View from the Prairie Box

I haven’t stopped looking at your Facebook and Instagram posts. Well, that’s not entirely true. I quit both platforms for almost two weeks and that felt hard. I am a person who is constantly seeking connections. My initial desire was to rid myself of extraneous information in order to live more fully in the 3D world. Instead of trying to get filled up by social media stories, I wanted to seek face-to-face interactions. And instead of creating art with parameters issued by Instagram, I wanted to see if words and pictures would float to the surface of my creative soul once more. I also wanted to move away from the FOMO (fear of missing out) and jealousy I felt when inevitably fun friendships and moments surfaced on your Instagram feeds. Was that too much to ask in a period of five weeks? What did I discover and why did my fasting period last only briefly?

That last question is answered by a broken washer and dryer. When our almost 20 year old washer wasn’t carrying out its duties properly, and then our refurbished dryer smelled like burning materials, we were done. Time for new equipment for our very non-handyman household. I researched and researched, but in the end I wanted to know what my friends and family’s experiences and recommendations were. So I turned to Facebook. As much as I love all of y’all out there, the vast feedback I received wasn’t all that helpful. (I’ll post an explanation on this below.) Breaking my social media fast almost meant I was fully back on board with online interactions as it takes a lot of willpower for me to stay away. BUT. My cousin Mark teased me by asking why I was online when I said I’d be off, and that little nugget of a challenge convinced me to go silent on the platforms again. Only, at that point I started reading whatever I wanted and only interacting on my type 1 diabetes support groups.

In the end, I did learn something incredibly timely about myself: I do not need to save the world.

That’s embarrassing to say out loud because, on one hand, I don’t believe I’m what everyone needs in order to be happy. On the other hand, I believe strongly in cheering on your successes, mourning your griefs, celebrating your birthdays, and rejoicing in your beautiful vacations. I LIKE ALL THAT. No, what I mean is that the sun doesn’t rise and set based on my attendance in your life. I missed more than a month of Facebook birthday celebrations and that was the hardest part of reading-but-not-participating.

My scrolling life, while still in play, changed as well. Without having dropped little comments on your queries for good pediatricians and without engaging in battles over what Christians should and shouldn’t do (on every topic under the sun, which is absolutely exhausting and at times utterly pointless), I wasn’t as invested in Facebook. I actually began to see Facebook as the dumpster fire it largely is. Aside from those moments of knowing a bit more about someone’s actual life, Facebook is a trainwreck.

I tend to be a sponge emotionally. It’s both my superpower and my likely undoing if I’m not mindful of protecting my mind and heart. I care a lot about people, and I’m calling Facebook—and heck, Instagram too, and definitely Twitter (which I backed out of because to me it feels like a punching match all. day. long)—dumpster fires. I’m the kind of empath who will check out everyone else’s posts and pet projects and terrifying new stories and I will soak that stuff up. I will not only weep over the deaths of children I know, but I will start carrying the grief of lost children in around the world. I want to not only fight the injustices of child welfare policies in my city or racial hatred taking place down the street, but I will be tempted to pick up the fight for every other injustice I read about. I’ll be brought to tears by the meals, childcare, lawn mowing and floor scrubbing of my phenomenal church family, but then I’ll also get verklempt by all the other stories friends are posting as well. In short, I’m not built to handle so much. My sponging tendencies mean that the world according to social media is far too much world for me.

When I halted my social media posting, I began to question why I posted certain things. I’ve maintained a blog since 2001; I’m no stranger to sharing my life publicly. The blog served (still serves actually) as a journal for me. It’s my own space on the world wide web where I can write whatever I want and post whatever images I like. There’s a freedom in that. As an extrovert and verbal processor, I could write quips on Facebook daily and I enjoy the interaction with friends. Life is funny and it’s fun to share that stuff! But do I need to? No. If the cost is my emotional wellbeing then it’s a resounding no. (Note: if you’re a dear friend and you’ve wondered why I’ve messaged you so many times in the past month, well, here’s your answer. Verbal processor here!) Also, why am I posting to Instagram? I am absolutely confident that a large percentage of my loved ones post to document their lives. However, if I’m being honest with myself, at times I’m posting to prove my worth:

I’m a good mom. See? We did fun stuff this summer.
I like cool things. See? We ate at this restaurant.
I hang out with really great people. See? We did this. And this. And this.
I have an awesome husband. See? He did this.
I have an awesome kid. See? She did this.

Bragging is not my only reason for posting. There are many times I post something my husband did because I’m incredibly grateful for his kindness, or the beauty of the flowers he picked out for me has stunned me. I like to post events with my daughter so I don’t forget them, and I do like to show the fun travels or adventures I’m having with people I love. That’s all fine! But I’d be lying if I acted like my motivations were pure all the time. And I’d also be lying if I pretended like I wasn’t hurt by the times where I’m not invited to the party or where my kid is not accomplishing what your kid is. I long to not be blown into heart spaces of less confidence or less joy, but there it is: sometimes social media illuminates the gross parts of my soul.

Reducing social media usage is wise. My guess is that it’s wise for all of us to pause and ask ourselves why we’re participating and what we’re giving up in the process. I have a phone in front of my face a lot because I can do a lot on this device. I use it for work—both paid and unpaid, for staying in touch, and for entertainment. But I also misuse it, and it detracts from my family life mostly. I am eager to be necessary and connected, but I find that my Facebook and Instagram usage ends up creating false importance and false connections. I am not going to pretend to have this all figured out—if anything, the waters are more muddied now than ever. For one thing, if I write something on my website and actually do want to share it with the world, how do I do that? Answer: by utilizing social media. I long for work and friendships with lasting meaning though, and I’m more than a little tired of scattering pieces of myself all over these platforms. Where do I dig in? With whom do I invest my heart and my friendship? Where do I expend my emotional energies? And how to I protect my mind, my family, and my time?

Before I write about laundry, I want to express that I’m talking about myself here. If sharing these thoughts compels you to apply a critical eye to your own social media usage, then that’s great. If you’re content with what you’re doing in life, that’s also great. I’m not questioning what you’re doing but I am questioning myself in order to make wiser choices in my days.

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Quick post script about washers and dryers. It’s true that older models are likely a lot longer lasting than the items on the market today that have digital components that are more complicated to fix. However, my older machines are dying and it’s no longer cost effective to pour money into them, especially when Jeremy and I are not skilled enough to repair them. I have been reading about Speed Queens for YEARS and they were top on my list until I discovered that the current models on sales floors aren’t so great. Go read about it yourself. You’ll also find that Speed Queens are tough on clothes and since absolutely no one in my house has a job in agriculture or landscaping, we don’t need a bruiser of a machine. Speed Queen devotees, I hear you, but seriously, read up on the models you can buy in stores today and make that call for yourself. I read review after review of machines and we finally pulled the trigger on Electroluxes after asking a multitude of questions at a local store with salespeople that know their stuff. One of the biggest reasons we went with these machines was that the doors were reversible. Our washer hookup is on the right, our dryer vent is on the left, and there was no way I was going to deal with battling doors every time I moved a load of laundry. Bad elbows and no hands means you consider these things. A huge shoutout to my girl Maralee whose advice was of chief importance here. (She also always remembers to protect my elbows in the name of longevity and I love her for it.) Maralee knew I’d need doors in the right places, and she also was emphatic that I get pedestals so the front-loading machines would be at a less back-breaking height. I’m only now beginning to take good care of my body, so Maralee, I love you for thinking this issue through with my needs in mind.

And that, friends, is the conclusion to my washer-dryer decisions. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to throw some wet laundry into my new snazzy dryer.

Every year we pack snacks, extra drinks, maybe some board games, and we drive south to Camp Solaris for 24 hours of our church’s family camp. There’s always an internal push to get there… sometimes it’s that feeling that staying home feels more comfortable, and sometimes it’s the hassle of packing (whether for the day or for overnight), but ALWAYS camp turns out to be a good idea. There’s nothing like a shared experience to bring friends together. We talk and play games, hold each other’s babies and watch each other’s children splash. We play soccer and archery tag, maybe do an aerial course or paddle boat. We sweat together. We see each other’s bad sides because of the sweat and because of the children. And that is life, right? My fave activities aren’t even featured here. The pork dinner and Sunday breakfast are both feasts because Redeemer knows how to cook good food, and Sunday worship is this wonderful stripped-down service that reminds us that the church is God’s people and not a building at all. Redeemer Church, I love ya.

I want to ask you questions and I want to share experiences, only I want to do it in bite-sized forms. I mean, it seems kind of silly to write a whole blog post about how Target’s remodel is throwing off my home-away-from-home shopping experience, and it also seems like petitioning you all regarding “your favorite song to dance and/or run to” won’t actually work from a blog post. You all don’t even know I’m writing this because blogs are—let’s face it–—exciting no longer and hardly anyone checks them. I’m not cut off from communication by any means, but it’s kind of fun to see what new music would be recommended from my childhood friends versus my uncles (who are rocking it at this Facebook thing, fyi).

If you’re reading this, leave a comment with some new music for me, and perhaps you can tell me what genre it is as well. Anything in the last 10 years is considered new to me. Please. Send help! My iTunes albums are a mess of things from college, Jeremy’s classic rock, soundtracks, and seminary classes. I also have old pastoral interviews from years ago when we were looking for a new pastor. Those stir up more than a few emotions when they come on while I’m washing dishes.

It’s crazy how music can affect our moods so greatly. Today I was cutting vegetables for a salad when Philip Philiip’s Gone, Gone, Gone came through my earbuds, and my heart instantly felt a crushing sensation. Tears slipped onto my cheeks as I remembered Livia, Jeremy and I dancing to this music with our two little boys, our foster children for a mere five weeks. These little guys were a really sore bruise on my soul for awhile until I ended up with some information about their family. The soreness has been relieved by knowing that they’re with their mom (that not knowing business is for the birds), but the rush of feelings came back strongly as I remembered how suddenly they left our home.

What happened to them was unfair, and that’s all I can conclude. Their mother was in conversations with caseworkers at the state and once they had enough evidence of neglect to present to a judge they were removed from her care. They lived with a couple who had no children, and no previous fostering experience, and moved to us as they had completely overwhelmed Foster Family #1. We were better prepared to care for two very little boys, and with much fear and trembling said yes to them staying with us. The five weeks here were filled with me learning the ropes of their daycare situation, us taking them to the doctor many times for a variety of illnesses, us getting sick as well, and lots of Dr. Seuss books and bath time games. I envisioned having them stay with us for around a year. They left us to return to mom after five weeks.

What did a preschooler and a toddler learn about life after two months away from their mother in two different homes? What did their mom learn in that time? Why did the judge agree to their removal and then only weeks later return them? I can’t understand it. I also can’t see the bigger picture. How does God see all this and what benefit was it to our hearts and to these sweet little boys’s hearts? Again, I do not know. What I do know is that it has changed me. It has changed me profoundly and I’m not the same woman I was before ___ and ___ came into my life. They have names. They were real and we really loved them. Through weekly prayers and our memories we love them still.

When life leaves you high and dry
I’ll be at your door tonight if you need help, if you need help
I’ll shut down the city lights,
I’ll lie, cheat, I’ll beg and bribe to make you well, to make you well
When enemies are at your door I’ll carry you way from more
If you need help, if you need help
Your hope dangling by a string
Ill share in your suffering to make you well, to make you well

So I would do it for you, for you
Baby I’m not moving on
I love you long after you’re gone
For you, for you
You would never sleep alone
I love you long after you’re gone
And long after you’re gone, gone, gone

**The Christmas-in-July photo shows the ornaments we hang on our tree every year to remember our little guys! We have other ornaments for our first and last foster babies and for the one miscarried Tredway in glory now.

I’m lost in the disorientation of summer time. The sun had been high and bright all day until I slipped under my covers to take a nap, and then the sun, too, slipped under its covers and out came a disorienting afternoon thunderstorm. The sun and I are both up and at ‘em once more, but time seems off-kilter. I move, often motivated by a checklist and a strong sense of duty, but in my shapeless afternoon the checklist seems insignificant. The hours slip by unnoticed, a book in my hand, sounds of music and typing coming from my husband’s office down the hall. My daughter, with her allowed once hour of television per day, has somehow expanded the hour and I can’t muster up concern. She’s two flights below me, engrossed in Star Trek Voyager and I don’t mind. Ah, lazy summer days. My body and brain are receiving a rest that was unasked for but embraced nonetheless.

The rest of today follows the pattern I’ve been feeling in the past several months, and I’ve described it as a lull in life, a “selah” from the Psalms if you will. I’m not sure that the word selah is completely understood, but some think it means to pause or to take a break. Like a little breath, if it’s truly a musical notation. I feel like I’m in a stage of life that is a little uptake of breath, a bit of calm, a period of pausing.

What happens when a duty-bound, responsible, checklist-making woman takes a breath?

I don’t know exactly, but here I am.

Will the world fall apart?
Will I miss out on opportunities?
Will I forget something or, and this is far worse, will someone forget me?
Will I be seen as lazy?
Will I forget to be goal-oriented?
Will I be more content?

Yes. I can answer that last one already. This selah is surrounded by space that breathes of contentedness. I have strived for decades to reach particular goals, and I’ve largely been good at it. So what happens if I’m not immediately in pursuit of something? Can I truly sit here and read a book and then get takeout for dinner and the world will keep spinning on its axis?

Yes to that question, too.

I don’t know how long this break will be, this space of breathing in and out and not always achieving. I don’t know its length but I do know it’s content. Right now it’s making dinner without feeling the pressure of an activity coming right after it. It’s hanging out with my animal-loving kid, carting her from pet-sitting to the zoo and back again. It’s talking with her, and talking with my husband, and watching tv shows together, again without any pressure of significant deadlines. It’s reading a book, finishing it, and picking up another one. It’s reading out loud. It’s listening to podcasts. It’s conversations with friends or family over an iced coffee or a last-minute run to Marshalls.

So for now I march to a different drumbeat that doesn’t feel like a beat at all. Bring on the summer sun, and let the days come.

The one cashier available at Walmart this morning was busy with two customers, so even though my cart was full to the brim, I walked down to the self-serve lanes. Preferring to be busy rather than standing still waiting, I pulled out my reusable totes and starting scanning. (Not gonna lie, I love to scan stuff.) As everyone knows, the Walmart self-scanners and bagging stations are finicky and don’t appreciate the variables of extra weight from bags I have brought from home. It was a long process to get checked out. I went through two workers who periodically came over to scan their employee cards and tell the machine to chill out. I felt a tweak in my lower back from bending over for heavy groceries and heavier bags (now waiting on the floor to not confuse any machine or person).

However, what I felt in that moment was immense gratitude.

The small tweak in my lower back reminded me of the bigger tweaks that I was not feeling. At all.

The balls of my feet—suited up in tennis shoes—felt absolutely fine.

My elbows—whose joint tissue has been eaten up by rheumatoid arthritis and then surgically removed at Mayo—felt absolutely fine.

My blood sugars—with an assist from a protein-rich, carb-free breakfast—were absolutely steady.

Though I had walked into Walmart under dark clouds, I walked out into sunshine, my hand digging into my purse for sunglasses. I thought about the nature of life and how terribly hard things can be. Sometimes the hard things obscure our views. Sometimes the hard things are so intense that we can’t come up for air, we can’t see anything else but pain, we can’t catch our breath. But to be honest, those moments of intensity are not the norm—and thank goodness they aren’t. Usually life is a little more balanced and that is exactly when it’s important to recall the way we are blessed. And like I’ve said before, we can see those blessings all the more when we’ve experienced a little darkness to compare them to.

I would not have taken a moment to appreciate my strong feet and strong arms on the concrete floors of a warehouse grocery store if I had never experienced the utter debilitating nature of arthritis. Am I asking too much for others to be aware of their own strong joints when they’ve never been through what I have?

Our experiences are not the same. It is likely that you’ve experienced hardships I’ve never had to consider. It is also likely that, if we were to get into conversation, we’ve had similar struggles at one point or another in our lives. Suffering doesn’t belong to just one or two people—it’s widespread. It’s human. It’s part of being human.

What helps us to count the blessings is a healthy dose of empathy. If you can see someone else’s plight—and if you can imagine just for a second that it’s yours—you will value the sweetness of life all the more.

The infertile woman or man is looking at you guys, yes, all of you with all of your biological children, as absolute miracles.
The teenager with cystic fibrosis is envying your ability to pull in deep breaths of air.
The diabetic who is trying to avoid sweets but also has to buy extra Skittles and juice boxes for low blood sugars is marveling at your pancreas.
The kid going through a divorce looks longingly at two-parent homes, while the kid without a father wonders what having a dad might be like.
The guy without hands sees how fast you put on a tie, change a tire, hang a picture frame, or type an email and feels a bit tired.
The woman who is plagued by anxiety and doesn’t sleep wonders when this feeling will end and life will resume normally.
The student with gut issues wishes he could eat anything he wanted to and would rather not take drugs to get by.
The cancer patient thinks about her longevity and is amazed there used to be a day where cancer wasn’t a constant companion.

Can it be that simple? Can your ability to take a deep breath be something you’re actually grateful for? When you lace up your sneakers and go for a hard run, can you appreciate the movement of your muscles and joints? If you aren’t a diabetic can you rejoice that you can sweat without considering your blood sugars? If you have eyes to see the sunshine and the clouds, can you count that as a blessing? If you can hear the robins chirping and the kids playing outside yelling and the dogs in the neighborhood barking, can you rejoice that winter is finally over and be happy that being outdoors is an option again?

This is life. This is the way to live, friends. If being human is experiencing hardships AND joys, then open your eyes to the joys you still have the ability to count. And when the darkness is all-consuming, ask a friend to who can still see light to recount the joys for you.

I once worked alongside a woman who was tough. In an office building full of warm and empathetic individuals, she stood out as a person who wasn’t interested in chitchat, didn’t smile very often, and certainly didn’t seem to care if you were the latest student-worker in a long line of uninteresting student workers. She was not, shall we say, nurturing whatsoever and her reputation preceded her.

I was nervous every single time I had to approach her desk and ask her a question. As a person who excelled in the “getting people to like me” category (I could say a few thing about my idolization of likability now), I wasn’t used to interacting with personalities like this one. After I got over my initial surprise at her lack of warmth, I decided something: I was going to work hard to win her over. Putting my own feelings aside was not the norm for me—and still isn’t—but I recognized something in my early 20’s and it was that I was going to have to work on this relationship over time. There was an obstacle—her—and there was a hurdle to get over, and I was determined to conquer this challenge.

In conquering the challenge, I learned a huge lesson in relating to people. Not everyone is a warm fuzzy person! Some people have tough exteriors borne of hard circumstances and others have natural bends towards introversion. Whatever the reason, people are people and will behave differently and that has nothing to do with their motivations, interests, and, hopefully, my relationship with them. This woman became a friend to me during my years of working in this environment, and she is still my best example of powering through what initially felt like a hard situation. I have fond memories of her now.

I confess that I don’t want for my daughter to go through hard times. I want to bubble wrap her, ensuring she has a soft heart towards the world and protecting her from the cruelty I’ve seen. I want to wrap my kindness around her to deflect the unkind words that come in her direction. I want to lay pillows at her feet to protect her from inevitable falls. I want to open her eyes to rainbows and flowers and sunsets without her having to witness the heavy winds and tornados and, yes, the floods. At some level I understand Helicopter Moms. The desire to protect and want the very best for our progeny is strong. With privilege, power, and influence, some of us will stop at nothing to push our children into the future that we think is best, along the route that we think is best, and you better believe we’re going to deflect those hard times we see coming a mile away.

But oh, that’s not the way to go. Not at all.

Even while I was typing about sunshine versus storms, I couldn’t help but notice that sunshine means little unless you’ve been through the longest winter on record and you lost track of warmth and light and were moved to a hopeless place in your heart. Isn’t spring all the more sweet after a hard winter? Each bud on the tree now sings praise to its Maker, and your heart is moved to do the same. Spring isn’t nearly as interesting without the hard crust of snow and layers of salt and the same winter boots pulled on day after day. It is this contrast of lovely versus unlovely that awakens us to the blessings we have.

Our pastor said something in a sermon months ago about hoping that his kids will suffer. Okay okay, it’s so out-of-context here that it’s not fair, and yet, suffering is absolutely part of this human experience. I can tell quite quickly whether a fellow adult has ever suffered based on their compassion and empathy for another suffering human. We don’t mature without have the hard edges rounded off, and oftentimes that rounding happens in the toughest of moments. Every scrape of a knee and fall from a tree leads to a child figuring out her boundaries. The mistakes made in adolescence lead to knowing one’s limits. The stupidity of early adulthood leads to important life lessons.

I can’t be a Helicopter Mom any more than I can sprout wings and fly south when the first snows begin to fly. While everything within me yearns to protect my growing child, I do not believe she is best served by being bubble wrapped and protected from the difficulties of this world. If I remove her from every hard situation—which I physically cannot do—how will she learn her limits? How will she rebound and be bolstered internally when the external world is hard to understand? How will she learn rely on God, who is always present and available to her?

Many kids I know have already been through a lot by the time they hit middle school. I think of those who’ve been adopted—whether in infancy or in later years—and I know they’ve experienced a level of trauma completely unknown by those of us who have been raised by our biological parents. I think of the children I’ve spent time with through the foster care system, and though others may never know of their struggles, I know of the addictions, the lack of parental consistency, the unsafe dwelling places, the abuse and the near-constant neglect may of them have faced by the time they started kindergarten. And kids who aren’t in foster or adoptive homes? Still, life can get hard. The death of a parent, divorce, remarriage, sexual molestation, cross-country moves, bullying at school and home, unkind teachers and coaches, and financial difficulties can all shake up a person from the outside, while from the inside there’s a variety of developmental delays, physical disabilities, and mental illnesses that plague children.

However, the human heart is amazingly resilient. I saw this in the eyes of my students during my student-teaching days and I see it now in my child and in her friends and in my friends’ children. Despite hard things, the human spirit wants to succeed, and it doesn’t want to succeed because a Helicopter Mom removed all difficulties. No! We overcome the difficulties. We make changes. We rebound with encouraging words and encouraging examples and we don’t take for granted the people around us that offer a “You struggle with that? ME TOO!”

So on days (weeks, months, years!) when I feel like protecting my kid, I’ll try to reflect on how much stronger she’s grown in every area that matters in these past 14 years of life. I see her grow in smarts, in empathy, in artistic skills, in relating to animals, and in her faith in a God she can’t see but Who exists and is true and good. I will try to look back at those adorable baby pictures and crazy toddler antics and reflect on the joy she’s brought me and so many others in her world. Perhaps the hardships of this life serve as grit to clean the dirt off of the windows of our souls. May it allow the lights within each of us to shine brighter and brighter as we grow.

I wake up in the night and the back of my left arm is irritated. Taped down against my skin is a small filament that measures the sugar in my interstitial fluid. This device is a medical marvel but at 2:30am the desire to rip it out is strong. I do it, knowing that within the next day I must recharge the transmitter and move the site anyhow. Lights bright in my bathroom, I pull out alcohol from the cabinet and lightly clean the slightly inflamed CGM site wondering how many spots like this will dot my body by the time the next tech comes out. Scar dots all over.

I’m up before the fam. Everyday I’m up before them, and now I contemplate where the next CGM site will be, rotating mentally from arm to arm to stomach (no), boob (giant no), and thighs. The company that manufactures my supplies doesn’t approve of the thigh, but it offers a lot of real estate. I also have to use this area for my once-a-month two-syringe stabbing for rheumatoid arthritis so, mindful of that unfun task, I swab with alcohol again, load up the sensor into a device, and click the button against my leg. I feel nothing.

I’m oddly proud of this process. The positioning, the taping, the looking for a green light, the applying of more tape. It was so hard to do at first that I would sweatily stand over a manual, flipping pages and breathing heavily before making the next move. As with any repetitious action, it got easier over time and today I only misplaced one piece of tape. I can now problem solve most issues on my own. And that I did this morning as my pump didn’t recognize the transmitter for awhile. I faithfully read users’ experiences with this system however. I troll a Facebook page daily, reading up on problems and solutions, and their wisdom (and folly) has kept me afloat. There’s an 800 number, a trainer’s phone number, an endocrinologist’s office also on standby, but I’d rather not call any of them if I can work it out. Today I succeed. Each success is like a little firework saying “I got this.”

I’m glad for those small fireworks because there’s so much I absolutely don’t got. For instance, the deeper I embrace medical technology equals my complete dependence on the company that sells me the parts. I play a game in my head where I whittle down my needs to the bare minimum. I could get by with insulin and a syringe and a glucometer. That’s the minimum. I’m far beyond that at the moment however; there are a lot of moving parts to my new bionic self. To get those parts, I must have great insurance and I must be involved in a lot of plastic and cardboard packaging. Why do I value independence so much? Why does it bother me that I rely so heavily on this one company and how they function? I think deep within my psyche I’m a survivalist, always looking to move freely and without damaging the land. Ha! It’s time to let that fantasy go, girl. I’m the opposite of a survivalist. In all those apocalyptic tv shows and movies? I’d just say “nah” and take off the blindfold or go hug a zombie or whatever. Type 1’s, even hopeful ones, are realists.

So now there’s a sensor and its accompanying transmitter taped down on my thigh. It’s Day One of the sensor—good for a week officially (and more than that unofficially if you’re savvy). Day One is nuts between transmitter re-charging time, a two-hour warm up time, multiple calibrations, and blood sugar checks. Reminder to self: turn off the pump’s audio during church. Last week I got a few nice alarms during prayer that I didn’t appreciate. I am grateful times a thousand for this technology, but I’m still coming to terms with it. I’m different because of it. I have a dedicated section of my brain to problem-solving all those alarms, and it’s intimately connected to the brain parts dedicated to the rest of diabetes. Basically, I have a mere 10% of my brain for the rest of life. So far so good. Despite all the challenges, every night as I sleep this new system charts something incredible on the screen of my pump: a flat line. We T1s joke that it’s the only medical flat line anyone actually wants to see. I sleep and my glucose sits between 100 and 120 all night long.

That never happened before.

This little system, so obnoxious with it’s alarms and unexpected moments of troubleshooting lets me fall asleep without being afraid of dropping into a low blood sugar and never waking up. I never even knew I was holding my breath with that fear until I used the pump to its fullest capacity at the start of December. Two months in and I am still marveling.

I’m dependent on insulin.
I’m dependent on my pump company.
I carry a bag everywhere I go.
And multiple sources of sugar are always nearby.
I don’t leave meals to chance.
I need to know how much exercise is involved in everything I do.

And yet, here I am. Dependently alive. Alive and happy to be so. Thank you, God.

I tend to be quiet about what I’m reading, but this year I’ve benefitted so greatly from those who share their booklists OUT LOUD that I want to do the same. Plus, I can’t tell you how many years I’ve set a goal for book-reading via Goodreads and haven’t met that goal—it’s been a battle against my inner perfectionist for sure. However, in 2018 I read like crazy. I attribute this to kickstarting my reading habit in grad school and then taking an actual break from grad school where I had more margin to sit and dream and read for fun. I like reading. Final note: I read all kinds of stuff. There are few genres I’m not willing to explore, though, as you will see, I mainly read fiction. I’m listing title, author, and stars given with five stars being the highest ranking, and I am by no means fair in my attribution of stars. Read for yourself and decide if you agree with my standards, which 100% of the time is settled by how I feel upon completing a book.

JANUARY
Sleeping Giants – Sylvain Neuvel ****
Love, Loss, and What We Ate: A Memoir – Padma Lakshmi ***
Wool (Silo series #1) – Hugh Howey ****
The Girl on the Train – Paula Hawkins **

FEBRUARY
The Memory of Running Ron McLarty ****
Lost in the Middle – Paul David Tripp *****
The Ship of Brides – Jojo Moyes ****
The Nest – Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney ***
Scrappy Little Nobody – Anna Kendrick **

MARCH
The Versions of Us – Laura Barnett ****
Camino Island – John Grisham ****
Everything Happens for a Reason – Kate Bowler *****
The Golem and the Jinni – Helene Wecker ****
The Summer Before the War – Helen Simonson *****

APRIL
Raising the Barre – Lauren Kessler ***
James Herriot’s Animal Stories – James Herriot ****
A Good Cry: What We Learn from Tears and Laughter – Nikki Giovanni ****
Shift (Silo series #2) – Hugh Howey ****
Mr Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore – Robin Sloan ***

MAY
An American Marriage – Tayari Jones ****
The Rooster Bar – John Grisham ****
The Sacred Enneagram – Christopher Heuertz *****
The Myth of the Nice Girl: Achieving a Career You Love Without Becoming a Person You Hate – Fran Hauser *****

JUNE
Children of Blood and Bone – Tomi Adeyemi ****
The Immortalists – Chloe Benjamin ****
Tales of a Female Nomad – Rita Golden Gelman ****
The Summer House – Hannah McKinnon ***
Surprised By Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church – NT Wright *****

JULY
The Patron Saint of Liars – Ann Patchett ****
Text Me When You Get Home: The Evolution and Triumph of Modern Female Friendship – Kayleen Schaeffer ***

AUGUST
Kitchens of the Great Midwest – J Ryan Stradal ****
Union with Christ: The Way to Know and Enjoy God – Rankin Wilbourne ****
Love May Fail – Matthew Quick ***
The Kind Worth Killing – Peter Swanson ****
North – Scott Jurek ****
Every Note Played – Lisa Genova ****
Little Fires Everywhere – Celeste Ng ****
Educated – Tara Westover **

SEPTEMBER
Identify Theft: Reclaiming the Truth of Our Identity in Christ – Melissa Kruger ****
Girl Waits with Gun (Kopp Sisters #1) – Amy Stewart ****
Gay Girl, Good God – Jackie Hill Perry ****
Lady Cop Makes Trouble (Kopp Sisters #2) – Amy Stewart ****
Miss Kopp’s Midnight Confessions (Kopp Sisters #3) – Amy Stewart ****

OCTOBER
The Ambassador’s Wife – Jennifer Steil ****
Philippians: At His Feet Studies – Hope Blanton, Chris Gordon *****
A New Model – Ashley Graham ***
The Natty Professor – Tim Gunn ***
Good Morning, Midnight – Lily Brooks-Dalton ****

NOVEMBER
Miss Kopp Just Won’t Quit (Kopp Sisters #4) – Amy Stewart ****
Us Against You – Fredrik Backman ***
Love and Ruin – Paula McLain ****
A Place for Us – Fatima Farheen Mirza *****
Lilac Girls – Martha Hall Kelly ****

DECEMBER
So Close to Being the Sh*t – Retta **
Bright Kids Who Can’t Keep Up – Ellen Braaten *****
Island of the Mad (Mary Russell #15) – Laurie R King ****
To Shake the Sleeping Self – Jedidiah Jenkins ****
My Antonia – Willa Cather *****