Global Bag Ladies

The last time Susan came home from visiting Kenya, she brought me an amazing handmade bag sewn from Kanga cloth.  For my birthday this year, I received a handmade bracelet.  Both the bag and the bracelet were made by women in Kenya, all of whom have joined together to begin the Global Bag Ladies project. 

Most of the women involved in this project are widows, and some of them are HIV+.  All of them have multiple children to provide for, both their own and those of relatives.   The money made from the sale of the bags and jewelry by these women is used to support them and their families.

I have been nagging and nagging Susan (rather a lot) to give me enough information about the Global Bag Ladies to write a decent blog post about their project.  In the mail today, I got a package from Susan with a ton of information in it.  On one of the pamphlets, I was surprised (and super excited) to see that the Ladies have a blog.

Check it out: http://globalbagladies.wordpress.com/.  It provides a ton of great information and photos that I cannot.  I can tell you, however, that the bags and bracelets are an amazing investment.  And so are the women who make them.

Shopping.

“Ooh, I don’t know what to buy.  It’s so hard.  Do you think a little girl would like this?  Oh!  Look at that!  Isn’t it cute?  Do you think she’d like that?”

This was my mother, meandering up and down the aisles of Wal-Mart a few weeks ago, shopping with me for Operation Christmas Child.  It was an absolute riot, and I’m so glad I got the chance to do it with her.  The afternoon gave me an opportunity to see a side of my mom that I rarely take the time to see.

There’s a side of my mother that is so unbelievably generous.  I loved shopping with her for shoebox gifts, and listening to her debate over which items to buy.  She smiled the whole time, full of energy, and full of life.  It’s such a blessing to see her slowly becoming happy again, after so many years of not being. 

I’ve always liked filling shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child, because I’m left with a good feeling afterward.  This year, shopping with my mom, I feel like I was blessed in a different sort of way.

Tutoring.

I started tutoring this semester, working with the junior nursing students in three of the courses I did well in last year.  In the beginning, I hated it.  I’d feel nauseous, every time I went off to lead a study session.  The idea of teaching groups of my peers made me want to be sick.  I got excited on the days when no one showed up to my sessions.  God, obviously, did not intend for me to be a teacher.

Now, a little over two months into the semester, something has changed.  I look forward to running my study sessions, and interacting with the juniors.  I walk back to my townhouse afterward feeling pleased, and happy that I could be an encouragement to them.  A far cry, and a huge contrast, to the way I felt before.

The juniors themselves have not changed, nor has the way I run my sessions.  It’s my attitude that’s changed, and has made such a huge difference in my mood.

At first, I was convinced I had to be the best.   I had to know everything there was to know about Medical-Surgical and Psychiatric Nursing, and be prepared to answer any question that the juniors asked of me.  I had to be able to explain things in a way that the juniors could understand.  I had to keep them engaged, and make my sessions interesting.  I had to make sure they learned and got stellar marks on their exams, and always left my sessions feeling like they were experts on whatever topics we happened to cover that day.

What crap.

Now my goal is just to be an encouragement.  It’s not my responsibility to make sure the juniors learn and pass all their exams - it never was.  It’s my job to explain material in the best way I can, and to help them understand concepts.  I spend most of my sessions laughing with the juniors, and trying to help them not be so stressed out.  I leave feeling happy.  I don’t have to be the best, I just have to be.

It’s amazing how much more simple – and enjoyable – everything becomes once you take the filter of perfectionism away.

Praise the Lord.

Do you ever have those days when you realize just how blessed you are?  You’ve known it all along, but for some reason, you’re reminded anew?  The last few days have been like that.

Last year at about this time, Gloria was practically babysitting me because it wasn’t a good idea for me to be on my own, Joyce was trying to send me to some clinic in Michigan, and I was miserable.  In short, I was not in a good place.

What a difference 12 months can make.

PTL.

Daddy’s Little Girl

Daddy took me shopping for my birthday one night this week.  I asked for new winter boots, and so he took me to a local mall.  We spent two  wandering the shopping center, on a quest for the perfect pair of boots.  Black, with a tiny bit of heel.  Something that looked stylish, that I could wear without being embarrassed, and that Howie wouldn’t yell at me for.

I never found them.

Still, I had a really great time.  It’s very rare that I get to spend much one-on-one time with my dad.  I loved having him to myself for a few hours.  Linking arms with him.  Having him guide me around the mall.  Asking his opinion about things.  Laughing with him.  Being daddy’s little girl. 

Those two hours were one of my best birthday gifts.

Familiar.

“Would you trade it for something else?” Joyce asked me.

The eating disorder, she had meant.  I was sitting in her office, feeling slightly miserable because I’d spent the majority of last week struggling with awful thoughts about my body image and gone to bed every evening wanting to throw up.  I was royally ticked, too; obsessing over my weight and how I look seems stupid, and petty, and vain.  And, in all honesty, after nearly 6 months of the eating disorder not being much of an issue, I was upset that all my thoughts about it had suddenly popped back up.

Joyce says that, most likely, it’ll always be an issue for me.  Body image will always be one of those pots that are on the back burner of my personal stove.  For a long time, my automatic response to stress and anxiety will be a desire to make myself get sick or starve myself. Which sort of sucks. 

“Would you trade it for something else?” my therapist asked me.  “Given the choice, would you trade the eating disorder and all the struggles you’ve got with body image, and perfectionism, and all of that for something like alcoholism?  Or cancer?  Or schizophrenia?”

No.  I wouldn’t.  Not ever.  And I guess this is because, at the very least, the eating disorder is familiar.

Funny how that works.  Do you think that anyone, given a similar choice, would choose their familiar pain?

Samson.

My sister got a puppy.

Me: After looking at David’s pictures of the dog, I’ve decided it’s probably a very good thing that I’ve yet to actually see your puppy… I may steal him whenever I actually meet him.  He makes me want a puppy.  And I don’t even like dogs, aside from Sasha and Angel.

Racheal: well let me fix this desire for you… he woke me up like every half hour or so by biting my face, he keeps pottying on my bed and floor, he cries when i shower, and he ate some of his ball so he keeps throwing up nothing. he’s a monster.

Me: My desire = no more. Thanks!

 

Samson

Pre-K Room.

After spending an hour on Sunday, supervising kids in the Pre-K room at church…

 

Rachel:  I don’t want babies anymore.

Me:  Me either!

Sick.

Doing heights and weights on the kids with the school nurse at clinical last Thursday, one of the 8^th graders weighed 118 lbs.  He was of average height and healthy looking.  He came in laughing, and seemingly happy.

When I was at my worst, right before I spent six weeks in a partial-hospitalization program, I weighed 124 lbs. 

I was 5’9” tall, 19 years old, and I weighed about as much as an eighth grader.

I’m starting to realize just how sick I was.

Drunk.

A bunch of us went to Applebee’s last night.  Half-price appetizers and amazing desserts. 

We were borderline obnoxious, I bet.  Crowded around our table, talking loudly.  Using expressive hand motions.  Anything that anyone said seemed funny, and we laughed over nothing and everything.  We were light, and giddy, and forgot for three hours about professors and assignments and clinical requirements.  I imagine that that’s sort of what it must feel like to be drunk.  Nothing mattered but the six of us, seated around that table.

I forget – often, I’ll admit – that all of this is a part of what college is supposed to be as well.  The stuff that goes on in the classroom is only half of what makes you grow.