life

I am back in Birmingham. It was a long two weeks away from home. Now that I am away from my family, I can remember the reasons I love each member and be grateful for their presence in my life. There was out-loud arguing this year. Very strange for my family. Normally, we fight in that passive-aggressive, non-spoken way. I think fighting out loud is actually better, although it's very different for me. I get severe stomach pains when I am truly stressed out. It hasn't happened in a long time, but I tell you what, I had some severe stomach pains the day of our family picture. Woohoo, it was an intense day.
I had the feeling on the way back to Birmingham that I am headed back to life, to adventure. My life is a up and down journey now. Nothing is known, nothing is familiar. I am about to start an internship that thrills me to pieces and scares me to death. I will then take my licensure exam and then....travel? job? relationship? location? car? money? All delightful, frightening question marks.
The most delightful part of my holiday was, of course, my nephews. They engage in life with such vigor and enthusiasm, it makes me wonder if I am just missing out. I like watching them learn...learn how to read, how to add and subtract, how to be good winners and losers, learn the meaning of words. For instance, Mike, Ryan, Warren, and I did a ski run named 'Sweet Revenge.'
Ryan: Alison, what does sweet revenge mean?
Alison: Well, do you know what revenge means?
R: No.
A: Well, revenge is when someone does something mean to you and then you do something mean in return. Some people think it feels good to get someone back and so it's called 'sweet revenge.' But, it's usually better to just forgive or else revenge becomes a cycle with people just doing mean things back and forth to each other.
I hope my explanation was a good one. But, it struck me as funny to realize that my little nephew didn't know what revenge meant. There was a time when I didn't know the meaning either. Their questions make me reconsider my own knowledge and question what I hold as truth.
There is something so comforting about my nephews. Sometimes I go sit beside them as they sleep and listen to their breathing. It's so steady and relaxed and trusting. I slept in the bed with little Ryan and would fall asleep with his hand in mine.

partaaaaay

I think there is really nothing much more stressful than family togetherness time during the holidays. My other brother and his family arrived today and it is now mass chaos. Delightful at times, exhausting at others. The key for me is to go into the holidays with realistic expectations. I used to hope that this year would be the magical change. We would all be happy and have no arguments, no diseases, no sickness, no pain, nothing but joy. Ah yes, sigh. But, it's a much shorter fall when you go in knowing that we will still annoy each other and still be thankful for each other and still be even more thankful that we don't live in the same town.
But all in all, there is nothing like family. Nothing like Ryan's face when he sees me each morning. Nothing like hearing Mike chat about school as we put together his new Star Wars lego spaceship. Nothing like laughing with my sister-in-law and being grateful for our friendship. Nothing like tickling smooth little bellies and hearing peals of laughter.
I am grateful to feel grateful this evening. Does that make sense? It's hard to keep my spirit up right now. I am in ski country with a broken ankle. I can't snowshoe. I can't sled. I can't tube. So, I have little pity parties sometimes and feel really frustrated. Yet, this evening I am grateful. For this family. For this life. For these moments.

life

My nephew, Mike, hurt his finger today on the playground. So off we headed to the hospital to get it x-rayed, like normal people. His finger wasn't broken. I'm not sure anyone really thought it was; however, in light of my current situation, we're not into waiting for a couple of weeks.
You know, it's funny. My grandfather was a doctor, my Dad and brothers are doctors, my sister-in-law is a nurse...yet, my family has never been one to race to the hospital. In second grade, I broke my wrist. My parents didn't take me to the hospital for about 12 hours because Dad thought I would be fine. And then, my cast didn't come off until after a week or so of me complaining about pain. Finally, the cast came off showing enormous blisters on my arm. I was allergic to the fiberglass in the cast. Oh yes, and then my father touched a power line with his chain saw and was thrown off of the ladder from electric shock, but he refused to go to the hospital.
And here I sit, two weeks later. At least I have a better story now. I was a bit bummed about the whole pine cone thing. Although I did throw a mighty mean scowl at that pine cone, it didn't help.
People keep saying I must have a high pain tolerance. Maybe I do. Maybe I'm just ignorant. Regardless, I am now fitted in a comfy, enormous walking boot. Don't worry. I won't be sneaking up on anyone anytime soon. If you want to sign my boot, I have a new set of metallic permanent markers handy.

On a different note, I've decided that, if at all possible, I'm never opening Christmas gifts without a child present again. We celebrated Christmas tonight and it was so fun. Mike and Ryan were hyper for two hours prior in anticipation. Ryan picked out my present days ago and has continually been showing me the box, asking me to guess the contents, shake the package. Tonight, we sat down around the 6 inch tree and Ryan shoved the little package into my hands. He scooted his little body next to mine and practically tore the paper off for me. It was delightful to watch someone be so excited to give away a present. He bought me bright, shiny, snowflake earrings that he picked out himself. I love them.

my second broken bone in life

After a terribly painful day of skiing yesterday, I finally went and had my ankle x-rayed today. Walaaa...it is indeed broken. This is the ankle that I thought I sprained two weeks ago. I never had it x-rayed because I was able to walk and I wasn't in terrible pain. But, yesterday, oh man. I about passed out on the man helping me get my swollen ankle in a ski boot. But, never wanting to be the wimp, I headed out the slopes with my boys and had a nice day. However, when my toes were black at the end of the day and I was limping, I decided that it might not hurt to have it checked. So, here I am. Proud to say that I skied on a broken ankle. No more skiing for me this trip. So, I'm trying to be thankful for other things. The mountains are still beautiful. My nephews are still adorable. And I realize how much I take for granted and how much relies on that bony little ankle.

fill in the blank

What do I believe? I believe that love is real. I believe that studying makes me smarter and working hard makes me luckier. I believe that I need Jesus like the air that I breathe. I believe that forgiveness is possible and necessary. I believe that laughter is healing and a good sob is healing. I believe that it's fun to hope and it's necessary to dream. I believe that failure and success are both excellent teachers. I believe that there are gifts so precious, so undeserved, so real, that I open my hands wide to the sky and say thank you a million times over.

almost done, but not quite

I wish I could take my psychopathology book and sleep on it or slam it into my forehead or something to force the knowledge in without all the work. There it is. I just want to be lazy. I'm tired of studying. Tired of papers and projects and presentations and busy work. I feel like quite the scrooge this evening. I am holed up here in my bedroom with my babysitting money and I'm complaining and there is not a Christmas decoration in sight. So there. Did I make anyone else feel grouchy or just myself?

Look to the clock on the wall, hands hardly moving at all

I'm currently in a waiting phase. I don't really dig it. Okay, I hate the waiting part. There's anticipation, fear, anxiety, hope, dreams, caution. A million things. Right here. My instinct is to storm in, make my purpose known and blaze away with answers while 'We are the Champions' plays in the background. Instead, I wait. Ever so unpatiently. But, if anything leads me to prayer, it is this. This unrest, this hope, this wait. I pray and wait for answers that don't seem to be coming, for peace that seems elusive, for a dream that remains but a dream.
I was reading in Ecclesiastes tonight. The part about a time for everything. (Ecc 3:1-8) It seems that in each section, I like one of the options and don't so much care for the other. I like the time to be born, not fond of the time to die. Digging the time to plant, not so the time to uproot. Loving the healing and building and laughing and dancing and gathering and embracing. Not so much the killing and tearing and weeping and mourning and scattering and rerfraining. Yet, I know that I must have both. I must have the waiting as much as I must have the movement. The loss of one or the other results in a deficit. So, I wait. Here. I wait.

only forward

Isn't it strange that two people can be a part of an event and have two totally different experiences? Today during class, we took a tour of a nearby children's treatment facility. At one point, my friend asked me my impression of things. We discussed our experiences and I was again surprised to find that we were looking at the same building and children, yet interpreting some things differently. And I've thought about it with my brothers. We grew up with the same parents, yet I have different relationships with my momma and daddy than they do. I remember things differently. My life is made up of millions of memories that are mine alone. I could talk for hours about my memories, but I could never begin to describe everything I remember, every nuance, every smell, every sensation, every feeling. I'm sitting in a corner of the computer lab in the social work building on the campus of UA. I could list strings of events that lead me to this moment in time at 4:13 and thirty seconds on December 5, 2007. I have my foot propped up from a fall I took 3 days ago alone on a trail. My black leather jacket is drapped across the back of my chair. The jacket my mom got me in New York when we went there over Spring Break with some friends several years ago. My bright red backpack is sitting on the chair. The one that I don't really like, yet can't seem to get a new one because this one still works. It's got white out spilled and stained on the front and a tiny stapler in the front pocket. I'm about to go to pyschopathology and sit in the back row with Monica and Emily and roll my eyes when things get really boring. (I never sit in the back row.) I could go on and on. All these little things are part of my life, part of my memories.

gimpy

Well, I have another kankle. This time it's on the left ankle (last time was the right ankle from the spider bite). See, what happened was, I, for the second day in a row, found myself craving a run. I was thrilled to pieces and headed out on Jemison Trail. About a mile into the run, I hit a pinecone hidden underneath a pile of leaves. I remember a crunch of the pinecone, a pain in my ankle, and then the ground. I have no recollection of falling, I was down so fast. As soon, I as caught my breath, I commenced to hobbling back the way I had come, noticing that my ankle was increasingly looking like someone had shoved a ping-pong ball under the skin. After about 20 minutes or a half mile later, a sweet woman pulled over and asked if she could give me a ride. Apparently my lifeless little ankle gave me away. I threw all caution to the wind, all the warnings about not getting in a stranger's car, and I hopped in that vehicle faster than you would have thought possible due to my gimpyness.

That was yesterday and here I sit today. That's what I do a lot of right now: sit. I'm not all that great at sitting still actually. My ankle is enormous and blue with a blackish tint. Isn't blue the new black this year? Sam (the 8 yr. old I'm babysitting) told me last night that my ankle looks like it belongs to a 400 pound woman. Thank you, Sam. And yes, my friends are fondly calling me gimpy, while being ever so patient with my walking speed. Oh yes, and then the classmate who tagged me and said, "betcha can't catch me!"

But, you know, things like this always help me appreciate what I normally take for granted. When suddenly it is a challenge to walk up a flight of stairs or change the laundry, I realize that I usually zip around with no thought for the blessing of working legs, ankles, and feet. I realize that I am so blessed to be able to exercise on a normal basis and blessed to know that this wound will heal. My impediment will be relatively brief, unlike the sweet girl in my program who is confined to a wheelchair. I have no idea what that must be like. I don't want to harbor pity for her, only love. And new knowledge about the difficulty of getting pity looks and the difficulty of receiving help, asking for help, the difficulty of slowing down and not being in control.

So, I am thankful. Thankful that it was left ankle that got hurt and not my right, since I have to drive so much back and forth to Tuscaloosa. Thankful that it was an ankle and not a hand or a brain, especially right before exams. Thankful that I fell on the trail and not on concrete, so nothing else was hurt. Thankful that there is kindness and generousity in the world. Thankful to remember that God is control. Thankful to watch my body heal itself, amazing it is. Thankful to have friends who make me laugh and mimick my walk and call me funny names and be patient and would probably carry me on piggy back if the need arose. I am thankful. It's good to be reminded of what I have.

I finished up another class today. I can't believe I'm almost 3/4 of the way through grad school. One more semester and I should be done with school (possibly forever!?). I thought I'd go to grad school, come home, not really meet anyone. God is wonderfully surprising.

'I is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect.
He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he enables me to stand on the heights.
He trains my hands for battle;
my arms can bend a bow of bronze.
You give me your shield of victory,
and your right hand sustains me;
you stoop down to make me great.
You broaden the path beneath me,
so that my ankles do not turn.'
Psalms 18:32-36

gotta keep it sharp

Books I have read recently and highly recommend:

Atonement
The Will of Wisteria
Eat, Pray, Love
The Dance of the Dissident Daughter
Blink
Freakanomics
The Kite Runner
The Color of Water
I Capture the Castle
My Sister's Keeper