Temporarily Changed Dynamics

This week I've had time to wonder how my life might have been different.

If I'd had only one child.

If David had no siblings.

If I'd had my last child first.

If I didn't work with Brian Hughes.

If I had to drive across the river for work every day.

If I didn't seem to eat as an emotional outlet.

If I wasn't relatively healthy.

With just David at home, it's been fascinating to see the different dynamic. He's calm and gentle and quiet. He doesn't mind being alone. He's a wonderful, warm kid. I think he spends his 'normal' life getting lost in the shuffle. I've enjoyed this time, and it prompts a huge desire in me to do better by him.

Brian is on vacation this week, and without the dynamic of our work relationship I can see a difference of sorts - in meetings, in energy level, in adrenaline, in intensity. I'm not sure what life and work would really be like for me without that partnership; I don't think I'd be doing what I'm doing.

Taking David to Art Camp at Hope Church this week and loving the rhythm of getting up and getting on 288 every morning. I'm sure it gets tiring after a while, but it's a new routine and I like it.

I'm not very hungry this week. I think I'm usually not really hungry, but that I eat out of stress nad nervous-ness and just all-the-stuff-going-on. I feel better. Healthier.

Frustrated, waiting on some results of medical tests that will give me some answers about some funky physical issues I've been having. The doctor seems to be in no hurry to get back to me, but I was told before I left last week that something was wrong. I'm not enjoying the wait. Tell me now. Please.

Reading this book this week; John Irving was always one of my favorite authors. The World According to Garp came out when I was in high school and it was a defining moment for me, meeting those characters. I even bought a Garp t-shirt and wore it - frequently - to school. Can't quite get into this book - after Owen Meany and The Cider House Rules, it's been tougher to stay focused on his novels. But I'm giving it a good try.

Thinking a lot about the letter Paul wrote to the Colossians this week, too. Good stuff.

So if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that’s where the action is. See things from his perspective. Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real life—even though invisible to spectators—is with Christ in God. He is your life. Colossians 3.1-3

Trying to look up. I think it matters.