Cardiogirl: 19% body fat 100% fun

Today I am contemplative.

This weekend we had a really stressful experience that turned out to be fine and dandy; the end result was like nothing had ever happened and it was just a joint nightmare that my husband, kids and I experienced simultaneously.

On Saturday Emily and I took a ride in an ambulance to the hospital because the urgent care doctor thought her appendix was about to burst. But it didn’t.

In fact by the time they rolled her into the ER she was smiling and feeling fine. When the nurse came in Emily asked if she could walk to the scale and then skipped on over to it. When we returned to the room she put on the hospital gown and we played four corners while we waited for the doctor.

It all started on Saturday morning around 11:30. She said, casually, that her stomach hurt while she sitting on the couch with me. I asked her if she was hungry or if we should go to the bathroom and she said no. At noon she started to cry and said her stomach really hurt so I told her we should try to go to the bathroom. She said it hurt so much I needed to carry her.

A few minutes later I gave her Pepto-Bismal which did not help. Within ten minutes she told me we needed to go to the doctor and she felt like she was going to throw up. I asked her to show me where it hurt and she pointed to her left side right above her hip bone. That’s when I started to get really nervous. Katie, Emily and I headed over to urgent care while I paged Mr. C who was at the Y with Allison.

I think it took about 15 minutes to get to the urgent care clinic which, thankfully, had no other patients so we were seen immediately. The doctor pressed on her stomach, Emily cried, I gave the run down on what had been happening and then the doctor pressed against the bottom of Emily’s feet toward her head.

Emily cried and the doctor told the nurse to call 911.

The nurse stood with the door open while the doctor told me she wasn’t positive but she thought Emily’s appendix might need to come out. The doctor said we had to go to the hospital — by ambulance — immediately. I signed some paper work, Katie started crying and hyperventilating, I fought off a panic attack and cried a bit while we listened to sirens approaching from the distance.

Then the paramedics came in and I answered more questions; Mr. C showed up with Allison and then Katie and Allison began to cry in unison while Mr. C held them. Somehow I kept my panic at bay, thankfully, and I was able to speak clearly without crying. That’s a miracle right there.

Driving in the ambulance Emily was quiet and calm which really freaked me out. Occasionally she made a comment like, “I’m gonna tell my teacher about this at school” but mostly we rode in silence.

While I sat on the bench next to her I had an illuminating chat with God.

In the past I would have fervently prayed, “Please don’t let Emily die.” But instead I asked for strength to help both of us handle what was coming. This is so hard to explain but I was surprised at that prayer while I was thinking it. It was as if part of me was listening to another person’s prayer. I was surprised that it seemed so resigned; there was no plea to make the events stop.

I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. The thought of Emily having emergency surgery or dying is unbearable and yet it felt like I had no choice but to deal with whatever was going to happen. It was like I experienced an anxious calm which makes no sense at all.

I’ve become very jaded in the last few years and now I feel like life is simply about coping and adapting to change. I just read the following paragraph at Too Many Mornings and it seems quite apt. Mike was contemplating loss when he wrote:

Buddha said life is filled with suffering, and that to avoid the experience of pain we must abandon our expectations for what life ought to be. If we make a friend, for instance, we should hold her lightly because everything in life is transitory, constantly changing.

I used to believe in miracles. I used to really think that if I prayed hard enough and if I lived a good enough life God would fix the big problems. But I’ve had enough experiences in the past five years to learn that’s not how it works.

Or rather, I’ve learned that He doesn’t perform on command — at least not for me. I’ve needed a few miracles in the past and I’ve begged for a few miracles in the past but it didn’t work. And then things got really bad.

You’d think I would have walked away from God after that and I did for a while. For the first time in my life I thought God was a myth — that I actually had proof that He did not exist — and that was a really terrifying time for me.

As the years have passed I’ve come back to believing that God exists but our relationship has changed dramatically. I used to think He would make things better, somehow. I thought He’d give me answers if I listened hard enough and I thought he gave me things I deserved.

These days I feel like He’s a friend who’s always there ready to listen. He doesn’t interrupt and He doesn’t offer advice. He doesn’t make things happen and He doesn’t stop things from happening. He just sits in the muck with me while I try to take it all in.

He sits quietly with me so I’m not alone with my thoughts. And for now, that seems to be good enough.

It is time, once again, to crack open my high school journal. In the last installment I printed half of one entry dated August 10, 1985. You may recall that was the time I almost got run over by a train while driving to church.

I was so taken by my church story that I felt it necessary to break this up into two pieces lest the original post run over 1,000 words. That’s funny because the rest of the entry isn’t very long at all and doesn’t require a huge explanation.

(But now that I’ve finished writing it, I see that it took 725 words to tell the story. I guess it really was necessary to break this into two posts.)

August 10, 1985

Ooooh scary, one minute until Sunday. It’s 11:59 p.m. Now it’s August 11, 1985. Goodbye Saturday.

I’ve decided to stop trying to please everyone else with my college major. I’m going into what I want which is journalism. Who knows, maybe one of these days I’ll be the managing editor of TIME magazine, have a best-selling novel and a million-dollar apartment in New York’s upper section.

But then again I could end up working as a gopher for The Hometown Times, have no books and live in a shoe box. You never know…

Whatever happens I’ll have this journal. When I’m famous I can sell it for publication.

Cardiogirl M (the M stands for $MONEY$)

I was 17 when I wrote this and apparently a night owl. These days I fall asleep around 7:53 p.m. because I wake up a couple hours before the rooster crows. Lazy ass bird.

Anyway, at the time I was about a month away from entering my senior year in high school and I was getting ready to apply to different colleges. I know my dad was pushing engineering which is a huge laugh since homey ain’t into math or science and my report card loudly proclaimed that.

That brings us to the core problem: As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be — I am a people pleaser without end. Amen. While I knew I would fail horribly as an engineer student I felt like I had to do what my dad told me to. Looking back I’m actually surprised that I stood up to him since he frequently threatened to stop my tuition payments.

Yupper, my parents paid for my college education. I really appreciated that and I swear I am not being sarcastic. What I did not appreciate was the fact that he lorded it over my head every chance that he got. I suppose that’s why I felt compelled to work various jobs while I was in school but it was mostly for spending money and an occasional book for class.

So I declared my major as Journalism and was beyond jacked when I learned that the major required absolutely no math classes. None. At. All. Can I get a hallelujah?

*The folks in the crowd collectively raise their arms toward the Heavens, shake their splayed fingers in the air and issue a hearty, “Hallelujah and praise be!”*

Becoming the managing editor of TIME Magazine, writing a book and living in a million-dollar apartment really was my pie-in-the-sky goal. However, I’m not sure where “New York’s upper section” is located. I’m not a dreamer, much less a big dreamer, so I’m surprised to see how lofty my goals were back then.

What I am not surprised to see is that I clipped my own wings in the next paragraph. I made sure to remind myself that I could end up cruising the aisles of the Salvation Army in search of curtains and a matching rug for my shoe box. I guess I’ve sort of ended up in the middle of that dream.

I hated working as a journalist and changed my career path about a year after graduation.

I’m getting closer to finishing that novel and I still hope it will be a best seller.

I’ve published almost all of my journal on this blog — for free — so there’s no money to be had there. But I have picked up some cute stuff at the Salvation Army so I guess that’s not a huge problem after all.

Lastly, I’m no longer interested in living in any sort of apartment in New York. However, I’d still like the million dollars.

Ahh Valentine’s Day — the day when most chicks measure their self-worth by the amount of paper hearts they receive. I have never been a fan of Valentine’s Day and I’m guessing most people born before, say, 1980 feel the same way. Pop a squat and I tell you why.

It all started in 1973 — the year I entered Mrs. Wyman’s Kindergarten class. I was born a shy kid who morphed into a quiet teen and adult. I do not enjoy large groups of people and I have never been popular — I’m an outlier. And when you’re in school, Valentine’s Day is basically a popularity contest.

In addition, no one had heard of the term politically correct in the 70s (or the 80s) so that meant kids brought cards for their friends. And if you didn’t have many friends, you didn’t have many cards.
I must have received at least one or two but my overall memory is that I was the Charlie Brown of the class.

Back then we made construction paper envelopes that we taped on the side of our desks. Valentine’s
Day
was like
being a needy
chick on
The Bachelor. Will
I get a rose
or will I pull a mascara-stained sad clown face outside the classroom? Then each kid went up and down the aisle delivering their cards.

So Valentine’s Day in third grade was like being a desperate contestant on The Bachelor.

Will I get a rose or will I pull a mascara-stained sad clown face outside the classroom? Will he pick me? Pick me! Pick me! There’s only one rose left; he’s walking toward me! Aaand he walked past me to the chick three seats behind.

Effer.

I actually have no memory of making that delivery walk myself. I must have, but that brain cell is coming up blank. Anyway, I’m not a fan of the day and after our first holiday together Mr. C and I decided February 14 was just another Tuesday or Friday, as the case may be.

Yes, we succumbed to peer pressure that first year — we were both trying to seal the deal on the wedding engagement — but we were married by our second Valentine’s Day together.

Nowadays the schools are hip to political correctness and everyone brings a Valentine for everyone else in the classroom. So even if you hate Alexis, the smug chick in the back of the classroom, you’re still giving a card with your name on it.

I have to admit, that’s the only instance of political correctness in the school system that I endorse. There’ll be plenty of time for my girls to question their self worth in high school but for now they look forward to Valentine’s Day.

And I do like snagging some of the candy they bring home after school.

You can join the Valentine’s Day Blog Carnival, too! Just write your post and add your link at Tribal Blogs.net.