The Night Circus - favorite quotes

"The bonfire ignites in an eruption of yellow flame.
Then the second chime follows, and they become a clear sky-blue.
A third chime with a third arrow, and the flames are a warm bright pink.
Flames the color of a ripe pumpkin follow the fourth arrow.
A fifth, and the flames are scarlet-red.
A sixth brings a deeper, sparkling crimson.
Seven, and the fire is soaked in a color like an incandescent wine.
Eight, and the flames are shimmering violet.
Nine, and violet shifts to indigo.
A tenth chime, a tenth arrow, and the bonfire turns deepest midnight blue.
On the penultimate chime, the dancing flames change from blue to black, and for the moment, it is difficult to discern the fire from its cauldron.
And on the final strike, the dark flames are replaced with a blinding white, a shower of sparks falling like snowflakes around it.  Huge curls of dense white smoke swirl up into the night sky." pg. 120

"'Secrets have power,' Widget begins. 'And the power diminishes when they are shared, so they are best kept and kept well.  Sharing secrets, real secrets, important ones, with even one other person, will change them.  Writing them down is worse, because who can tell how many eyes might see them inscribed on paper, no matter how careful you might be with it.  So it's really best to keep your secrets when you have them, for their own good, as well as yours.'" pg. 226

"'So by losing his secrets, the wizard gained immortality.  His tree stood long after the clever young girl was old and no longer beautiful, and in a way, he became greater and stronger than he had ever been before.  Though if he were given the chance to do it all over again, he likely would have been more careful with his secrets.'" pg. 228

"'Call me by my name,' he says.  He has never heard her speak his name and holding her in his arms he suddenly craves the sound. 'Please,' he adds when she hesitates.

"'Marco,' she says, her voice low and soft.  The sound of his name on her tongue is even more intoxicating than he had imagined, and he leans in to taste it." pg. 349

"'I've tried,' Marco says, cupping her face in his hands. 'I have tried to let you go and I cannot.  I cannot stop thinking of you.  I cannot stop dreaming about you.  Do you not feel the same for me?'

"'I do,' Celia says.  'I have you here, all around me.  I sit in the ice Garden to get a hint of this, this way that you make me feel.  I felt it even before I knew who you were, and every time I think it could not possibly get any stronger, it does.'" pg. 352

"Inside, the train is opulent, gilded, and warm.  Most of the passenger cars are lined with thick patterned carpets, upholstered in velvets in burgundies and violets and creams, as though they have been dipped in a sunset, hovering at twilight and holding on to the colors before they fade to midnight and stars." pg. 402

"It would be like pulling the Murray twins apart and expecting them to be the same.  They would be whole but not complete." pg. 459

"'There are no more battles between good and evil, no monsters to slay, no maidens in need of rescue.  Most maidens are perfectly capable of rescuing themselves in my experience, at least the ones worth something, in any case.'" pg. 497

"'They are the circus.  You can hear his footsteps in the Labyrinth.  You can smell her perfume in the Cloud Maze.  It's marvelous.'

'You think being imprisoned marvelous?'

'It's a matter of perspective,' Widget says.  'They have each other.  They are confined within a space that is remarkable, one that can, and will, grow and change around them.  In a way, they have the world, bound only by his imagination.'" pg. 502

"'He was seeking immortality, which is a terrible thing to seek.  It is not seeking anything, but rather avoiding the unavoidable.  He will grow to despise that state if he does not already.  I hope my student and your teacher are more fortunate.'

'You mean. . . you hope they can die?' Widget asks.

'I mean only that I hope they find darkness or paradise without fear of it, if they can.'" pg. 503

"'Someone needs to tell those tales.  When the battles are fought and won and lost, when the pirates find their treasures and the dragons eat their foes for breakfast with a nice cup of Lapsang souchong, someone needs to tell their bits of overlapping narrative.  There's magic in that.  It's in the listener, and for each and every ear it will be different, and it will affect them in ways they can never predict.  From the mundane to the profound.  You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone's soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose.  That tale will move them and drive them and who knows what they might do because of it, because of your words.  That is your role, your gift.  Your sister may be able to see the future, but you yourself can shape it, boy.  Do not forget that.'  He takes another sip of his wine.  'There are many kinds of magic, after all.'" pg. 505

Happy 11th Birthday, Sage

She was born with it.  It's a gift.  A talent.  Sage was born loving children.  She is not only willing to help babysit little ones, she truly loves it, and them.  She has always been drawn to those younger than she.  She is chomping at the bit to be old enough to have babysitting jobs. I love how I can always volunteer to help a neighbor with emergency babysitting needs.  I know that Sage will not only be willing, but eager to step right in and take over, which she consistently does.  I get to just love the kids and Sage gets to be surrogate mom.  When she was about 8 years old, as we talked about what to do for her birthday party, she said she wanted a separate party that she would plan and carry out all by herself for all of her much younger friends, which she did.

In addition to loving children, Sage also loves to organize.  When she is in the right mood, she will organize anything:  a closet, a drawer, her room.  Not to say that her room is never a mess - it is - but everything is relative.  A mess for her is not really very messy for a stereotypical tween from what I hear. 

She also loves to create interesting hair styles for herself complete with intricate braids, twists and buns.  She has done her own hair since the time she could hold a brush.  Her school picture from pre-school at age 4, is of Sage sporting her own style created and realized on her own.  Only on occasion, when she finds a style she wants to try that is just a little too intricate, will she ask me for help.  It really is quite impressive.

She has her own sense of fashion as well.  She is quite particular about what she thinks matches and complements.   Dave has a pair of green sweats that he almost never wears, except to races so that if he doesn't end up getting them back in his drop bag, he is not bothered.  One night several years ago, he happened to be wearing them when he went in to say good-night.  He asked if he could give her a good-night kiss.  She responded immediately and emphatically with, "Not if you're wearing those pants!"

Sage is very responsible, and teachable at school.  It just about kills her to not turn in a homework assignment.  When she has the right motivation from a caring teacher, she would move mountains to finish every task asked of her.

Sage is my buddy, my partner, my always willing companion when I visit a friend, go run an errand, or anything I need to do.  She is very very social and loves to be with people, and most of the time, I will do.  But, she sure loves time with her friends.  They are more willing to play virtual school, or city, or even virtual church.  Everything she creates, she creates big.  She and her friend made up a dance, set up our backyard for the premier, created invitations and tickets, and provided refreshments for all who attended - it was a pretty exclusive list of attendees.  That's just one example.

She has her own set of challenges and difficulties which includes the much practiced talent of annoying her sister, but Sage is a gift and a blessing to me, and most people who know her.

How to Lose 5 Pounds in One Day With No Drugs and No Exercise

Impossible, you say?  No, really.  I tried this method myself last Friday and found the claims to be completely accurate.  You just need to follow these five easy (ok, not quite easy) steps.

Step #1:  Be so weak and sick that you can barely move a muscle all day.  The one time you try to venure downstairs, you have to take a break on the top of the stairs to sit down and moan, then you whimper down each step, continuing until you finally reach your bed again and gratefully fall back into bed.

Step #2:  Throw up so many times during the 24 (ok, 32) hours that the thought of food or liquid causes your stomach to convulse and threaten to dry heave.  

Step #3:  Finally, successfully make it downstairs when the kids come home from school where they gather around you and watch hours and hours of "Bones" and "Say Yes to the Dress", while you fade in and out of coherence.  Luckily, um, or unluckily, the girls seemed to like this step.

Step #4:  Turn down a getaway with your spouse the one, and only, time they plan one from beginning to end right down to choosing and booking the hotel.  In Dave's defense, he claims to be the "Idea Man", and I'm in charge of Operations.

Step #5:  After a whole day of lying immobile, you collapse into bed at 8:30 and sleep the sleep of the dead until morning.

After the successful completion of all five steps, you wake up feeling 95% better, and voila, 5 pound weight loss!  What's the first thing I did to celebrate my accomplishment of the weight loss (and being able to stand up)?  I ate a handful of peanut M&M's.  I'm going to enjoy gaining back every ounce I lost.  Speaking of which. . . I'm hungry.

Tiger Moon by Antonia Michaelis

I loved this book! LOVED LOVED LOVED it. The writing was immensely beautiful. I won't use this space to describe the plot, I will just use it to list the quotes that melted my heart. If you could see my book, I have little napkin pieces marking my favorite pages throughout the book. It looks like my book had a cold with as many tissues and napkins sticking out of its openings.

"She was different from all the women Lalit knew. She cast her eyes down like a timid girl, but when he met her gaze for the first time, those same eyes gave him a shock. There was a glow in them, and a hissing, like drops of water falling into fire." pg. 14

"She cast her eyes down so as not to scorch her patient listener with the fire in them, and began her story." pg. 20

"He slept a refreshing, light, and dreamless sleep -- a sleep as blue as air."

"'He doesn't look at all like a hero,' said the young women, pulling their scarves over their faces when the stranger rode by. Not to protect themselves from the dust, and not to hide their beauty. Farhad knew they were hiding behind veils to preserve the illusion of beauty. The newcomer, who hadn't seen all those hooked noses and crooked teeth, could imagine them as perfect. He knew all about the tricks women played." pg. 94

"The day was blue. As blue as melancholy. A vague sadness weighed down on it, and fell on Raka's slender shoulders." pg. 156

"The first drops were joined by countless others, and, seconds later, water was cascading from the clouds as if someone had turned the ocean upside down and emptied it over the earth." pg. 171

"Farhad made himself go slowly through the water. If he tried to run, he'd scare the water, as Nitish would put it, and the talkative water would tell everyone he was running away." pg. 207

"The cows of India are sacred, but that doesn't mean that anyone feeds them. They wander city streets, live on garbage, and after a while they starve to death in a very sacred way." pg. 212

"The fire was spreading and, to the tiger's horror, it was growing. It was here, there, and everywhere. He tried to tread on it, but it bit his paw. He withdrew the paw and licked it in confusion." pg. 289-290

"Her lips were not like rose petals, not like silk and velvet, not like the tender colors of dawn over the desert, or like the breath of the evening wind.

"Her lips were as rough as her hands, rough from the desert sand.

"Lips like the storm that blinds you among the dunes, like the desert's unbearable heat, like the trunks of palm trees in the oases, like the blazing sun at noon, like the sky just before it darkens with the rain that so seldom comes.

"Raka did not withdraw.

"Lalit tasted all the colors of India in her mouth." pg. 302

"He put out the fire on his head, but the next moment he saw the fire climb down the shed. Now it began eating its way forward across the field like a greedy caterpillar." pg. 318

"'I'm not just any old tiger,' he replied. 'I'm a sacred tiger. The gods made me to run races with the wind. And you found me because it was my fate to carry you. Are you trying to tell me there's such a thing as coincidence in the world?'" pg. 357

"He took Farhad's shirt in his teeth, hauled him to his feet, and the storm attacked them again with all its might. But now they had a purpose. And even in a sandstorm, it's difficult to stop someone with a purpose." pg. 382

"Lalit and Lagan

Indian love is always taboo,
and smells of cardamom.
It tastes of chili, of spices, too.
Come, it says softly, come.

Indian love is red as rage
and deep, deep blue as sorrow.
It is not easy, it is not kind,
it may not see tomorrow.

In Indian gardens, Indian love
rustles like leaves in the wind.
And should two lovers in that grove
be both of the same mind,
the wind will have this tale to tell
of longing, grief, and death;
They loved not wisely but too well
they loved to their last breath." pg. 412

"She slipped out of Lalit's embrace like a fish." pg. 415

"As usual, everyone else was stronger than him. He had learned to serve, to obey, to avoid trouble, and no one had ever taught him to rebel. because there was no point in it, he told himself. Because rebels always lost out in the end." pg. 416

"'She is beautiful,' he whispered. 'Much more beautiful than in the picture in your amulet. But there's nothing soft and yielding about her beauty. She is wild as the desert, brave as a tiger, lonely as the sun, and timorous as the rain.'" pg. 423

"Lagan opened the door to the garden, and Raka went out into it one last time. the fragrance of the nocturnal flowers mingled with the moonlight, weaving invisible fabric to clothe her naked body." pg. 440

There are still so many more beautiful passages to quote. It is really a very well-written lovely book. It is perfect in its imperfection. This isn't a book that follows a formula to be sure.

"And so this story ends as it began.
"In chaos.
"In India." pg. 438 

I'm Sick

I'm sick.  It's not the constantly throwing-up, "I think I'm gonna die" sick, it's just the "I don't have energy to do anything" sick.  I am sitting here on my living room couch in one of the places in my house that has been unofficially dubbed "MINE" (at least by me), with Sage's blanket on my legs because of the slight chill I feel (on an 80 degree day mind you) and thinking.  I have been reading the next book in the installment of books Casey has recently recommended to me, before and after a 10:30 am nap.  Now one side of my hair is flat and lifeless, which is perfectly apropos for how I'm feeling.  It's not a bad feeling at all, it is just devoid of any emotion or feeling.  While I was reading, I was multi-tasking apparently, since I found myself simultaneously analyzing this physical sickness with the emotional sickness I felt several months ago.

With this particular illness, there is a long list of things of things that I want and need to do -- practice the piano and my voice since I have an upcoming recital, look up hotels in three different cities in Costa Rica since that's the one assignment I have been given for our upcoming trip, iron Dave's shirts and pants that are still hanging in the queue (have HIM do it you say, I actually don't mind ironing and I really like the way he looks in crisp shirts :) ), order a photo book from our last trip, organize and purge some files on my computers, and I ALWAYS need to work on our finances updating everything -- but I just don't have any energy.  My mind is very willing, but my body says "NO".  Well, it doesn't really say it like that, it mostly says, "no".  With my emotional illness (YUK, I hate saying it like that), several months ago, there was still a long list of things I could do, but neither my mind nor my body had any desire whatsoever to do any item on any list.

So, I will sit here and write for a moment, but then I will read again and lose myself in the world of Kristin Cashore and wait patiently for strength to return, AND be extremely grateful that this time I have great confidence it will return very quickly.  I have discovered that it is possible to enjoy the peace of waiting.  It's easier to enjoy it when you don't have the strength or energy to do anything else. ;) Back to "Bitterblue" . . .

No News is Good News

Enough kind people have asked about how I am doing lately to warrant an update.  No news is good news on this one.  I have written half a dozen posts in my head, but just haven't felt compelled to put pen to paper, so to speak. My other posts I felt very driven to write, even though I have had A LOT of second thoughts on posting the last one.  If I hadn't felt so compelled to write it, I most certainly wouldn't have written it, much less posted it for others to read.  I so hope it was the right thing to do. I still worry that some people might have seen it as me just exposing my weaknesses to the world in a fit of emotional throw-up.

I am doing really well.  All of the garbage (insert swear word if you'd rather - it applies) I have gone through is mostly gone.  I haven't had a panic attack for months, I'm eating just fine, actually a little better than fine -- oops, I'm sleeping about 97% of the time (when I haven't had too much evening caffeine - oops again), and I look forward to time alone again.  I have so many things I want to do, that I can't keep up.  A lot of really good things have happened as well in the last several months.  I have made new friendships, renewed, and cemented, old ones, joined a book club, added yoga to my routine, competed in three triathlons, a half marathon, started attending a Book of Mormon class (it's too basic and therefore a little frustrating, however), and I have read several books, some better than others.  I'm also singing again, and my sabbatical from my calling as ward choir director is over.

My relationship with Casey has also grown leaps and bounds.  As she gets older and matures, much faster than maybe she should, I find that we connect more and more.  She is a surprisingly deep thinker for a sixteen-year-old young woman.  It is such a pleasure having deeper and deeper discussions with her. 

The best part of the last several months is that my relationship with Dave has been refined and solidified even more than it had already in our 19 1/2 years of marriage before this crash.  I feel like we have always been close, to differing degrees over the years, but since my crash, we have been able to use it as an amazing opportunity for us to turn to each other even more intensely.  Dave is an immensely caring person who spends every day helping people.  I have admired that in him ever since I met him.  For the first time, he has needed to be my personal, on-call 24/7, therapist.  Since I HATE feeling weak and vulnerable, when I have had those, very new, feelings, often I will stuff them deep down and try to go on with my daily stuff that just needs to get done.  I try, desperately, to hide those feelings, but I am woefully unsuccessful.  Dave is very attuned to me, and can tell when I am holding something back.  Thankfully for me, he asks the right questions and genuinely wants me to tell him everything I am thinking.  He has been amazingly non-judgmental and open.  And, he is willing and eager to listen again and again as I process thoughts and emotions.  He constantly surprises me with his loving, and supportive responses.  Every woman should be so lucky.

I have experienced several spiritual tender mercies as well.  Again and again, I keep finding the phrase "Be still" and "Just wait" directed at me.  When I don't listen and try to pursue my own avenues, doors close - over and over and over again.  I think, with Dave's help (and yoga), I'm finally learning how to deep breathe, let everything go and just let happen what needs to happen.  I feel peace.  Sometimes, I can't get my head and my heart on the same page, but at least, they are reading the same book now.  I don't know how the book ends, or even what the next page holds, but I will try to just be ready and accept whatever is written there. 

Into the Darkness

About a year and a half ago, things were really good in my life.  I was training for the Boston Marathon – a life-long, amazing dream that I never thought would come true – and feeling strong.  Training was going well, I liked my job working with children, my family was doing great, and I had good friends.  As I was training for the marathon, I noticed a pain in my hip that had been building for many, many months, mostly unnoticed.  It had never really bothered me before, and I just thought of it as more of an irritation.  I had run marathons before without any hip problems.  But now this hip problem was bothering me on a regular basis.  It began to affect my running and the marathon was rapidly approaching.  I lowered my expectations for my performance in the marathon, and continued training, hoping my hip wouldn’t hamper my performance too much.

Then, two days before I was to leave for Boston, I got a call from my sister in tears saying that her husband had just taken his life.  A huge, shocking, and unexpected loss.  Even though I would miss the funeral, my sister encouraged me to go to Boston.  I planned to go up and see her as soon as I got back.  I arrived in Boston on Friday, and on Saturday night, I got a call from Dave saying that my mom was in the hospital for some random stomach pain, which we quickly dismissed. Mom was healthy as a horse.  It would take more than a stomach ache to slow her down, we insisted.  Monday morning, I ran the marathon in intense hip pain which still hasn’t gone completely away.  The plane ride home was excruciatingly painful.  I hid my tears as I poured my pain into my journal.  Perhaps my marathon days were over, maybe forever.  Another loss.   

When I got home from Boston, I repacked my bags and we all drove up to see my sister.  While we were there, I discovered that the sister with whom I had always been so, so close not only didn’t need me there, she didn’t want me there.  Our friendship had deteriorated almost completely.  Heartbreaking loss. While I was there, we heard together that my mom's stomach pain was really pancreatic cancer.  She was dying, and would possibly not last two weeks.  I raced home, and mom died a week later.  Huge, huge loss.  Mom and I had become very close in my adult life.  We had become especially close in the last six years since my dad died, also of pancreatic cancer.  She was a consistent, almost daily presence in my life and now she was gone.  Over the course of the summer as we set about dealing with my parents’ estate, I discovered that I had no real close relationships with any of my siblings.  I realized that I had no real relationship with my family.  Another loss.  When school started, I went back to work as a reading interventionist.  I loved my job working with students who struggle to read.  This year we were involved in a study through the University of Utah where we taught four struggling first graders at a time in an intensive, structured, reading program.  I arrogantly dove in head first.  However, the learning curve was extremely sharp, and I was not gaining ground.  Dave pushed me to quit the study, and quit my job if necessary, since I was struggling so mightily with this new assignment.  Another possible loss.

During the next several months, I felt myself surrounded by thick mists of darkness, an intense fog.  Sometimes, it seemed so thick I could cut it with the proverbial knife.  Everything I loved to do, I couldn’t get myself to do.  Slowly, either I pushed friends away, or they left because of life circumstance.  I used to joke to Dave that I was losing thing after thing, person after person.  Finally, this last spring, I sent out the last checks to my siblings for my mother’s estate.  It was closed.  Everything about Mom’s death was now finished.  Crash!  Loss.  Concurrently, Dave and I were both very sick, causing me to lose chunks of sleep almost nightly, for several weeks.  At the same time, it felt very much like I was losing my last, closest, friend.  Unbeknownst to me, our friendship had been changing for months.  I sensed it, yet could never put my finger on what was happening.  Suddenly, it became clear that the friendship as I understood it was forever changed.  Crash!  Another loss.  

I felt completely alone outside of Dave and my kids.  And, I became terrified I was going to lose one of them next.  So much of what had happened in the last year was sudden, shocking, and beyond my control.  I felt so completely powerless. I began to have panic attacks.  I had NEVER experienced a panic attack, and certainly never expected to in this life.  I am not a worrier by nature, nor am I a fearful person AT ALL.  I run and bike by myself in the very early hours with no concern.  I travel by myself to meet friends or family, and I have no second thoughts.  But here I was having panic attacks.  It was this indescribable, helpless feeling where my heart felt like it was in a vise.  Also, irrationally, I felt like if I could just throw up the horrible pit in my stomach I would feel better.  I hadn't been sleeping because of my illness, and that continued along with difficulty eating.  The crashes meant waking up from my fog, which meant that I had to feel the intense grief of all of the losses of the last year.  It was like waking up from a numb nightmare into a waking one. I wasn’t in only darkness this time, but a crushing blackness.  When Dave would come home from work, I would, at times, collapse in his willing arms and sob. In a way that I could never have predicted, I felt weak, vulnerable, betrayed by my body, and left alone to process this grief.  Anyone who knows me will know how much I HATED feeling this way. 

I had never felt anything like this before and I was clueless as to how to proceed.  I was already doing what I thought I should be doing, all of the "church" answers:  read & study the scriptures – check, go to the temple regularly – check, pray mightily – double and triple check.  It’s a different prayer when you start “Father in Heaven” or “Heavenly Father”, and instead begin with “My God, My God, why hast though forsaken me” or, as my good friend told me, “Dad!  Help me!”  So, what now?  

First of all, in desperation, I realized I couldn’t be an independent hermit anymore. I found I had to reach out to someone, anyone.  In tears, I reached out to some of my friends that I had pushed away, and one that had pushed me away.  By reaching out, I realized two things: 1) that one good friend that felt pushed away, and was just waiting for me to reach out to her again; she has become one of the main sources of my strength and support. And 2) that another one of my good friends was in the same pit of despair as I was; I just couldn’t see or feel her because of the darkness.  We have been traveling through this journey together ever since, drawing strength from one another, “bearing each other’s burden” sometimes on a daily basis.  I also found a great new friend that said she had been wanting to reach out to me for the last few years, but wasn't sure how to go about it.  By sharing my pain, I also have been able to start reconnecting with my sister.  She and I were both very surprised to find that even though circumstances are very different for each of us, the similarities we have found have been striking.  I'm not sure we could have started the process of finding each other again if we didn't share such a painful bond.  Also, one day at work, my lack of food and sleep had caught up to me at last.  I realized if I didn't get home very soon, I was going to pass out.  One look at my supervisor told her all she needed to know, and I raced home as quickly as I could.  Luckily, I work right by my home, so I made it home just in time.  Thank goodness I didn't pass out on the sidewalk. ;)  Once I returned to work the next day, my supervisor, and friend, and another friend asked what was going on.  I finally broke down and told them what I was experiencing.  My friend told me that she experienced the same thing after her father died:  numb for a year, a crash, then overwhelming grief.  It was such a relief to hear that others had gone through a similar pattern of grief.

As I have shared my experience with these few close friends, and on a limited basis, in a Relief Society lesson, what I have discovered is that we all struggle.  We all suffer, in our own way.  Many people have come to me to tell me that they too have experienced, not my same story, but the same feelings that I have.  I have been able to relate, in a way I would never have been able to before, to feelings of intense, shocking loneliness (even in a crowd of people, or with my beautiful family), grief and loss, jealousy, to having an acute hit on my faith that I thought was rock solid. It seems that each of us have had our faith attacked at our very core, in a place none of us knew existed.  I got to experience a tiny, tiny taste of the unifying phrase, “I know what you are feeling” and “I’ve felt that exact same way myself.”  

I found myself trying to figure out what to "DO" to make these feelings go away.  I felt like I was in the middle of a "PBS Sherlock" episode.  All I needed to do was figure out what I needed to learn, or do, or understand, and the pain would go away.  End of episode, return to strength.  Hooray!  Test completed.  Much to my great dismay, other than making some changes, time seems to be the only answer to the frightening, frustrating, puzzle.

So, what has helped?  A consistent emotional connection to and from my friends, exercise - biking seems to be especially helpful, Dave's ever-willing supportive and understanding ear, and his uncanny ability to put into words what I am feeling, a slew of Ensign articles - past conference edition and monthly editions, and constant prayer.  I can say that I know I couldn’t have gotten through the most difficult times without the help of the Lord.  There were days when I would pray fervently that I could not get through THIS day without His help.  Each time, there would be just enough of the feeling of the spirit to help remind me that He was there.  He wasn’t going to take it away from me, because even though I have begged and begged, I’m guessing He knows that it is important for me to figure this out, mostly on my own.

How am I doing?  Thank you for asking. ;) I still mourn the loss of the relationships that have been damaged.  I still miss my mother (even though sometimes she drove me crazy and I probably did the same to her, let's be honest).  However, I think I'm finally improving.  I haven't had a soul-wrenching cry for almost a whole week.  Success.  Although I have had times where I have been good for days and days before regressing and have a really, really bad day.  Two steps forward, one, two, or three steps back.  A week is good, and I feel optimistic about the near future.  That doesn't mean I'm out of the woods.  That means the low-level gut ache is bearable.  I'm learning how to push through the pain.  I can even forget about it at times.  I have faith that when (and I do believe it is "when") I climb fully out of this pit and back up on solid ground, I will be stronger, wiser, more compassionate, kinder, more understanding, and ultimately more Christlike than I was before I fell off the cliff.  The hard part is, when I'm running a marathon, I always know when it will end: 26.2.  I know if I can just get there, 26.2 means release -- emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually.  This particular marathon has an end, I believe it does, but I don't know where it is, and I don't know which mile I'm currently running.  Here's hoping I just passed the 24th mile marker, and it's all downhill from here.  I just keep envisioning the finish line and hoping it will end like all of my marathons end, with me in the arms of a good, loving friend, weeping in relief.

I do have faith, I do believe.