Daddy,

You have always been a strong person, never showing your weakness or fear in troubling times. You were the model of generosity and kindness, as well as courtesy and respect. You taught me solid old-fashion values that have served me more than I could have imagined.

When you first told me of your diagnosis, you said, “you were such a brave little girl when you were sick, and I know if you could be so brave at such a young age, I can be brave through this fight, too”. And you were. So brave. I can’t even remember the number of times you complained about your illness or how bad treatment was. Because you didn’t. You just fought through. Your doctors were surprised by your resilience with such a rare, aggressive cancer, but your fortitude and strength kept you motivated and healthy.

God had bigger plans for you though. He called you to Him sooner than any of us could have fathomed, and our hearts are broken. But your pain and suffering have been transformed into joy and elation, and that knowledge brings us peace.

When you were set free and ascended to Heaven, I bet our family dog Nikki was the first to meet you outside the gates, with the exuberance of a new puppy, just as she always did when you came home.

I’m sure you walked right in, and confidently and respectfully greeted our Maker with “Hello, Father”, just as you greeted everyone with a smile and those kind eyes.

No doubt you’ve reunited with old relatives and even made new friends. I bet you bask in the never-ending sunlight as you sip coffee and tell stories with new neighbors.

If Heaven has hobby groups, I’m sure you enjoy keeping up the gardens and tinkering with old cars.

And I’m also sure…you are always with us. I find nothing more comforting than knowing you are right there, on the other side of my thoughts.

There have been moments, and there will be many more I am positive, that I have found it so desperately painful that I cannot pick up the phone and hear your voice or visit while you lounge in your recliner. There could have never been enough moments with you to fill the void I now feel.

There have also been moments, though, and I know there will be many more, when I have felt relief and serenity because some piece of you has lingered into my consciousness unexpectedly at just the right moment, as is your intention, I am sure.

As I grow and carry on in life, your memory and spirit will be ever-present in my soul. In times of stress and challenge, I will pray to you for strength and courage. And in times of happiness and new promise, I will know that you are beaming for me and enjoying each moment from your view up in that great sky.

May you rest in His Most Holy Peace and continue to bless our lives, until I can hug you again.

All my love, forever.

Your Peanut

I know Thanksgiving is almost three weeks past and this post may have been more appropriate around then, but I also figure…it’s never a bad time to be thankful.

I was facebooking earlier (big surprise) and one of my old cheerleading buds had posted some collages of our competition days.  At first I passed them over, then I realized I was tagged, so I clicked on each one and gave a quick look.  I’ve seen all of these photos before.  I probably have most of them, in fact.  So I was kind of surprised when I found myself looking closely at each captured moment, pleasantly remembering every event and motion perfectly, as if those pictures were taken last week.  I caught myself, thinking “you’ve got to stop living in the past”, ’cause it’s true, in the span of time between the beginning of high school and now, I’d count those as my best years, which is not typical for most.  And then as some inner dialogues with myself go, I told myself I wasn’t living in the past, just admiring the good times.  And this was also true.

Somehow, whether she was tagged too, or I just decided to search for her, I found my coach on facebook, as well.  The whole squad was at her wedding, and I remember hearing through the grapevine about her being pregnant, twice.  So when I saw pictures of small children, not infants or toddlers, I thought “surely those are not her kids, they’re too old”.  But as time seems to get compressed between memories, so had the years since she birthed the two cuties, and now, Wow!, they’re mini-me’s of her.

Cue even more reminiscing and the thought of seeing her again–it’s possible, this IS Lafayette!  I considered the conversation that would transpire, “how have you been, what have you been up to…” same ole, same ole, and I thought maybe she’d be disappointed, definitely surprised, by my current profession.  This is the expected reaction from anyone I knew before now, even some friends I have now.  Now, wait…I enjoy, REALLY enjoy my work, I’m good at, it seems meaningful to me and to the patients I see, but I can still understand the expected reaction.

Let’s be honest, I have that reaction sometimes, okay, a lot of times.

So, I’m still working on being thankful for the things I’ve got, rather than focusing on the things I don’t have or might one day, hopefully, have.  But this moment, and another one I found through facebook, watching a video from a friend’s wedding, really made me stop and take stock of what I’ve got and how good it is.  It’s not perfect, and nothing is, but MAN, I’m 24 years old and I’ve got a pretty okay life.  Something to be very thankful for…

I’m sitting in my beautifully decorated house, a small white cuddle bug on my left side, a very satisfying glass of red wine blend on my right…and here I am, “settled down” enough to write a post, though not the one I’ve been thinking about.

Thanksgiving week started unpleasantly, with a fever and restlessness, but I kicked my National Registry exam anyway.  Woohoo.  Houston was nice, home was nice, and the weekend eventually resulted in red glittery perfection framing my front door and wrapping my Christmas tree.  All in all, pretty decent.  LSU even won their game, by a hair, FINALLY!

So why am I zapped of energy and motivation and luster for life just one week later?  Because I was supposed be completing this long and unnecessarily ridiculous phase of study this coming Saturday, looking forward to a Merry Christmas and New Year with new credentials and the start of a new career.  But….that won’t be happening.  The final (and obligatory) formality of my certification is a day-long practical assessment that occurs once a month.  Thanks to some bureaucratic bs,  I cannot complete the assessment this Saturday, I will have to wait until early January.  And all of my patience and anticipation seems for naught.

So I wait some more…and fret.  I know better, I know I can accomplish a lot with this time off, but I’m still a little devastated.  It feels like failure.

My last post was about Christmas, whoops!  Well, I won’t lie, Christmas has already crossed my mind more than once, even though its still 5 months away.  It’s been several years since I’ve been struck with the Christmas bug this early, but I think what it’s really about is getting to decorate this new house.  I forget what Dave said exactly, but basically I’m going to have to bribe him to hang lights outside.

RIGHT NOW, though, I’m busy traveling back and forth to BR for Paramedic training, as Dave mentioned.  Surprisingly, the drive hasn’t gotten old yet, so that’s a really good start.  But my car sure is racking up the mileage :(  I am very much enjoying my clinical experience and I am sometimes surprised by how quickly some things have become like second nature, things that I was nervous about at first.  There are many other things I constantly have to remind myself to consider, but I imagine those will come more easily soon, too.  I still have a few months before I will take my final exams and become officially licensed, but every now and then, I realize for just a moment, that sooner than I realize, I will be on my own evaluating and treating patients, in less than ideal situations.  No matter how much I’ve learned so far, that’s a bit frightening, and those are the moments that prompt me to study more!

There are moments, too, when I hear myself speak and I’m surprised how “in control” I sound.  I’m not being arrogant–that’s a key trait when working in the field, to be able to control the chaos or any extraneous factors that may get in the way of helping the patient.  It’s rare that I utilize that voice just yet, but I’m glad to know it’s in there somewhere.

Next stop, field clinicals…let’s see how much I’ve really mastered.

As all of you probably know, Christmas is absolutely my favorite holiday of the year.  And tree decorating and admiring is my favorite way to welcome the season.  In the last week alone, even my co-worker has come to realize my obsession with the festive firs.  This year, however, I’ve been so busy, I haven’t been nearly as excited about it as in the past.  There are holiday decorations that I didn’t unpack because I didn’t want to go through the hassle of putting them out (OMG, my holiday health is deteriorating!!).

Still, my tree is beautiful as usual and it can still bring a smile to my face, when my cat isn’t scaling it and batting the glass balls onto the floor, that is.

The fam took pics again this year with Lesley Picard.  And once again, she delivered stunning results.

It’s so wonderful that she was able to capture moments of pure joy like this.  We had such a great time.  Thanks, Les!

Dave is rounding up the final week of his undergraduate career and he’s chomping at the bit to start his new job.  Next semester will be pretty challenging logistically.  Because my schedule will be so busy with school and work in Baton Rouge, we won’t be buying a house in Lafayette as soon as we had originally planned, which means Dave will be doing a good bit of commuting.  And the “kids” will probably be spending a fair amount of time at their grandparents’ house (thanks, Mom and Dad ).  So if we can just get through the next five months without being pulled in too many directions, we should be good.

Hope to see you around this holiday season!  Merry Christmas

Work is awesome.  To me at least.  When I explained the crazy, dramatic, traumatic (one of which was in the news) events of this past weekend of work, David called me morbid and disturbed.  I called it invigorating.  It’s all how you’re wired I guess.

Dave hasn’t alluded to the good news on his site, and we’re both struggling with the dilemma it presents, so I will:

My husband is a genius, a brilliant student who has proved himself in class and in the field.  Now, lots of companies are demonstrating their extreme interest in his brilliant mind by offering him big fat salaries.  This doesn’t sound like a dilemma yet, does it?  In one respect, it isn’t.  He has his choice of companies and the type of work he’d be doing, both of which are fantastically exciting to him.  And his excitement makes me smile, so we both win on that account.  The dilemma is in the process/benefits and consequences of choosing one of these offers.  Some are in Lafayette, some are in or around Baton Rouge, one is in Houston.  While it would be a good experience, the Houston offer is virtually out of the running at this point because of it’s distance from home and family, read ¡Lafayette!  We still have about a month before Dave has decided he’d like to have decided :)  Every time he has come back from an interview jazzed about the prospect and every time he’s gotten an offer in response to such interviews, I’ve told myself (and him) that “I’m not going there”, figuratively, that I’m not subjecting myself to the roller coaster of idealizations and emotions that come with every offer.  I did that the first couple times, which I quickly found was exhausting and had no imminent impact anyway.  But now, everything is imminent:  Dave accepting an offer, Dave graduating, looking for a house in the near future, advancing my career.  And the first two have a lot to do with how and where the latter two will pan out, among many more complicated considerations.  I’m trying to stay neutral, but a decision like this is anything but objective, which is what I want it to be.

I’m supportive of his desires and his career, but I just can’t discuss it anymore until we need to make a decision.  I’m trying to just let it simmer, hand it over to God, the universe, “everything will work itself out for the best”, all that.  But I had to let out a little steam since the pressure seems to building with each new prospect and the only person I’ve discussed this with is Dave.

The following is a post I drafted last summer, in July 2007, I think.  After writing my last post, I re-read this and found that the content still very much applies to my life, so I have decided to post it, much delayed from it’s date of conception.

I can’t wait until I can do school without the working. Which may never happen, or if it does, it will be at least a year from now. Yes, in a year, I’ll still be in school. Working on something, trying to direct my life down one particular course. Whichever route I choose, I predict it will be in healthcare. People healthcare, or animal healthcare. I am perpetually drawn to medicine, so I won’t even try to escape that. I am just having trouble deciding how much more school I want to go through and how much of my already established life I can realistically expect to change to meet my goals.

I had lunch with a friend today. We were best friends in middle school and though we haven’t been as close since then, we are probably more similar than anyone else I hang out with more often. We had been talking about getting together for a little while, so it was nice to hang out.

Sometimes–who am I kidding, practically all the time–when I pass people that are noticeably attractive or pulled together or seemingly successful or happy or carefree in the moment I see them, I try to imagine the circumstances of their lives, the general details that contribute most to their attractiveness, success, or happiness. I imagine the sacrifice or discipline or perseverance it took them to get to that point, and then I wonder if other people think that way about me. For example, today at lunch with my friend, she asked about married life and if it was the right timing, and I said this: “Before the wedding, I just couldn’t wait to be married. But when I think about it now, we could have waited.” I don’t mean it in any manner that indicates I don’t like being married, just as far as timing goes, literally, we could have probably been just as happy if we got married a year from now. But we made a decision based on the information we had, and now we have a good life as a married couple, so I don’t regret getting married maybe sooner than we could have. Her response was, “Haha, Des, the grass is always greener.” A phrase I hadn’t yet considered about our marriage, but which obviously applies. So, when I see these other people and I’m a little jealous of their happiness or success, I try to quickly remind myself that I may just be imagining something that isn’t all that wonderful after all.

Do I keep searching for something that is too perfect. Is it too much to expect or anticipate that I can have perfection?

I’m particularly interested in responses to this post.  Do you notice yourself compulsively thinking or doing something that may, whether you want it to or not, influence the way you think about your life and frame your reality?

At dinner with friends tonight, one of them pointed out my absence from the web world.  I didn’t even know anyone still checked my website, but it’s nice to be reminded that close friends still care about my thoughts and life developments.

I’ve been working a lot lately.  I’ve found that my new job has produced a lot of unexpected realities:  I enjoy it much more than I thought I would, I like working nights, and working with a schedule opposite my husband’s has not only allowed me to be more productive with my off time, but I also enjoy my time with him SO MUCH MORE.

I see a lot of bad things in EMS, but it can also be extremely rewarding.  I didn’t expect to enjoy patient care so much.  Admittedly, I’m an animal person, but this has revealed a compassion I didn’t realize I could show for complete strangers.  When I first started, I resisted night shifts; it reminded me too much of the year and a half I spent at the Pet Emergency Hospital when it would take me nearly a week to “recover” from my long night shift.  However, now having worked both days and nights in Baton Rouge and surrounding areas, I have decided to work full-time at night (at least for a little while).  I’m trying to formulate a schedule in which I balance my time and spend my off hours productively.  So far, so good, but it takes a good bit of vigilance to stick with these hours, so we’ll see.

An unforseen but very welcome result of working nights is that Dave and I are more loving of each other.  We don’t have nearly as much time to spend together as we used to, so when we are together, we really focus on each other and it feels special.   As an added bonus, we’re both getting more done with our free time.   We just weren’t spending quality-packed time together and apparently we’re really big distractions for each other.

There’s lots going in the next several months:  LSU football season, three weddings, including my sister-in-law’s, selling a car, Dave’s graduation!, house hunting, and the possibility of a relocation.  With any luck (and my dedication), you’ll hear about all of it right here.  So, loyal readers, check back  periodically for the scoop.

And, just because I like pretty pictures, here’s one of us at a couple of friends’ recent wedding.  If you’d like to see the rest from the set just click here.

 (this ought to have been posted a couple weeks ago… )

Thought Strollings, that is.

In light of the ever increasing infrequency of my posts and the more frequent, inspiring “Tuesday Love” on Dave and Jon’s Site, I think I’d like to expand on something similarly on my site. My posting, though, may only be related by the fact that it stems from a stream-of-conciousness about some interesting/intellectual/emotional situation torturing my brain.

Inevitably, since my marriage, friends and family ask, “So how’s married life?” with this expectant, ‘are you SO EXCITED?!, isn’t life WONDERFUL!’ tone in their voices. The natural response should be ‘YES!’ in the high pitch, almost inaudible, squeak that most people that know me well are quite accustomed to as a uniquely ‘Des’. However, the part of me that speaks instead, is the conservative, moderate voice, of someone who just isn’t quite sure what level of excitement is appropriate, especially with people who are having relationship difficulties. I think I could say it in my sleep now: my response always being, “It’s nice. It’s a big adjustment from just living with roommates :)” And it always comes out kind of uncertain and mouse-ey. Like if someone wanted to crush my statement, they’d barely have to lift their foot off the ground.

So here is the unwrapped, more candid, and therefore more complicated, version of the truth:

It’s not ‘nice’ being married. The word itself has no substance. And it’s not ‘nice’ in the sense that everything is roses and sunlight. Adjustment is hard, especially when you can’t understand why it is so difficult to integrate your stuff, your habits, your responsibilities, with someone you’ve dated for five years and assumed you knew the of the habits of.

It is, however, YES!, very fulfilling. If you can stop long enough to savor the moments that make it fulfilling, like when you come home from work, and your husband’s cooking dinner and offers you a drink and you exchange details about the day. And after dinner, as a display of your gratitude, you clean the dishes, and then you both come together to watch a movie you’ve both been waiting to see.

The fulfillment does not seem to last very long with us when an adverse situation arises, but we usually bounce back very quickly and I do believe fulfillment builds on itself. From the little things like dinner and small considerations for the other person, to a much larger, life sustaining fulfillment that reminds you of what you should be thankful for when times are rough.

Dave is truly wonderful, a kind, compassionate, encouraging person that I am lucky to share my life journey with.

It’s hard, and it doesn’t yet happen as smoothly as it should, but I think with each kind and loving gesture we show each other, we are slowly building a rocket of fulfillment that will enrich our lives as we grow together and shoot to the top of our dreams!