For rest. I generally spend weekends trying to do everything that I could not do during the week. This afternoon I decided to pretend that I actually believe that Sunday should be a day of rest. It was lovely. I might even try it again.
January Deeds, February Theme
The theme of my January goals was: Me, me, meeeeee! The theme of the lived reality was: Whatever, I’ll take what I can get!
One problem was that multiple goals were intended to be fulfilled in the second “half” of the month. Even though my theme was meeeeee, my life happens to involve others. Josh was very busy with work for the first week of the half that I intended to involve him with goals, sick the second week, and then busy catching up from being sick for the last bit of the month.
Walk 100 miles. Try 65.
Go to a museum. With Josh. Or not.
Fix my hair. Literally. I would not call it “fixed” but I did sit for over four hours at a boutique hair salon and got my hair colored, conditioned, and cut. I ultimately concluded that they were looking more for a fast inflow of cash rather than to build up their customer base. At least the fact that my hair ended up being uneven made me feel better about the times that I have messed up Josh’s hair with home cuts. I’m giving myself total credit for trying with this one.
Post daily. Technically achieved. I posted here and at vitacatholic.com. The total is more than 31 posts, but an obsessive sort of person might complain that there is one day that appears to be missing a post. That, my friends, is because I posted and then later removed the post. Totally allowed according to what the goal actually required!
Automate finances for the year. Ha. Ha. Not only was Josh not available to take part in this project, it turned out that my pay was incorrectly entered (or not entered!) twice. I once heard about a somewhat archaic financial rule that I think still holds significant truth: it is generally helpful to have the income aspect of automated income correctly established before one automates the expense side.
Write two letters. Ahhhhh, no. I did, however, do much better at replying to texts. That totally counts, right?
Meet with spiritual director. Nope. Well, pulling technicalities again, Josh and I did meet with him together for lunch. And he is supposed to text me when he has time in his schedule. So that is good.
. . .
February’s theme is money, money, money. So that’s boring, right? I do have concrete goals, but they range from personal (adjusting giving) to downright boring (taxessss!) so I think I’ll probably wait for March to post goalish things.
The Problem With Blogging
The problem with blogging is that you can never show the full truth.
This is not something which troubles me much, because I am well aware that no one ever knows the full truth about, well, most anything. There is, however, a special problem with personal blogs. People often think that they know the blogger, when that is especially unlikely due to the inherently incomplete nature of this form of communication.
There are two main problems: the first is that the blogger can never say enough to make the full truth of her reality clear. The second is that the reader will always infer things based on the reader’s reality rather than anything the blogger intends to imply.
I learned a lot about the first issue from That Wife, when once upon a time she posted daily and often received the most absurd comments from people who could not grasp that there might possibly be more to her life than what she wrote. After all, she wrote so much about so many topics, it was easy for them to imagine that they knew everything.
And the second problem was clarified for me by Felice mi fa who most graciously explained (in far better words) that when a reader misreads based on the reader’s experience, it is a sign that the blogger has somehow reached the reader personally, and that is something for which to give thanks.
Misunderstanding is fine, so long as everyone benefits. It is almost always the responsibility of the reader to move on if something is not beneficial, but I have occasionally seen bloggers struggle to hang on when it seemed clear that their efforts were an unrequited emotional drain of energy.
I have frequently found that people have great difficulty distinguishing between personal posts which represent countless hours of anguish, and posts which are the result of random thought hurriedly typed out to meet a self-imposed deadline. This means that it is almost impossible to determine how to read the post correctly, because one could under-read the emotion expressed or–and more likely in my experience–think that a casual thought is an expression of deep and lasting anguish.
A great challenge for me is that I prefer to blog as if anyone who would bother to form an opinion about a post would only do so after having read a significant amount of what I have posted previously. I don’t imagine that many people would do that, but I do not post for the sake of building an audience.
This is an even funnier assumption because sometimes I privatize previous posts, and then forget that I have done so. And sometimes I don’t get around to posting things that I have written, so I don’t realize how much it is impossible for a new reader to know, even if she actually was crazy enough to read my archives.
Sometimes it takes the kindest comments to make me realize how incredibly I unintentionally mislead my readers. And then there is the fact that just typing that last sentence makes me smile a little at such a joke as one that implies that I have “readers!”
Ehem! Anyway. The problem with personal blogging is that it always involves people sharing stories, and people reading stories. That will always be a blessed mess, but it is a mess that happens to work quite well for me.
Why Be Well?
Is it a bad thing when you’re trying to figure out how to phrase a post because you are aware that saying things in the most obvious way may make people think that you are depressed?
Perhaps. Perhaps not.
In any case, I was trying to write an email this week. Actually, I tried to write several emails, almost all of which still languish in the terrible swamp of unending-drafts. But in the case of this particular email I was trying to explain why I needed to pursue healthcare for myself now. And I could not do it. My mind found nothing as I sought reasons why I need to be well.
I perform well below my (former) intellectual capacity at work. I come home and am so exhausted that it is all I can do to tap out a poorly written post. I go to sleep. I buy groceries. I clean up a little around the apartment and cook some on weekends.
In short, I do everything that I need to do. I neglect my friends and family, but that cannot be quantified, and who is to say what is needed when it comes to relationships?
When I am awake enough to think I remember that this is not quite right, and I really should do something about it now that I have the resources, but my motivation is quite limited. I am not desperate to be better. I am accustomed to being in pain. Thus, even though I still live with levels that should indicate that somethingneedstobefixednow!! I am unmoved because the pain is so much less than it once was.
So there it is, the dark side of accepting life as I must live it now. I am content, I am fine, and I am utterly enervated when it comes to seeking health.
That looks a little depressing, but I am fairly certain that it is not actually an indication of depression. Exhaustion? Yes. Depression? No.
I know that when dealing with depression I should typically endeavor to carry on with whatever it is I had planned on back when I felt well. Yet that method does not work so well in this case because it has been so long since I really felt well, that I do not have anything recent enough to pursue now. I know that I should pursue health, but I have no reason other than health in itself. That is almost enough. Yes, yes it must be more than enough in some ways, but I know that health comes so much more naturally when one can coax the mind into wanting it for some reason or other that is larger than health itself.
This is, unfortunately, not a time to revive old dreams or restore hope. It is simply a time of waiting. That is all well and good, but it is quite difficult for me to combine calm patience with the energetic force required to pursue health.
After all, it is not as if I need to be well.
When The Wrong Thing Is the Right Thing
Two people in my life have said the wrong thing to me recently. Multiple times.
It only counts because they are both close enough that it should be obvious to them that there was a very large chance that what they were thinking would be quite hurtful to say. But that was not the case, and they said what they thought, reflecting only on their own circumstances and not considering what would most likely be the case for me.
And it was alright. Actually, it was right. Sometimes what I really need to hear is the wrong thing.
Often the right thing to say is an expression of pity. The right thing can become an indulgence, and that can quickly turn into self-pity, and suddenly you are wallowing in the knowledge that your situation is oh-so-terrible. And by “you” of course I mean “me.”
There are days–months even–when I simply cannot handle hearing the right thing. I fall apart in a mess of anger and misery and in my desolation cannot see the most simple truths of reality and the beauty of life. Sometimes the very worst thing is seeing others pity each other for similar sufferings. My only defense against such despair is indignation, and that is neither healthful nor helpful.
It is silly of me to be surprised by the grace present in the cutting comments made by someone close to me. I should know by now that if hearing the right thing can be so harmful, that hearing the wrong thing could be an opportunity to gain a wonderful new level of understanding of life in all its crushing fullness.
I am thankful
For shoes and a warm, safe place to sleep.
For my sister, who reminds me of how much I need to give thanks. When I asked her what I am thankful for she told me to go outside with no shoes on. 
For winter walks… with Josh. It is possible that my level of happiness in life is directly correlated to the number of minutes we spend walking together each week. For the past few months that has been an average of, oh, maybe 0. But this past week Josh went for a walk with me three times, even though Josh was sick and it was suddenly actually cold here.
For snow! It snowed twice, and while it was kind of a joke, it was still a lovely joke while it lasted.
For not getting sick? I’m not entirely certain how to feel about this, but everyone else got sick this past week and so far my symptoms (mild stomach age, headache) were really too mind to be worth mentioning at all. I think that is my first time that I did not get sick when others did. Well, other than the past two winters when I go the flu shot rather than the flu which Josh got both years. Still!
March for Life and Non-Graphic Images
Walking through the March for Life, I had a sort of internal checklist of all the things that people complain about. A few of them were confirmed or dispelled immediately, but it was not until I was almost back at work that I realized that I had not seen a single untasteful image.
The Washington Post reported that: “The most commonly carried posters simply said ‘Defend Life’ or showed a black and white photograph of a newborn infant, plump and healthy-looking. Posters with graphic images of aborted fetuses were rare.”
I would think that there had to be something like that, somewhere, given the number of people, but it is also the sort of image that the media (including much of the pro-life media) gravitates to, and I have not seen any photographs depicting people with those images at the march, so that says something.
Sign says: As a former fetus, I am pro-life
I heard chants that “Roe v. Wade has got to go” which is focusing on the negative in one sense, but is also perfectly consistent with the theme of change which young people so love.
And, speaking of love, I heard even more about how people love babies.
There were handwritten signs that I could not actually read as I hurried by.
Sometimes the signs were one-sided in the sense that you could not see what they said when turned the wrong way.
But sometimes they were double-sided:
There was a lot of “Defend Life.”
And “stop abortion now.”
And a lot of text-heavy signs. I think these signs say: “The birth of a child changes the world: let every child be born for a better world” and “The Gospel of Life lights our way at the Catholic Community of St. Frances Xavier”
There were signs with phone numbers.
There were signs declaring that abortion kills children.
And children who don’t want you to kill babies.
There were cranky-looking seminarians who vote.
And members of the pro-life generation who look like they might yell at you.
And stickers.
And a man with a sign saying that women do regret abortion. Silent No More, I think.
And he certainly was not the only one concerned about women who have already had abortions.
Even the grumpiest looking nun (technically they aren’t nuns, and I’m pretty sure she was actually just cold) carried signs that looked appropriate for a children’s book.
There were young women whose signs indicated that they had reasons to smile.
And others who just looked like they were freezing at a youth rally.
I saw several de-fund Planned Parenthood signs sprinkled through out the crowds.
I noted that almost all of the somewhat snarky signs were held by women well over the average age for the crowd. My mother says that the wonderful thing about hitting 50 is that you can say whatever you think.
Have I mentioned that there were a lot of Defend Life signs?
They are my least favorite, because one critique of the march (that I have only actually heard from myself) is the litter that is left from this one little thing with a certain group handing out signs. The signs often are not cared for, thus litter.
Which brings me back around to the irony that I saw no graphic images of abortion at the March for Life. In fact, the last time I saw such images in person was on the signs used to picket the Knights of Columbus grand gathering, or whatever it is they call it.
March for Life 2013
I have long felt at least a little ambivalent about the March for Life. Mostly I see it as a good way to raise up pro-life young people so that they are far less likely to be wounded as participants in abortion.
Today I ran down to the mall during my lunch break to see what I could see. I have a lot of thoughts, and hopefully a few posts. For now though, I just need to say that I was incredibly impressed this year. It felt distinctly different than my previous experiences.
As I rushed around, clearly not one of the marchers, I realized that some people might be inclined to assume that a local who was not joining in must be pro-choice.
Yet everyone was exquisitely polite. At times I had to push through very dense crowds in my attempt to get back to a busy day at work, but when I nearly collided with people, they were apologetic and smiling. Clearly they were midwesterners who don’t understand cities? 
Sure, some of the smiles might look like grimaces in the cold weather, but people seemed kind and happy rather than politically abrasive. I normally despise DC crowds to the point that I begin to think that I must have some social disorder, but pushing through the crowd above was remarkably relaxed.
In short, my very vague, nonspecific, nonscientific impression this year was that if I were designing a crowd to march for life I would want it to have very much the same sort of energy that I saw today.
It makes me wonder how many pro-lifers who oppose the march, or are at least ambivalent about it, have actually been to it recently.
What I Buy When No One Is Watching
Today I had a rather expensive trip to Aldi. As I walked to the car I thought about the difference between this (buying whatever I wanted) and having limited funds for groceries. If I had been on a strict budget I would have bought the oats and the salt, and perhaps one head of broccoli if it were not really the strictest of budgets.
As it is, I buy groceries for 4 or sometimes 5 adults these days and the combination of diet needs/restrictions is positively, well, restrictive. I always shape my purchases based on sale prices, but budgeting for groceries has gone completely out the store window for numerous reasons, including the fact that attempting to meet everyone’s needs and my goals was a significant source of stress and Josh just about offered to pay me to spend more.
Anyway, I realized that in the past I have only documented (mostly in draft posts, ha) purchases that I made when I knew ahead of time that I would be attempting to meet certain goals and tracking them. So this is what I buy when no one is watching:
I could not easily fit it into a picture, so it looks like there is less food than there really is because the vegetables are stacked. There are really five packages of broccoli there.
At the beginning of the month I bought a lot of brown rice and legumes, and last week fruit was on sale, so this is really fun food that adds variety and hopefully a few nutrients.
I suppose that I should actually write out thoughts on each purchase, because I am sure that in a few years I will be utterly confused (why was I buying that unethical thing, and what is up with low fat cottage cheese?!). I might just do that one day, someday when I am not so tired and it does not seem so terribly obvious to me why I am inconsistent in various areas.
Anyway, I do not recommend any of these purchases, unless you have to get food for 4 or 5 very different people, in which case it is worth a shot!
In the meantime, just remember: carrots, baby. And I would be remiss if I did not point out that there were still some regular large carrots in the refrigerator for the member of the house who does not appreciate chlorine. But I told myself that I could just post a picture without bothering to explain the issues behind every single item (and there really is something with each item) so we’ll leave it at that. Carrots, baby!
On Being a Single Income Family
I cringe when people refer to being a “single income family” as if it should signify that they are struggling financially. It is certainly true that for a very specific group of people it would cost more than the second earner could make in order to pay for childcare. But these are not the people whom I see making the remarks about surviving on a single income.
We lived on a single income from September through December. This was a clear sign that we were wealthy, not an indication of struggling. Sure, we may budget a bit more precisely, but the ability to live on one income is an indication of great resources, not of deprivation.
The truth is that families who are really struggling can’t just budget their way into living off of one income. They find ways of utilizing extended family and trading childcare and working off-hours. It does not matter if the mother only earns minimum wage–she works because she has to. They do not work because they think that smartphones are necessities, they work because they know that smartphones are unimaginable luxuries.
If you are able to feed your family on one income, it should be counted as a tremendous blessing.
We all like to imagine that we are not rich because it spares us the burden of reexamining our lives and sacrificing to help those who desperately need it. But even if we must be selfish and stingy, we should at least spare ourselves dishonesty.