Good talk

Reminding myself to juggle

I’ve been writing stories in my mind lately. To write them down has been a lot of work. I’ve had a resurgence of headaches for awhile now.

There’s been a few moments where I’ve felt well enough to write, but not long enough to be able to get anything of substance down on the page.

I started to write the ABC’s of surviving about my family’s last year in the hospital for sweet baby Sammy and it turns out surviving can be an ongoing process. Resilience finds a new path to take even when it seems all roads have been exhausted. God gives manna for this day, too, when we look to the sky and ask, how?

Turns out, I need help remembering how to survive even now.

It’s almost been a year since Sammy had his first surgery, October 24.

Everything feels different and also not so much.

The sprint we were taking has slowed and the adrenaline has wore off.

I usually have lots to say with the fast, fast brain of mine, adrenaline or no adrenaline.

Lately, the quick thinker and processor I love to be has needed to slow way far down in order to function at even an average brain pace. My headaches have been truly terrible; they haven’t been this bad in years.

I realize that my writing often follows the cadence of what’s happening in my brain.

When I’m not in migraine cycle like this one, my brain loves to share a million stories wrapped together with sunshine and chocolate.

I still have some of that in me now, for who are we even in our moments of despair if not still a piece of ourselves?

But in fighting to still stay as well as I could be, I can say with certainty that the hierarchy of my needs has played out.

I am tired.

I’ve had to conserve almost all my energy to do what I can for my family right now.

I’ve had no energy to write.

I’ve also had little energy to be…fun. Which for me is the worst.

However, people like my husband, don’t actually enjoy me only because I’m fun. I enjoy me because I’m fun. Complex, I know.

We’re also getting over COVID.

And we’ve encountered some other major heartbreaks this season.

It’s been a Fall.

You know what I mean?

I would love to start getting along with Fall.

Don’t even get me started on Winter.

I’m (mostly) kidding.

I mentioned to someone recently that we were in the hospital over almost the whole holiday season from Halloween to New Year’s last year. You get to see how a children’s hospital decorates, I’ll tell you that.

On a serious note, because that’s mostly what I’ve been feeling lately, it’s odd when you’re gone for so long in a hospital how you can become almost a stranger to your life. To your home. To your community.

These days, I am no longer a stranger to these things, for the most part, thankfully. I’m trying to not be a stranger to myself, though. To the real true self God has made me to be, not the one who is has had to be survival mode for a long time.

I’m on letter J in my ABC’s of surviving a year (plus) of medical. J was a hard letter. I think of Jesus, not only because it’s a Christian thing to say. I think about how everything has changed after what I’ve seen in the hospital. After staring closely at the thin lines of life and death for so long in one place. After finally holding my baby on days I was away from him, days that didn’t make sense to my mama heart: AKA days in the NICU, surgery day number one, surgery day number two. I think about how apart from Jesus, I really could and can do nothing with all of that.

But as I’ve stopped to wonder my place in this world, in the truest sense, who I am as Julie (also a J word!), I go back to being a little child. I go back to my original stories.

I go back to a time and a place where things were simpler.

When I was little, I loved to juggle.

I still do.

More on this another time. But for the purpose of sharing how I survived, I’ll tell you there’s a book called The Clown of God. In it, this little juggler Giovanni navigates life as a performer. Throughout the story, he realizes that makes him tick, what brings him joy and what gift he was made to share with the world.

I am a little bit like that clown of God.

This story is why I can’t stop telling my stories, even to God, when I’m feeling too ill to write them down. It’s why I still try and laugh at small things even when it seems joy is lost. It’s why I will still find a way to do storytelling and actually juggle for my kids or tell a joke to someone on the phone. It’s also why I won’t beat myself up when it’s hard to do these things because where is imagination if we let ourselves be beaten down? Where is the creative heart if it is buried alongside our hurt or pain?

These are all mere thoughts and aspirations; I am not perfect at this by any means.

We‘re often told in this world that we shouldn’t juggle.

I’m here on this page to remind myself that I must.

I must juggle the joy with the sadness.

I must juggle writing on my heart with writing for others.

I must juggle the pain and the beauty.

I must juggle advocating and staying still.

I must juggle standing firm with staying soft.

I must juggle risking and letting go.

For the time being, I must juggle letting the words stay inside me, and letting them out whichever direction they end up coming.

As this has turned into a pep talk for myself to keep going (again), here’s some final reminders:

1. You can’t juggle forever without taking a break.

2. Sometimes you have to let one of the balls go

3. Maybe if you make a wild throw you can say, “Opps, that was a wild throw,” and try again.

4. Sometimes you’re not focused at all and sometimes you’re too focused.

5. Sometimes you’re juggling too many oranges and instead you should stop and sit down and peel one of the oranges and then you’ll have one less orange to juggle there you go. Ta-da. Problem solved.