I’m in process of trying to get an attitude adjustment. Sometimes it feels like half my waking hours are spent trying to get an attitude adjustment, but if it weren’t that way, I’d probably allow my emotions to take over and I’d turn into a real pickle to hang out with.

So here’s my latest attitude adjustment. My husband ordered these meals where you get all the stuff, a recipe and it makes a meal for two. We have four, so after church I’m looking at two piles of ingredients and thinking of making two completely different meals for lunch before going to a camp ground birthday party for my brother…..after taking Ruth’s clean laundry to the nursing home, and I’m mad. Not trying to be, but I’ve had an attitude about it since he first told me about it.

He told me we can get the first three meals free and asked what I thought of the idea. I told him it sounded fine, but don’t order it until November. We’re just too busy to add another thing to it. He said he and Bea would do it if I didn’t want to and ordered it anyway. It came three days ago. When we had to drive to Cincy for a waterpolo team dinner. The next two days were all day waterpolo and today….church, need to take Ruth her laundry, birthday party at a campground an hour away, then a swim team dinner.

Even though this is bad timing (not a laid back day) to make it….here I am or it will go bad. For perspective, when the box arrived, the three small paper bags the meals came in wouldn’t fit in our fridge full of other foods we don’t have time to prepare and eat.

In addition, it costs much more to cook with a kit like this, so I see it as more of an event….something to take your time with and enjoy. There’s no time in our life for “take your time and enjoy” moments.

I think the busyness of it all is getting to me. We have been at waterpolo 5-7 days a week. My husband is nursing and reffing, I’m running Gracious around so much I think Bea is just feeling shuffled….because she is. I’m trying to wrap my brain around swim season coming up where they are mandated to be at the 5 two hour practices per week and then all day swim meets.

Between all of that are two out of state waterpolo weekend camps, then we start spring polo, then summer polo and swim team….then the fall with two teams starts again.

I’m truly grateful that Gracious has found a passion and I whole heartedly want to support every moment of it. Even though I’m glad she’s found this passion, I have to adjust my perspective on what I can reasonably accomplish taking this schedule into account.

I spent four days last week at appointments for Ruth and I have only a week left to get her cleared out of her apartment….the week that we also two more doctors appointments, have trunk or treat (need to decorate our trunk) and the hot fudge Sundae house for Halloween. It’s a lot. Then I look at these ingredients and I’m like “THERE’S NOT TIME! I don’t want to read these instructions!! My brain is full!” So I yell at Bea for telling me my face says I’m not happy about it all, then I’m mad at me. What’s my problem!?

Well, other than the two minute broiler burning the quesadillas, lunch was very nice. I love cooking and even more when I get to cook with my kids and my attitude almost ruined what ended up being a quality moment with Bea who is getting so little direct attention from us these days. Poor Bea.

Lord, help me have perspective in these moments when I feel overwhelmed and I stop seeing the beauty in the moment before me. Help me to be patient and kind. Help me see every opportunity to invest my time and energy in ways that will edify and build my girls up. Help me live through this season of life without Gracious feeling that it is a burden on me, because the fact that she’s able to do this is a gift.

Thank you for the resources you have made available this is only a time stressor, and not a financial one. Thank you for the time, energy and ability to be there for people you put in my path. Give me the grace to love and sacrifice in a way that it never feels to the other person like I’m sacrificing anything. I pray that my sacrifices in this life would simply be a reflection of the gratitude I have for all you sacrificed for me.

In Jesus name, Amen.

Today marks one week since I gave my TED talk. I noticed that it came and went and now I’m on to the next thing without giving it another thought. I applied last March, auditioned in May, found out I would be speaking in June and set about writing and learning my talk…..and just like that, it’s over.

Before I move on, I thought I’d write about what the experience was like for me. First of all, I’m honored that they chose me to speak. Of around 200 people who applied to give a talk at #TEDxDayton2019, 50 of us were chosen to audition and 15 were chosen to speak.

When I went to the speaker information session in April, I spoke with one of the committee members and he told me he had received my application and had already denied it for an audition. He didn’t think it was a universal topic, but after hearing what I shared, he changed his mind and allowed me to audition.

The audition was intimidating. First of all, I had 414 pages of journals from January. I had any number of angles I could go at the talk from, and most of them were still in the infancy of learning. I knew that January had changed my life, but how to quantify that was still a mystery. I pretty much just laid out my “rules” for the challenge and I don’t think they were impressed.

They asked me a few questions after my 3 minute audition and I shared my heart with them. One man told me that he initially thought this challenge was an incredibly selfish thing to do to my family, but after hearing the whole challenge was to try to communicate more effectively with my family, he started to understand and wanted to make sure I conveyed that in my talk.

When the audition was over, we had almost a month to wait before we would know if we were chosen or not. I decided to pretend as though I had not auditioned until they announced the speakers.

When they announced speakers, we were under strict orders to not share that we were speaking until mid-September when it was announced to the public. Do you know how hard it is to find out that you will be giving a TED talk and then be told that you can’t tell anyone for three months!? I did my best to keep my excitement in as I began to prepare for what they kept referring to as “the talk of your life.”

I was given a mentor named Kathy and was asked to “brain dump.” They just wanted all of my ideas on paper. I sat down one day and took 12 hours to brain dump and the end result was 11.5 pages of bullet points in a Word document. For perspective, that’s enough to give a 3 hour speech. My talk would only be 7 minutes.

Kathy was incredible at boiling down all those thoughts to some central themes and helped me organize it into a weekly breakdown of what was going on each week of the challenge. I’m so thankful for the process they have in place to help speakers craft a talk worth listening to!

Once the brain dump was written and I had my outline, we had our “table read”. We sat at a table, Kathy and I with the TED committee. The first question I was asked was “before we get started, can you give me a one sentence summary of what you hope to tell the audience?” I froze. All I could think was “somehow, we just got my brain dump down from 11.5 pages to 3 pages. How am I going to tell you in one sentence?”

I remember a lot of “uh’s” going on in my head and looking at Kathy like a deer caught in the headlights. She tried to smooth it over for me when another committee member said “I’m reading this over and it looks like you have several power statements even on the first page.” Whew! THANK YOU! I had no idea what to say!

By the end of the table read I was told that it looked like I pretty much had the outline of my talk and it was suggested that I give my talk in present tense, as though the challenge was currently going on. I liked the idea and once again, Kathy was invaluable as I worked to turn it from “this is what happened, to this is what is happening.”

A few weeks later was the first official rehearsal where we were able to read the script without memorizing so that the committee could help further shape the talk. They worried that it could sound a little “campy.” Now the challenge was how to tell a story, without sounding dramatic about it….just like you’re telling a friend….or 1100 friends.

There were three more rehearsals including two dress rehearsals before the big day. At the final dress rehearsal, I got 2 sentences in and I couldn’t go on. Have you ever been on the phone and the phone repeats everything you say back to you? That’s what the microphone sounded like! In addition to that, it made all of my S’s sound super exaggerated. They put a new mic on me and it worked just fine, but I went from worrying I’d forget my lines to worrying the mic wouldn’t work right and the “show must go on.”

The week leading up to my talk, I was exhausted. I’d try to go to bed at 9pm and finally fall asleep at 2am, then I’d be up for my morning run with Luna at 5am. All day, all night, the lines of my talk were running through my mind! I went to church when no one was there several times the two weeks before so I could practice moving on stage. I’d trip over words, forget where I was or just record myself and think “I look like I have a tennis ball between my knees.” I felt awkward and intimidated.

I talked to all the other speakers, especially during dress rehearsal and discovered that most of us felt equally intimidated. Most of us weren’t sleeping well, and none of us had a moment when our lines weren’t scrolling like movie credits in our minds. It definitely was comforting that I wasn’t the only one feeling that way. Next time you watch a TED talk, don’t think “wow! They’re an incredible speaker!” Instead think “wow! That took a lot of work!”

I spent the whole morning of dress rehearsal in the bathroom…nerves! Felt a little like a cat on a hot tin roof so I asked my friends and family to pray for peace for me. I believe they did, because on the morning of my talk, I was at peace and was totally able to enjoy my day even though I didn’t speak until 4 hours in.

Twenty-four friends and family came to support me, which I believe made me have 8 to 10 times as many cheerleaders as anyone else. I definitely felt loved and supported! This was the most scary and exhilarating thing I’ve personally ever challenged myself to, and it’s always good to know that you’re not alone.

When they called my name and I stepped out onto stage, all of the sudden, I guess it was adrenaline, the insides of me were jittery like I’d had five cups of coffee on an empty stomach! I wondered if the shaking was visible through my clothes, but at the exact same time, I felt a confidence and a grace fall over me as I spoke.

I forgot an entire paragraph, but didn’t realize it until I was 3/4 done and when I did, it was a passing thought and I didn’t skip a beat. As I laid in bed that night, I ran through the lines without that paragraph to think of the importance of missing that paragraph. I missed a couple audience giggles, but I believe my talk lost none of its significance.

I think we are funny, us human beings. I did a TED talk. It owned me mentally/emotionally for about 6 months, in a good way. It was a big focus as I logged over 90 hours of deliberate time from application, to brain dump, to writing, to rehearsing, to mentoring etc….but I can’t even calculate how many hours the lines ran through my mind in the shower, the car, in bed. How many hours of sleep were lost. And then, it’s over. It’s another item on my resume and I’m on to the next thing.

What is the next thing? Well….I spent 4 months working through the 12 steps of recovery as a result of “seeing” my life without distractions. I realized how incredibly codependent I am, how much a repress negative feelings and how low my self-worth really was. That was such a powerful life altering, and at times difficult process. I finished two weeks ago.

This challenge highlighted some glaringly poor communication skills my husband and I had, so we spent 9 months in counseling learning more effective ways to communicate. At our last session, our counselor said “I don’t like to tell people they don’t need me anymore, but do you think you do?” I don’t and I’m thankful that we both had the humility to own our part of the communication breakdown.

I spent 6 months working on this talk and that’s over. A lot has been resolved within me this year and I’m eternally grateful for where I find myself today. A little older and a lot wiser….but it’s time to get back to “life.” Much of my life involves service to others, and right now, my dad’s cousin Ruth is one of my primary concerns.

In two hours, I have my fourth appointment with Ruth this week alone. I am her medical power of attorney and primary caregiver. We met with her cancer doctor Monday and decided to hold off for another 12 weeks on chemo to let her body get stronger. We met with the dentist to find out that her bridge feels like it’s gonna break her tooth because she has an abscess and needs it pulled. Next week we will have two appointments to rebuild the bridge and pull that tooth.

We had a two hour hearing aid appointment where we discovered she’s almost too deaf for hearing aids probably due to all the chemo. Fortunately, there was a type of hearing aid we were able to order that will help. Our followup to pick them up is in two weeks. Today we will get her eyes examined because her glasses are five years old and no longer help her see well.

We are working on quality of life at this point. Her cancer is terminal. Five years ago in her mid-60s, she was literally hanging upside down from the monkey bars at 215 pounds. Strong, healthy (other than colon cancer) and very independent. She is now 135 pounds, frail, weak and mentally/emotionally dependent.

I have until the end of the month to finish emptying out her apartment. The nursing home will have her entire life savings spent by Christmas and she will be left with $50 a month allowance from Medicaid.

The TED talk felt big in the moment, but in the scheme of life, it was a blip. A moment. 1100 people heard me speak, maybe 1100 more will watch my video, then it will fade into history, as will most of what we feel like we accomplish in this world.

Everyday I live, my perspective becomes just a little more eternal. The reality that all that we strive to accomplish in this life is chasing after the wind sets into my mind and heart just a little more everyday. What really matters anyways?

Right now? It matters that for the remainder of her days on Earth, Ruth knows that she is cared for and loved, that she is not alone. It matters that I love my children and help them feel secure in their place in this life. That friends may come and friends may go, but God and their family will always be a place of stability.

It matters that my husband knows he is loved and that he matters to me. Sometimes caring for everyone else the way that I do, I’m sure leads him to believe he is lower on the totem pole. I guess if there was any comfort I’d have for him in all this distraction, it’s that because he’s lower on the totem pole, he is one of the stabilizing forces that help keep it standing!

Life can be heavy, and at times back breakingly so. When it feels that heavy, it’s important to remember that we were not created to carry it alone. God created us to exist in community, and when He is the nucleus of that community, the load becomes a joy to carry.

I’m thankful for the community God has surrounded me with, and I’m thankful for the understanding that this life…it’s not about me.

Now that my TED talk is over, my journals from January are typed, and life has returned to it’s normal version of crazy busy, I guess this blog will morph into my mental/emotional/philosophical dumping ground….my new journal.

This morning as LeAnn and I were out for our 5am run, we got to talking about when life seems pointless, and you’d be content to end it all now and wave your white flag. Game over.

Life is hard and I think if we were able to be honest with each other, most of us at one point or another have felt this way. The problem is that sometimes we feel so hopeless and that life is so pointless that we take matters into our own hands and attempt or commit suicide.

In 2010, I had a 2 and 5 year old and because of mounded up life stressors, something in me snapped and I lost it. I remember driving down the road staring at my white knuckles on the steering wheel and watching the road with my peripheral vision, willing myself to not drive into a telephone pole and end it all. At the time, I was so overwhelmed, my subconscious mind saw death as the only way to find peace.

I loved my family and loved the Lord, but I couldn’t shake the hopelessness and brokenness I felt at the time. I very much understand how someone loved by many, with so much life to live, could unintentionally, intentionally take their own life. I have known at least 4 people who have ended their life at their own hands. I know 4 people who attempted and survived. I know 2 people who have held the barrel of a gun in their mouth, but couldn’t pull the trigger.

I know one who hung himself, and by divine intervention was strong enough to grab the toolbox he kicked away with the toe of his boot and loosen the noose before it was too late. He laid on the garage floor and cried himself to sleep. The only reason he couldn’t go through with it was because he feared facing God and explaining why he took the gift of life God gave him….even though at the time, it did not appear to be a gift at all.

I have several people in my life right now who are dealing with chronic conditions, just plain old age and even one with a terminal diagnosis. Not one of them fears death. They have all told me, they would welcome it. When so much of your capability is stripped away, and the independence and health you once knew is gone, it seems easy to conclude that our lives no longer hold value. After all, we don’t have the capacity to give or even connect in ways we used to.

There is a quiet part of me, a part that feels wrong to even express, but a very real part of me that has wrestled with the idea of assisted suicide with terminal patients. Not for reasons many say, like they cost our healthcare system so much money, but for compassionate reasons….when our pets are suffering and we conclude that the valuable part of their life is over, we euthanize them because it seems the compassionate thing to do. Why would that not be compassionate with people?

There are plenty of people who in their right minds would have likely signed a paper saying “when I no longer know my family because of alzhiemers, please help me end my life. Or when I am shaking so violently and unable to control any of my bodily functions, please help me end my life. Or if I am laying catatonic in a nursing home, please help me end my life.”

Many of them, the reason they are able to be there in that helpless state is because modern medicine kept them alive when they otherwise would have naturally died. Then when they deteriorate to that degree, it’s somehow wrong to help them die?

But we’re not even talking about these chronically ill patients, we’re talking about young people who are healthy, who feel like their life doesn’t hold value, or that they don’t have a place in the world, or that their homes have been wrecked by infidelity. We’re talking about difficult life circumstances leading people to feel hopeless.

As we were talking, I felt this fire welling up in my soul and made a Facebook live video. I said “if you have come to the end of yourself and you see no purpose in living, you see no value in who you are….it’s time to get on your knees and pray. Ask God why you’re here and what the purpose of this life is. He is waiting to answer.”

When we come to the end of ourselves and we have no reason to live….we have emptied out all of our vain attempts to find temporary happiness in the pursuit of money, status and belongings….we have the ability to truly surrender our lives and our wills to the plan God has for us.

I believe Jeremiah 29:11-13 which says “I know the plans I have for your declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call out to me and seek me and you will find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

I think that if there is still air filling your lungs, your purpose here on Earth is not over. God’s got plans for your life and you just need to seek Him and come into agreement with Him. Jesus said “in this world you WILL have troubles, but take heart, I have overcome the world.”