill.  But it suits my taste, and that’s what really matters when you’re the one drinking it, right?)  So as long as we were in the Sconi-land, we thought we’d head on down to the local grocery store (Festival Foods—best name ever, it’s a party every time I shop!) to pick up a bottle (or two, or whatever… it’s really good).

So, the day after Thanksgiving, my in-laws-to-be took us out for a traditional Friday fish fry at the Belvedere Supper Club (my favorite!!), to Festival Foods for wine to smuggle back to Maryland, and then we stopped at the Marshfield Rotary Winter Wonderland to see the Christmas lights (another favorite of mine!).  On the way, we passed the Marshfield Clinic and I thought to myself, “Hey, self, perhaps we ought to check out the Marshfield Clinic online and see what kinds of employment opportunities there might be for a girl like me someday.  Someone who knows a lot about mice and lot about STDs and knows her way around science pretty well.”  Turns out, they were looking for a Scientific Research Writer, which I didn’t even know was a job that existed and I applied.  I interviewed on Valentine’s day 2012 and they must have been hit by one of Cupid’s arrows because they offered me a job and I started in April.

So let’s recap, shall we.  No mice.  Wisconsin.  Graduation (finally).  J-o-b job.  Silver lining.

All that rage, anger, the self-pity, and the anxiety over a situation that was quite literally out of my control.  Worth it?  Absolutely not.  Necessary?  Maybe.  It’s not realistic to expect that the idea of a future silver lining or a blessing in disguise related to a crappy situation negates the crappiness of the present moment.  But cumulatively, every struggle has a purpose and for me, life is better when I spend less time raging about the struggle and more time searching for the silver linings in the clouds.

Silver Lining: Precancerous Tubular Adenoma

Let’s just get this out there: if you’re embarrassed or grossed out by so called “bathroom talk,” this may be a post you want to skip.  But, as the book says, everybody poops.  So maybe talking about it is sometimes ok.  It can certainly be funny.  So here I go.

Bathroom talk is pretty much my first language.  I know what you’re thinking– didn’t you say that science was your first language in your last post?!  Good point!  And bonus points for observational skills!  But here’s what you may not know: the thing I studied for so very, very long in grad school was STDs.  Gonorrhea and chlamydia to be specific.  Boom.  Bathroom talk.  But I digress…

I love to run, but my intestines seem to resent me for even trying and I end up in frequent, urgent need of the facilities.  (Euphemisms… something else I’m good at.)  Twice, I didn’t make it.  (J, you know who you are, I’m so sorry for all the jokes!  I can totally relate and you can feel free to take a shot or two at your convenience!)  At least one of those times I made it to the woods.  The other time it was blessedly dark.  I have been frustrated and I have raged.  I have seen doctors, read books, searched the internet (wowie zowie, right?! the internet is pretty sure I am dying), and finally managed to get an appointment with a gastroenterologist who ultimately recommended that I undergo a colonoscopy and endocscopy to try to locate the source of the problem.  Cool.

(Well, not so cool when the doctor who actually did the colonoscopy turned out to be someone I work with on a regular basis professionally.  Pretty sure I’ll never be able to look him in the eye again.  Thank goodness for email.)

The procedure was pretty much a piece of cake.  Yes, even the prep.  You know things have gotten out of control in your life when drinking a gallon of laxative is more pleasant than your basic every day experience.  (No cramping!  No pain!  You know it’s coming!  What’s not to like?!)  After the procedure I was truly hoping for the worst—obvious inflammation, a biopsy result indicative of something real, but also treatable.  Anything to slap a label on.  Someone to tell me that the craziness of my intestines was not just a figment of my imagination.  But, alas, that was not the case.  All of the biopsies from the small and large intestine came back negative, no indication of what could be wrong.  From here, we will proceed with a lactose intolerance test.  (Ummmm… yeah.  I’m lactose intolerant.  I don’t need a test to tell you that.  Give me some ice cream and you’re going to want to leave the room within 30 minutes.   Guaranteed.  But I’ll do the test, whatevs.)  So that was disappointing to say the least.

But wait… there’s more…

During the procedure, the doctor also removed a polyp that proved to be a precancerous tubular adenoma and you’ll be scheduled for routine screening colonoscopy every 5 years from here on out.  Ok, bye.

Literally, that was the end of the conversation.  Um, dang.  Drop the mic, walk away… at least that’s what it felt like from my end.

I’m 29 years old and have no family history of colon cancer.  In fact, I have very little family history of cancer at all.  I’m like a dang mosquito when it comes to family members getting screened (“Have you had your annual mammogram yet? Now?  How about now??? … No???  Would you get a mammogram if I sent you some data about mammograms???”) and I spend the vast majority of my working life studying breast, colon, and prostate cancer.  So I did some math (got to put that PhD to work!) and realized that I’m not technically due for a colon cancer screening of any sort for another TWENTY-ONE years.  Twenty.  One.  And it dawned on me… if my intestines hadn’t gone bananas, I would have gotten cancer.  Colon cancer.  Before the age of 50.  And it would have been diagnosed by symptoms, which means it probably would have been advanced.  Wow.  Silver-freaking-lining.  My oops-I-crapped-my-pants moment (have you seen that SNL skit—so funny, YouTube it.  But look, a hyperlink, I did the work for you!) prompted me to go back to the doctor (for something like the 5th time), which prompted my referral to GI, which prompted my colonoscopy, which may have literally saved my life, or at the very least prevented a whole boatload of unpleasantness.  Again: wow.

That tangled mess of intestines was like that tangled mess of threads… it was confusing, troublesome, a literal pain in the butt.  But wow, did that turn out differently than I expected.  It all seems to have been part of something so different than I could ever have imagined.  I love that.

PS(A): Are you over 50 years old?  Yes?  Have you had a colonoscopy?  If not, pretty please just do it.  It’s so worth it.

PPS:  I’d still love a diagnosis on the intestinal trouble, but considering the whole removal-of-precancerous-polyp thing, I’m going to give them a minute to figure it out…

Life is But the Weaving… and Spooky Action at a Distance

First, as promised, the poem for the more spiritually-minded:

 

Life is But the Weaving (The Tapestry Poem) by Corrie Ten Boom

 My life is but a weaving

Between my God and me.

I cannot choose the colors

He weaveth steadily.

Oft’ times He weaveth sorrow;

And I in foolish pride

Forget he sees the upper

And I the underside.

Not ‘til the loom is silent

And the shuttles cease to fly

Will God unroll the canvas

And reveal the reason why.

The dark threads are as needful

In the weaver’s skillful hand

As the threads of gold and silver

In the pattern He has planned

He knows, He loves, He cares;

Nothing the truth can dim.

He gives the very best to those

Who leave the choice to Him.

The idea of life as a tapestry, a needlepoint, or a cross stitch isn’t particularly novel, but for some reason I had either (a) never heard of it or (b) never registered hearing about it until recently.  I heard about it at church and it just resonated with me.  It was one of those days when you sit there in the pew, certain that the priest/pastor/rabbi/whatevs is looking straight at you, into your soul, and telling you the-exact-thing-you-absolutely-must-hear-at-this-moment.  It made me think about all those times I’ve ranted and raved about this, that, or the other thing only to find out later that it was just a necessarily dark thread in a much bigger and more beautiful picture.  Something I couldn’t have imagined, something I didn’t think I wanted, but something I, in fact, needed.

If religion/spirituality isn’t your thing, I totally get that.  And I can speak your language too, because science, you see, is my mother tongue.  That’s where I’m really fluent and that’s where I feel most comfortable.  (Writing in medical-ese is my day job!)  So, when I think about this concept, this tapestry thing, in more scientific terms, two ideas come to mind:

1)  Schrodinger’s (someday I’ll learn how to add a diaresis above the o, sorry Schrodinger, friend!) theory of quantum entanglement, or what Einstein (rather jerkily, actually) dubbed spooky action at a distance.  While Einstein’s intent was definitely not kind, I actually like the phrase spooky action at a distance.  It sounds so… Halloween-style fun, doesn’t it?  Anyway, in very, very rough terms, this is the concept that two particles that share a quantum state can never truly be separated even if they are no longer in the same vicinity.  That is to say, if you know something about the one particle, you automatically know something about the other particle because they are inextricably and forever linked.  Inextricably.  And forever.  And since every atom in your body has at one point in the history of time been a part of something else– a stick of gum, a bumblebee, a dinosaur, a blade of grass, a distant star– it’s hard not to believe that all of these things, all of us on this earth, all of us in the universe, are somehow, at least in some small, quark-scale way, connected.  (As a side note: I’m pretty sure most of my atoms come from dinosaurs.)

2)  Or, in slightly more simple, Newtonian-physics, equal-and-opposite-reaction terms: the butterfly effect.  Like the movie.  Like the phrase, “a butterfly flaps its wings in China…” you get the rest.

Of course, if you’re like me, all of these ideas– spiritual, religious, scientific, and proverbial– appeal to you.  In that case, I would highly recommend Thank God for Evolution by the Reverend Michael Dowd… it’s a great read!  The way he blends science, spirituality, religion… the universe… it’s beautiful and makes such lovely sense.  I really enjoyed it.  (Thanks, Dad!)

Regardless of how you want to think about, it’s hard not to believe, for me anyway, that the things that happen to us and the things that happen because of us don’t happen in a world that revolves around us.  (Double negatives much?  I’m leaving it…)  Therefore, the implications, the ramifications, the causes and the effects, the bigger picture, is really something we can’t entirely wrap our heads around.  No matter how much we think a decision through, there will always be consequences we can’t anticipate.  No matter how much we analyze something, there may always be a cause we can’t even imagine.

That’s not so say that planning and analysis, careful consideration of causes and effects, can’t be beneficial.  But it is to say that there’s more to this world, this life, than we can really comprehend.  I’ve only very, very recently, and very, very inconsistently found the ability to sit back and put a little bit of faith into the idea that the whole, big picture, the one I am completely incapable of comprehending at this moment, is exactly what it’s meant to be.

So, back to the analogy of the tapestry… sometimes the threads are chosen for us, sometimes we get to pick out a strand or two.  Sometimes we think we know what comes next better than the “weaver,” but perhaps that’s not the case.  And the more I think about it, the more I find reasons to be grateful for the blessings in disguise and the silver linings that seem to line even the darkest of clouds.

Finally, I promised some pictures.  My mom recently taught me to embroider, and I’m pretty psyched… but as in life, the back side is not so pretty.

Underside 1

Of course, if you’re like my mother-in-law at cross stitch or my friend Ellen at embroidery, even the back looks good:

Underside 2Dang, that’s impressive…

But that’s the idea.  In words, of the garden and medical variety, and in pictures, of the messy and the so-good-it-hurts variety.  The underside’s not so bad, but the underside doesn’t make nearly as much sense.  It’s that picture on top, that story we tell when the whole thing comes together, that makes life beautiful.