Month: June 2023

A body in motion….A body at rest

Featured ~ Kristin ~ Leave a comment

It must be some law of physics that when an object in motion that is staying in motion finally has an opportunity to stop.freaking.being.in.motion it takes some time to transition.

I’m no scientist — obviously — but I observed myself over the past week attempting to move from the fast-paced, repetitive, intentional, and hectic rhythm of the school year into a more relaxed, spontaneous, restfulness of summer, and I must report that the shift has not been sudden.

If you are familiar with this blog (or if you know me at all), you know that movement, action, doing, soldiering have been a comfort to me, and slowing down, being still, and resting often come only when I am plunked down unwillingly due to health concerns.

I have been trying to find a different way for going on ten years now, and my intention leading up to the last day of school was to slow down, be silent, and allow myself the time and space I needed to thoroughly and actually unpack and tend to the recent re-opening of an old wound I’ve been covering up for the past several weeks. Certainly, I thought, when school is done, I will have the time and capacity to let this thing air out, to let new flesh form, to find a new way forward.

But, motion staying in motion as it does, and me being the habitual soldier that I am, it took me about six days to find myself plunked down, packed in ice, and submissive to my need for rest.

I’ll pause to let you shake your head and roll your eyes.

Between last Friday and this Thursday, I deep cleaned a bathroom (it really needed it!), purged a bedroom (the closet and drawers were crammed full!), and organized an office (I hadn’t seen the top of my desk in weeks!). I also visited two thrift stores — more to let go than to pick up– washed who knows how many loads of laundry, drove back to school for one in-person interview, and bought shoes for my daughter’s wedding.

I was still going pretty strong when I arrived at my therapy session Wednesday night, peeled back the bandages a bit, and began to verbalize the newly forming diagnosis. Despite my busy-ness, I had been able, over the past several days, to, through writing and processing time, identify the present issues that were connected to more life-long issues. It was liberating for me — I was putting words to some of the suppressed thoughts I have for decades. I was able to recognize how I had internalized beliefs about myself based on my perceptions of the actions of others. I was able to identify that my strategies for protecting myself — my busy-ness, kicking butts and taking names, being defensive — have not served me and have in fact kept me from being honest with those most dear to me. As these realizations flew out of my mouth, I saw them hit the other family member in the room, and I noticed the pain of their realization.

I felt lighter having released the burden into the air, but I had to acknowledge that the burden found another place to land, at least for a while.

After some dinner, I slept deeply, and awoke with the intention of working in the garden, taking a walk, and making a meal. I was going to keep on going!

I got up, put a little writing on the page, and moved to my yoga practice. About fifteen minutes in, I felt a twinge inside my right hip (my personal Achille’s heel) and thought, Huh, I was just moving out of child’s pose. What happened? Maybe it’ll adjust as I keep moving.

I cautiously finished my flow, ate a little breakfast, and headed to the garden. By this point, my hip was stiffening, my movements were slowing, and my right arm, which has been lately screaming “tendonitis, tendonitis” increased its pitch and volume. Nevertheless, I slowly moved through the front half of the garden, pulling weeds and reseeding carrots and beets. I harvested some rhubarb and then said to myself, Ok, that’s enough.

I put away my tools and switched into my walking shoes, resolved to get in my steps with a two mile walk.

Stop looking at me like that!

I slowly walked the two miles, listening to a podcast and enjoying the sun, and when I returned home, I crawled into an epsom salt bath.

And that is when I realized that I was depleted. From the bath, I crawled to my bed and read for a while, then I found the energy to slowly and methodically prepare the foods I had pictured for dinner — potato salad, rhubarb crisp, a garden salad, and some wings.

By the time my husband had grilled the wings and we had sat down at our patio table, I was ready to admit that my body was in distress. I was completely exhausted, all my joints hurt, and I was having difficulty finding words to sustain a conversation. We didn’t finish the wings, and I wasn’t even interested in the rhubarb crisp.

Having been here before, it didn’t take us long to realize I needed tot be packed in ice. So while he cleaned up from dinner, I grabbed the packs and moved to the couch. I pulled on a sweatshirt, covered myself in a blanket, and placed packs at my back, my hip, my neck, and my arm, and slowly I started to feel relief.

That was Thursday. Since then, I haven’t done much but sit, take another epsom salt bath, ice again, eat as cleanly and freshly as possible, and forget about my need to meet a step goal. It’s just not gonna happen for a couple of days.

This body is at rest, and apparently, it wants to stay here.

It’s what I’ve been needing, and I’ve known it.

It just took this body, which was in motion, a little while to stop being in motion. We’ll see how long it is comfortable with staying at rest.

In repentance and rest is your salvation. In quietness and trust is your strength.

Isaiah 30:15

Of Running, Stumbling, and Staggering

~ Kristin ~ Leave a comment

I used to be a runner. I ran in my early twenties, up until I got pregnant for our first daughter, then shifted my focus to walking behind a stroller and chasing kids at the park. Then, in some of the very chaotic days of our family, I returned, probably out of desperation, to the consistency of running — trotting for three miles at the end of the teaching day. It was a way to decompress, to find some silence, to download the details of the day, and to transition from the classroom to the work of parenting.

Those three miles turned into more, and I eventually found myself training for and completing two half-marathons — 13.1 miles in (for me) just about two hours. Running was a space where I felt strong and confident, and it perhaps let me escape from the spaces where I didn’t — my marriage, my family, and even my classroom.

The fact that I was able, in my forties, to run 13.1 miles added to my soldier mindset, helping me believe that I was kicking butts and taking names, and helping me dissociate from the failures in my personal life that I was too terrified to face. Running helped me survive that difficult season, and then, when I became chronically ill and could no longer run, I had to face the things that I had been running from.

Since 2013, I have been stumbling my way through the realities that I did not face during that season, searching and longing for a newer healthier space.

And I keep thinking I have arrived to that space — that I have finally gotten to the bottom of the rucksack I’ve been lugging around, that I have unpacked, examined, and processed all the hurts from the past — and then I turn the rucksack over, give it a little shake, and something else falls out. How could I have missed that? How could I not have seen, known, heard, understood? And I find myself staggering again.

And that is what I have been doing. Staggering.

It was six weeks from the end of the semester when someone near me was sorting through their own rucksack full of unfinished business and inadvertently knocked mine off the shelf. I thought I was standing by supportively as they managed their pain, when a shard from my own bag was knocked free. As it fell, it grazed a tender spot and broke open an old wound.

The cut was deep, but I had seniors who needed to finish their semester, freshmen who still needed my attention, and a garden that needed to be planted. So, I packed that wound with gauze, wiped my eyes, and tried to stay in motion.

Different from my running days, though, my steps have been slow, and despite being off-balance, more intentional.

I have learned in these last ten years some ways of holding more than one thing at a time — how to keep one hand firmly over the wound, applying pressure, while slowly moving through the remaining days of the school year. In the mornings, I stayed in bed a smidge longer, distracting myself with Wordle, and Scrabble, and Spelling Bee before stumbling to my little spot in our home office to scratch out my thoughts and feelings (and to-do lists and calendar items) in my morning journal. I have religiously practiced yoga. I have walked, and thought, and cried, and seethed. I have seen my therapist. And a family therapist. I have continued with my chiropractor and physical therapist. And I have splurged on my nails every other week.

Life around me didn’t stop. We also fit in a visit from a daughter and her fiancee, a weekend away with dearest friends, and a weekend away with our granddaughters. And after each of those, I have needed time to decompress — extra time in the bath, in the bed, in front of Queer Eye. Time to examine the wound, re-dress it, and then get back into motion.

I have shown up to school every day with my wounds [mostly] concealed, but because of the persistent pain, I didn’t have the resiliency I would typically have, and I lost patience with my seniors, lost control of my freshmen, overreacted to a miscommunication, and just couldn’t listen when a colleague needed my time.

And Friday, on the last day of school, when only a couple dozen of our kiddos showed up, I was all alone in my room, organizing, packing up, and tossing things that had accumulated over the past several months, and I started to feel like I might be ready to slow down, unpack the wound, give it some air, and allow it to heal.

Our students had finished their finals on Tuesday, but Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday were still considered “official” school days. Many students announced early that they would not be attending, and I expected that to be true. Why would they come if their finals were complete?

But some did come. Each of those three days, a pretty similar group showed up. Most didn’t stay in their assigned classes — some found their way to the gym to shoot baskets; some relocated to a favorite teacher’s room to hang out; some did what they are known for — strolling the halls and getting into mischief.

They got free “breakfast” (if you can call a packaged bar and box of juice breakfast) and lunch (and I have to admit that the tacos on Thursday looked rather appetizing), and I thought maybe that is why some of them continued to come — for the food. But then, on Friday, about 15 minutes before dismissal, students were told to empty their lockers and get ready for the bus. We all moved to the hall. Teachers who would not be returning in the fall handed out notes and said their goodbyes. Students began hugging their friends and their teachers, and a few began to cry.

And that’s when I remembered — I am not the only one staggering. We are all stumbling along, doing our best, trying to make it through. We are all hurting; we are often just so focused on our own pain, that we can’t see the the limping of those in front of us. Many of my students find their strength and confidence in our building — this is where they feel safe, and seen, and loved. And for the next two months, they won’t have access to this space where they can ask a teacher for snacks, or feminine supplies, or a new deodorant, or more importantly, a place to sit in the quiet, to speak and be heard, or to get a hug.

I wonder what their next two months will look like? Perhaps, knowing what was ahead is what brought their tears.

My next two months provide me some space — to rest, to shake that rucksack a few more times, and to write, because that’s where I mind meaning, the meaning that is often buried under layers of bravado — my futile attempt to conceal the fact that I am hurting.

Brokenness is the human condition. In some seasons we survive it; in other seasons we grieve it; in others we process it and hope that in that processing we become able to see the brokenness in others and allow them the space and the grace to be in whatever season they are in.

For from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace.

John 1:16