Aging Gracefully? Ha!
Team Joseph is this weekend - a 5K that we do to honor his memory, for a charity that helped us more than once while he was ill. I look forward to it every year, but it seems lately like everything I do is a pathological exercise in guilt. I didn't give it a lot of attention this year and we didn't raise anywhere near what I hoped to. And I was hoping for more than 100 team members, but we managed only 42. I keep telling myself I will have REAL time to devote to the charities of my choice once I graduate from nursing school and until then, my job in earth is to be the best darn student I can be and get through this.
My love affair with nursing school is on hiatus right now I am afraid. All that honeymoon giddiness has tempered into a nice solid sense of unending fatigue and iron-clad determination. I am more afraid this semester, probably because the things we are doing are more important than taking blood pressure. Today we learned how to start IVs. I got it on the first try...on the rubber disembodied arm we practice on. I am dying to try it on live flesh. Which sounds kind of sick. But I miss the hospital. I miss the patients, the trepidation, the thinking on my feet. I miss the sense of what I am doing matters right now, today, in this person's life. That has become my therapy.
I am turing 40 on Sunday and just not dealing with that well. I am not sure what is up with that. It just keeps washing over me and I both start my day out silently weeping in solitude and ending it up that way. I guess the passing of a decade for me is drawing up a lot of sorrow. Entering my 40s is hard. I am not ready to be old yet feel so old inside. I am not ready to age physically - I just now figured out how to make myself look good. I just now lost all that weight. I am not ready to be dismissed as a person simply because I am getting old. But most of all, I just am not ready to move out of my 30s and pass another milestone, one that is actually taking me by surprise. I keep thinking about how I got pregnant with Joseph before I was really prepared to be a mother and how I told myself time for me would come when he graduates from high school, and how I would be a young mom with a son graduating when I am only 40 years old. Well, here I am, 40 years old. There's not going to be a graduation this year. And I miss my boy. A lot.
I feel him with me more though. I am praying a lot more. I am not going to preach to anyone via this blog. I hate it when people try to convince me of anything political or religious. I want the right to think for myself. I hate nothing more than evangelicalism, mainly because it seems to be served with a huge cup of hipocrisy on the side. So no preaching here. But I will put out there - I am finding once more for the first time as an adult a sensation of having God's presence very near to me. And that is new, different and very comforting.
Joe has been doing a lot of work on the house. I can't believe we have been here over a year already. The boys are well settled into their rooms and we are making steady progress on the things we want to get done here. I say we. I mean Joe. I am not doing anything except writing care plans and reading and going to class.
Joe bought and planted white and yellow roses out front for me. It is still very temperate here and they have just taken root and gone to town. I can't say how happy it makes me to look at them.
Nick is doing fantastic in school so far this year. He is struggling a bit in honors chemistry but heck, its honors chemistry. I am proud of him just for daring to take the course. He is also on rifle team with ROTC, playing with orchestra, participating in youth group at church, working toward confirmation and he is just a few requirements from Eagle Scout. Alex is in honors courses for almost every class and doing well. He got cast in the school play but is not happy that his role doesn't require him to talk in a gutteral voice. I suspect he will get over that. He is enjoying playing trombone in band and played for his first football game this week, which he very much enjoyed and was surprised that he did. I'd love to see him stick with band all the way through high school. I think the marching band has a great deal of fun together.
I hope the weather holds for the 5K. I have two good friends coming from out of town to walk it with me, which is nice. We will spend some girl time together and I think it will be a relaxing weekend. Sunday night is dinner at Mom's house for my birthday. She wants to know what I want her to make me, which makes me giggle. I am turning 40 and Mom still wants to make me a special birthday dinner, which is awesome. I am hanging up my books for a few days and letting myself just enjoy this time with family, friends and memories.
My love affair with nursing school is on hiatus right now I am afraid. All that honeymoon giddiness has tempered into a nice solid sense of unending fatigue and iron-clad determination. I am more afraid this semester, probably because the things we are doing are more important than taking blood pressure. Today we learned how to start IVs. I got it on the first try...on the rubber disembodied arm we practice on. I am dying to try it on live flesh. Which sounds kind of sick. But I miss the hospital. I miss the patients, the trepidation, the thinking on my feet. I miss the sense of what I am doing matters right now, today, in this person's life. That has become my therapy.
I am turing 40 on Sunday and just not dealing with that well. I am not sure what is up with that. It just keeps washing over me and I both start my day out silently weeping in solitude and ending it up that way. I guess the passing of a decade for me is drawing up a lot of sorrow. Entering my 40s is hard. I am not ready to be old yet feel so old inside. I am not ready to age physically - I just now figured out how to make myself look good. I just now lost all that weight. I am not ready to be dismissed as a person simply because I am getting old. But most of all, I just am not ready to move out of my 30s and pass another milestone, one that is actually taking me by surprise. I keep thinking about how I got pregnant with Joseph before I was really prepared to be a mother and how I told myself time for me would come when he graduates from high school, and how I would be a young mom with a son graduating when I am only 40 years old. Well, here I am, 40 years old. There's not going to be a graduation this year. And I miss my boy. A lot.
I feel him with me more though. I am praying a lot more. I am not going to preach to anyone via this blog. I hate it when people try to convince me of anything political or religious. I want the right to think for myself. I hate nothing more than evangelicalism, mainly because it seems to be served with a huge cup of hipocrisy on the side. So no preaching here. But I will put out there - I am finding once more for the first time as an adult a sensation of having God's presence very near to me. And that is new, different and very comforting.
Joe has been doing a lot of work on the house. I can't believe we have been here over a year already. The boys are well settled into their rooms and we are making steady progress on the things we want to get done here. I say we. I mean Joe. I am not doing anything except writing care plans and reading and going to class.
Joe bought and planted white and yellow roses out front for me. It is still very temperate here and they have just taken root and gone to town. I can't say how happy it makes me to look at them.
Nick is doing fantastic in school so far this year. He is struggling a bit in honors chemistry but heck, its honors chemistry. I am proud of him just for daring to take the course. He is also on rifle team with ROTC, playing with orchestra, participating in youth group at church, working toward confirmation and he is just a few requirements from Eagle Scout. Alex is in honors courses for almost every class and doing well. He got cast in the school play but is not happy that his role doesn't require him to talk in a gutteral voice. I suspect he will get over that. He is enjoying playing trombone in band and played for his first football game this week, which he very much enjoyed and was surprised that he did. I'd love to see him stick with band all the way through high school. I think the marching band has a great deal of fun together.
I hope the weather holds for the 5K. I have two good friends coming from out of town to walk it with me, which is nice. We will spend some girl time together and I think it will be a relaxing weekend. Sunday night is dinner at Mom's house for my birthday. She wants to know what I want her to make me, which makes me giggle. I am turning 40 and Mom still wants to make me a special birthday dinner, which is awesome. I am hanging up my books for a few days and letting myself just enjoy this time with family, friends and memories.
Comments
Secondly, my grandmother told me that the French say that a woman isn't a REAL woman until she is mature, which (to me) BEGINS in the 30s, but deepens in the 40s. I'm 51, so I've been there, and (apart from Katie getting sick and dying) my 40s were awesome. I mean it.
How wonderful that you are feeling comforted by the loving presence of God. What a great thing to take with you into a new decade.
I have to share this quote from Eleanor Roosevelt with you, for your rose garden (and gardener): "I once had a rose named after me and was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalog: 'No good in bed, but fine up against a wall.' " I hope that makes you smile.
I love the fact that your mom is cooking for your birthday; you'll always be "her baby." God bless you and give you the happiest of birthdays yet.