Much has changed in the life of the ten year old whose Dad had opened up around fifty gifts or more and laid them out so neat on two couches only for her to be told that they were going to be hers if only she had acted appropriately when she arrived to his home. It was an airplane ride that was very turbulent that caused the unwanted response that her Dad was mentioning.
I was the one in charge of taking care of my sister and myself on these visits flying from Alabama to Colorado to visit my Dad. Our Mom had called frantic because of the delay of our landing which lead to my sister and myself crying on the phone with her. After my sister and I went to bed, my Dad and his wife unwrapped everything and made arrangements for us to fly back out the very next day after being told we weren’t worthy of any of the things they had bought for us. We were told they would go to his wife’s niece instead because she was worthy of them. It made me so sick emotionally that as I was walking to my seat on the plane the next day, I threw up everywhere. I didn’t realize until this year how much that impacted me.
In the last two years, I have been through some counseling. I am now 52 years old and my body is surely showing signs of some deterioration already. I would say that I am a healthy 52 year old in many ways because I have tried to take time to exercise and eat healthy most of the time, however, as one gets older injuries and setbacks are sure to creep in more frequently which can lead to much frustration. Not to mention, one doesn’t heal as efficiently as one once did once before either. As I speak to others that are the same age, the changes taking place is all too common a conversation. The good thing is, we are all in this together.
This year I have started on a thyroid medication, a blood pressure medication, and a high cholesterol medication. I have spent way more time in laboratories over the past 12 months trying to get all of this regulated. I have had side effects with some medications that has required readjusting the medications to lessen those side effects. It has been a roller coaster of new beginnings. Not only personally has there been new beginnings, but globally there are new social changes going on with the Covid outbreak, of which now when I watch the television news, I am one of the numbers included in the “those who have tested positive” group. It has been a crazy year all around, not just for me, but for everyone.
Each morning I sit at my kitchen table and I take time to pray and to read my Bible. I have been stressing now since 2005 about keeping a strict regimen of diet and exercise to combat a high reading of cholesterol and triglycerides and high blood pressure, and that regimen worked for many years. However, since I injured my back as a nurse, I have had times of injuries which have limited my abilities to do this regimen as well as I was able to in my earlier years. Needless, to say, it has impacted all of my lab work in a negative way, which is why I started on the medications.
This week as I sat at my table, I had the sense of relief come over me. I let it sink in that though I am recovering from this Covid virus, and though I recently had a relapse of my back not being all it should be to be able to exercise, that it is not the stress I always allowed it to be because I am on a medication that can actually help me during those times that I can’t do what I know I need to be doing. I let myself relish in the fact that I am able to relax in a way I had not let myself do before. It was liberating and the best thing about it is there are people who have been trained to help me learn how to manage these things to an appropriate level which also takes a load off.
Lets return back to the story of my Dad at the beginning of this blog. I realize now as a grown lady that my Dad’s response was because it was the first Christmas we were spending with him after his divorce with my Mom. He was sad because instead of my sister and I being excited about all of the gifts they had bought and being there with him, we were distraught over a bad airplane experience. He needed us to be happy about being there. I get that now as an adult, however, as a ten year old, I really needed a Father to hug me after the horrible experience on the plane and to be told that I did a great job of taking care of my three year old sister during the that experience.
There are other things about my life that lead to my feeling like I need to handle things all on my own, and if I’m honest, I do like working on my own sometimes and getting things accomplished because that is just a part of who I am. Sometimes those things seem like big things if others were to take a peek, but I still enjoy accomplishing them. If you were a person who didn’t really feel like you were responded to during a real need and you were just not able to make that need happen for yourself, then you can start feeling like asking is just a waste of time. Sometimes others will seem to imply that is true in their response. You may feel like you should be beyond being human and that other’s needs are more important than your needs are. However, sometimes when you finally let yourself be needy, you may sit at your kitchen table, or wherever your place of reflection is, and you may feel that sweet overflow onto your skin and into your soul that just opens up a little door of new rest.
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