Dream Good

Week 1, Prompt 2 :: what is it that keeps you up at night? What could you talk about every single day for the rest of your life? What do you want to shout from the rooftops so everyone will know? What runs electric through your veins?

I have started and re-started this post so many times. I've read my classmates' posts, as they bravely poor their heart out and speak truthfully; and I, I have finished a post and cannot yet click 'publish' - for whatever reason is holding me back. Or reasons. So I'm starting over.

At this point, there are two things keeping me up at night. The first is my bladder. As I enter my third trimester, I have to pee all the time, which is annoying because I also have to drink water all the time so as to not dehydrate myself and suffer headaches/ stomach aches/ the whole gauntlet of pregnancy nausea that I've been trying to offer up to Jesus in moments of sanity. Otherwise, a pity party commences and I don't invite anyone, although my husband tries to come and make it all better. He's the one who usually does make it all better, and lets me cry into his shoulder as I continue to not understand why I feel sick, and why this nausea has never really ceased over six going on seven months. Seven motherloving months. July, August, September to go.

The second thing that keeps me up at night are nightmares: memories that remind me of horrible life moments; a rewind of all the things I have not done during this pregnancy to prepare myself for labor or motherhood; falling uncontrollably; failing in everything; the monsters of myself. I can be my own worst enemy, and when I'm lucid and awake, I can rationally turn these thoughts around and banish them. But in the darkness, when I'm exhausted and trying to sleep and trying not to guess what time it is in relation to when the sun will be up in the morning, all I can whisper is "Be gone, Devil!" and "Be with me, Jesus!" Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, I whimper into my pillow. I am so tired.

After first semester of college; sleeping with Heidi

But I don't wish this life away. I could talk about my life every single day. I could shout from the rooftops that I have the best husband, best family, best friends. And it runs electric in my veins that my God is an awesome God, a merciful God, a sanctifying God that let me trip and stumble and fall and break and pick myself up again and again. My God is awesome. My God, oh my God.

I've only enjoyed my pregnancy because I know the life I am nourishing is mine and my husband's child. I go to sleep at night only because I am tired and I have things to do: more to write, boxes to unpack, errands to run, chores to finish. I do it all because this is my life - this is the life that has been given to me, and I am going to be a survivor of the worst in life so that I can continue to enjoy the best.

It's  too easy, sometimes, to be sad. It's too easy to have regrets or play the Blame Game or wish life went in a different direction. Mistakes are made, decisions and choices from the past catch up to the present, and what can you do? React, and react positively.

In Man’s Search for Meaning, Dr. Viktor Frankl wrote about his experiences in the concentration camp; the differences between those who had lived and those who had died was meaning. “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing, the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way,” wrote Frankl. (As quoted in Emily Esfahani Smith's "There's More to Life Than Being Happy" piece; The Atlantic, January 9, 2013)

I'm at that lovely point in life where I've achieved 25 years. I haven't always lived to the fullest, but I also have not wasted that time. It's in the life scares -- nothing is going to be the same, I'm giving myself fully to my husband and child(ren), I'm out of my parents' house, we're living on a tight budget, we still need to get into residency for after the Masters' program, I need to be more disciplined -- that truly show me that I'm an adult. Not a boring person, but an adult, with more responsibilities and joys. And I am truly happy being so. I have my reasons, and I know my meaning and purpose.

There's nothing easy about life, except what you make it into; there is nothing definite, nothing permanent. But there is love and laughter, smiles, good conversation, the best company, a cold glass of beer, picnics, Christ in the Eucharist, the Holy Spirit and God the Father, family gatherings, sunrises and sunsets, walks outside, and good sleeps.

As Woody Guthrie says, "Dream good", y'all.