What a difference a year makes - this very normal and non-special Spring Break I have spent playing with my children, cleaning the house, and planning a short weekend trip with Tim and the kids to Chattanooga -----not too much excitement, not too much drama. Which is how I can characterize my life over the past several years of my marriage - drama. No, not drama from Tim and I specifically - but drama in the sense that I felt I was always waiting for something to happen. And when those days did come, that I always felt like I was being a burden or that people perceived me and my life as "dramatic." If you know me very well, and not many people do, you know that I am the last person that likes to be the center of any attention. So all those days that Tim had a seizure in the morning, during the day while I was at work and I had to either leave or miss school, I felt so strange that people "knew" what was going on in my private personal life. As I look back now, I think that is one of the reasons I have lost so many close personal friends over the past few years because my one way to keep from being the center of attention is to just remove myself completely - move away, don't answer the phone, stop attending church and events, etc. It has removed me from lots of great people over the last few years. And whether he knows it or not, Tim has done the same thing with his family and friends. It is one of the biggest mistakes I make in my life is pushing wonderful people away from me.
So, it has been almost a year exactly since our trip to Minnesota. Last Spring Break to be exact. So, now my husband is healthy - and we are still learning how to repair the holes in our life with friends, family, hospital bills, spiritual issues, marriage issues, et. Our lives are back to normal - I no longer wonder every morning if he is going to have a seizure driving in to work and wreck. Tim drives the kids now in the morning hours whenever he needs to. I can rely on him to stay up late or get up early and help out for school when I need him to. I can rely on him to go to work every day and do a great job and continue to support our family financially. I can rely on him to do all the things that I know he wants to do as a wonderful husband and father. I can rely on him period. So why does it take so long to fix everything else? I guess I am waiting for that magical patch that will heal all the emotional scars, magically pay off all the old debts and new hospital bills, and fix all the broken relationships in our way. Magical patch - I am waiting.
So - my first and most important statement to myself every day is to remember where we were not so long ago - not to say that we won't be back there one day. Epilepsy is a disease that we will deal with the rest of our lives - Tim will either be on medication or maybe even one day have surgery. I am so thankful that is has been almost a full year on the new treatment plan and we have had no seizure activity. Should I call this time in my life "the calm" period? No, I am thinking I will call this time "the return to normal..."
Spring Break of 2010 I spent sitting in a hospital room at the Mayo Clinic with Tim in the seizure monitoring unit wondering if we would ever get to have a normal life back again - our lives have been immensely blessed these past 12 months and I forget to remember that some days....today is not that day --I love my husband and am so thankful for his health these days - I love our very normal, very boring, and usually non-spectacular daily life.......
How beautiful can a normal, boring day at home be? Consider where you came, and you will see the beauty. I remember every day where we have been, where we came from, and where we are now, and I LOVE the boring of it all....no drama is good drama.
Is that a song title??
