Margins

I've been thinking a lot about margins lately.  As an AVID coordinator, part of my job is to tell kids to leave wide margins on their notes.  The actual methodology is called "Cornell Notes" and the goal is to return to their notes at a later date and add potential test questions in the left margin and a summary at the bottom.

They hate it.

It's hard to blame them because I understand their desire to just fill the page and be done.  As a child I hated those blue guidelines that whispered "don't write here" and I felt like the margins of my books were wasted space meant only to slow me down as I sped through yet another novel.  When teachers and professors allowed me to bring a 3x5 card full of notes to use on a test, you can bet I didn't include any margins.  Every centimeter was filled with formulas, facts, definitions, and clues to remind me of all those bits of information that I might possibly need.  To anyone else, my cramped writing looked like gibberish, but on the day of the test, that card was gold.

Before I got sick, I wrote in the margins of my days.  You can bet every line had a bulleted list, and every list had a footnote, and every footnote had a corresponding flow-chart. Looking back, through the 20-20 lens that is hindsight, I see that my combination of activities looked like gibberish to the outside world.  I had taken all the bits that I thought mattered and crammed it into a single page. 

Getting sick taught me margins.  Just like my students have to take time to pause and reflect, I was given years "on pause" and so many minutes and hours of reflection that I had time to choose bitterness or beauty.  Many days, I chose bitterness. I chose to fill my margins with commentary on the pain, loneliness and boredom.  By the grace of God, some of those margins are filled with the beauty of content, patience, and joy.  I tried to figure out what the potential test questions of the day were, and I came to a conclusion that I was put into the world, like Esther, "for such a time as this."  My pain had meaning--maybe not at that moment, but one day it would be redeemed so that I could love others.  My suffering was not a freak incident--instead of weeping "why me?" I was able to say in the brokenness of our world, "why not me?  My loneliness and boredom taught me to ask the One I said was always with me to comfort me.

Having margins lets us stop and summarize, make connections to others, and simply see the world more clearly.  So why do I fall back into the habit of crafting a life without margins? My September calendar is daunting--in addition to teaching, I have duties as the class of 2016 advisor,  professional development coursework and conferences,  a bible study I'm helping lead, a new dog to train, a crossfit groupon to use,  an FCA fundraiser at my house to host and plan, a neighborhood fundraiser to attend, back-to-school night, Homecoming, and my typical variety of medical appointments.  I have filled this month to the margins, and left no time for casual time with friends,  or moments sitting on the patio over coffee.  I'd like to have a margin like Abraham who, because he was resting in the heat of the day, was able to take the time to serve the visitors who brought such life-changing news.  I'd like to leave margins like Jesus who kept pestering the disciples to take time away and pray.  I'd like to leave margins like I once was forced to---but I'd like to do it voluntarily this time.

Chronicles of a Chronic Control-Freak Vol 1

Once upon a time there was a type-A, over-acheiving, perfectionist, control-freak who lived in sunny Southern California and had decided to complete a Master's Degree in Education with a Teaching Credential in one year whilst simultaneously tutoring, mentoring a group of high school girls, and remaining involved with church and friends.

Her kidneys failed one moderately cool day in February 2008, and her life hasn't been the same since.

After two hospitalizations, dozens of blood tests, physical therapy, and a variety of diets, the control-freak still wondered why she wasn't back to her previous state of perfection. Thanks to her wonderful parents and sister, the control-freak had made it through all of her coursework for her Master's degree, sometimes pushing her in a wheelchair, often driving her to and from class, and always helping her rely on Jesus for strength and encouragement.

But the control-freak wanted everything back the way it once was or might have been. With determination and perhaps a little foolhardiness, the control-freak enrolled in the final term of her education: student teaching. The control-freak was thrilled and a bit terrified to realize she would spend 90 days in a kindergarten classroom, perhaps the most germ-filled location known to planet earth.

"Aha!" the control-freak proclaimed as she obsessively planned wardrobes, cooked meals, delineated sterilization procedures, and gathered medications for the first week of school. "I have discovered the recipe for finally conquering the fatigue that comes alongside chronic kidney disease---Planning!"

Unfortunately, the control-freak did not take into account the fickle nature of a body that has been through, well, a lot. Her body declared, one sweltering September morning "Uh uh. No more. You want me to go-go-go 12 hours a day when a few months ago you were only requiring 2 hours of activity? Not a chance." And, without any other options, the control-freak rested.
And rested.
And rested.

And then she woke up, two days before student teaching began, tentative about going back to work full time, but trusting that somehow she could be an energetic teacher, hoping that everyone would understand how exhausting her days would be and forgive her for disappearing into work for awhile, and believing that whatever happened with her kidneys, good things would soon come.

If nothing else, she figured she'd have a pretty fascinating story to tell.

Good Friday

    I recognize that my blog has most likely made it's way into the blogger's graveyard.  Not updating for two  and a half months wasn't necessarily planned, but looking back, I think I needed it.  In January I relapsed again, complete with the thrilling initial side effects of surreal amounts of obsessive energy, coupled with an inability to adequately discern what people meant when they spoke to me and overactive guilt over what I said to others.  Call it extreme paranoia, if you will, but I lovingly refer to it as "the crazies."  Also in the last two and a half months, I successfully completed a rather rapid and unpleasant taper from 60 down to 5 mg of prednisone, at which I have semi-comfortably adapted to "the crazies" and the other various side effects of which I, and a million other people on the inter-web have spoken often.   Oh yeah.... I also completed my last two real courses for my Master's degree, leaving only student teaching and related classwork for the fall.  Oh, and I continued to tutor and started a job researching as a Graduate Assistant for a professor on campus.   

     So I have been busy.  Or at least busy compared to Spring of 2008, during which I slept or watched television  in bed for 95% of the day, compared to the rather modest 60% I  now complete.  If we compare it to my first 22 years or most other 24 year olds I'm in contact with, I'm not busy at all.  

    But today is Good Friday.   For the first time in a long time I've felt like writing, like sharing what's going on.  Life is hard.  As I watched the Passion of the Christ today, I was hit again by the hardness of life, by the cruelty of human beings, by the pervasiveness of sin.  On this day, of all days, I am well aware of my sin, of the cost necessary to pay my debts, because I do not love my neighbor as I love myself, I do not love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength.   Even in weakness, I lean more toward entertainment or physical things that make me feel better for brief moments instead of the terrible beauty of the Cross.  

   I don't have anything profound to say, no moral or encouraging thing to wrap this post up all-tidy-like.  The last few months have been filled with wonderful things, hard things, new and old things, but today they just seem like things that might be remembered or might not---things I didn't feel needed to be written down---but the itch struck me to write today--and so I did. 

"People on welfare don’t get to live in five star hotels. You can’t use food stamps to eat out at expensive restaurants. Not every accused criminal has a right to representation by Johnnie Cochran or his progeny.
Access to health care shouldn’t be any different, but right now it is the only industry in which, for the most part, the best practitioners get paid the same amount as the worst practitioners."

~

http://www.epmonthly.com/whitecoat/2009/01/radical-ideas-to-improve-the-house-of-medicine-1/

I deal with the idea of social justice differently now.  Before I started grad school, before I got sick, before everything changed, I believed that there was something we could do--as individuals, as Christians, as a society--to make life better for everyone. Or, if not everyone, then enough 'someones' that the world would continue to improve.  My education courses  tell me that by teaching children, we're making the world better.  My history courses used the cop out that "history will judge" if each generation made the world better. (It helps when you don't actually have to make relevant judgment calls)

But reading medblogs makes me feel like there's nothing we can do. Doctors can prolong life and they can perform medical procedures that improve the quality of life, but their system is broken, just like education and academia.  These broken systems can't help everyone.  It doesn't matter how good of a teacher I am, there will be students I don't help.  It doesn't matter how brilliant Obama's new nationalized healthcare program seems, people will still be screwed by the system.  

I don't know why I had such faith in the progressive nature of society as a whole.  Maybe all of those eugenicist writers I spent so much time fawning over seeped into my subconscious. I wonder why I didn't let a little more theology seep in as well.  Since I believe in that unpopular notion of "total depravity," in the individual sinner, I don't know why I hoped that there could be systems that would be free from the same depravity.  Our systems are broken; our world is broken. 

I tutor rich kids.  Because their parents have wealth, they can afford to pay my fees.  If they want a highschool kid, they can pay them $40 less.  There's still a part of me that says I'm not helping the brokenness by taking part in a broken system, but by charging the same as a less-qualified tutor, I'm not helping either.  

I can help one kid at a time.  I'm still struggling with how to fight for justice without declaring war on society, but for now, I can help one kid at a time.

Blogs

I read a lot of blogs.  And webcomics.  But that's not what I'm talking about.

I discovered medblogs.  I'm officially fascinated by the behind-the-scenes stuff of Doctors and Nurses in hospitals and primary care. I love reading what doctors think about national health care programs.....I love to read their opinions on new laws and new drugs.  If you want to hear about No Child Left Behind, ask a teacher.  If you want to know about the failing healthcare industry, ask a nurse or a doctor.

This blog said everything my gut has been telling me about healthcare, but she, well, has almost 30 years working in the industry....

January Gardening

It's January.  January is a difficult month for gardeners, or so I've read on various blogs around the interwebs.  The bulbs are planted, and for those in snow-covered areas, are mostly forgotten as they wend their way toward the sunlight underneath mounds of snow. Those gardeners spend January leafing through seed catalogs and mentally preparing themselves for starting seeds in musty basements or cold windowsills.   I'm starting to believe that gardeners in California run into a far more difficult and less predictable quandary these weeks after the holidays.

It feels like spring. 

It looks like spring. 

I desperately want it to be spring.  Weeds are making the hillsides a delicious shade of green due to our recent rains and the daffodils I didn't dig up and replant are reaching respectable heights while the new bulbs are still sleeping under the soil.  Several rose bushes are blooming and  the soil seems to call to me to plant. Should I weed the area around my irises and plant a wildflower mix from 1999 I recently discovered?  Should I break down and walk down the aisles of Lowe's or the local garden center and buy whatever catches my fancy?  Should I start seeds inside to make sure they come up and can be transplanted safely?  Should I sow wild and think and hope that a good portion come up or carefully plan?  

The prednisone makes my brain go a bit nutty---I can think of a million things I ought to be doing right now---an hour practicing Spanish with Rosetta stone, cleaning my room, doing my reading for my grad school class tomorrow....but all I *want* to do is think about my garden, to plan and dream of a lovely spring and summer.