Life, the Universe and Everything

Life (or the time I complain):

My brain is buzzing a little. It was a busy day and I am tired due to:

• lack of sleep (friend came over to spend the night last night)
• day 9 of husband's 11 day business trip
• a 6 year old in the midst of pure, unadulterated six-ness
• end of the year "can I make it 12 more days until school is out" blahs.
• I need to go to the chiropractor but they don't have an available appointment until the 19th. By then, I won't need the crack-your-back man because I will have beaten my head against the wall so much I will no longer be feeling that pain.
• Although I've had the joy of visiting with a friend in from out of state and had another friend come over to spend the night, I am still starved for adult conversation.

Are you feeling sorry for me yet? Don't 'cause this is just Life. It could be worse.

The Universe. . .

. . . is going you-know-where in a you-know-what.

Primetime ran a special on the foster care system and the statistics are staggering and heartbreaking. I've been having some first-hand experience (well, tangential first-hand experience) with our local foster care system in the last few months and it is staggering and heartbreaking so I know they are not exaggerating.

I saw a documentary by a woman about her mother's battle with paranoid schizophrenia. It was utterly fascinating and, you guessed it, staggering and heartbreaking. After years and years, at the end, Millie was able to be in a stable home environment and have a job for the first time in years. Through home movies you saw how beautiful she once was. She is still a striking woman but the savage disease has left its toll on her.

Millie's daughters traveled through the journey of being terrified of their mother. . . to forgiving her and learning to understand her disease. . . to being fierce advocates for her in their quest to secure consistent medical treatment and a safe living situation for her. There are so many people who struggle with schizophrenia in one form or another and the impact on their entire families is enormous.

I read The Kite Runner this week. It is an excellent story and it did so much, through the telling of a very personal story, to open my eyes to the history and plight of the Afghan people and to appreciate this culture that is so foreign to me. I will listen with different ears to stories about the Middle East.

Less than two weeks ago, one family's joy was made complete when they found out the daughter they thought they buried was alive. That news, though, meant that the family who thought their daughter was improving from a horrible accident was actually dead.

A dear, dear friend called me today to tell me she needed to have some tests run. Because she had breast cancer around 10 years ago, there is no such thing as a routine test for her. We talked about all the thoughts that go through your head, how do you be prepared for the worst without panicking, laughed at some of the concerns that crossed her mind. You are never "cured" of breast cancer. 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 years and more may pass before it sneaks back up on you and shows up in your liver, brain, spine.

Global warming may or may not be a real threat to the environment depending on who you believe. Al Gore may or may not have said that it is okay to lie about the facts to get the result you desire. With a strong degree of certainty, US forces did indeed strike and succeed in killing Al-Zarqawi. A major earthquake in Indonesia with a fair number of deaths seems to have passed with very little notice.

Somewhere today, another case of molestation was discovered. Another family shattered by the evil hidden in their family.

Everything

What's left?

I write tonight to get out some of the things ruminating around this creaky old brain of mine.

I write because, while I have friends and family too numerous to count who care about me, I'm stuck at home while my big kid watches tv and my little one is asleep in her sleeping bag on my bedroom floor. So, though I have all the love and support in the world, I'm a little lonely here tonight.

I write and I realize how blessed and fortunate that the problems filed under Life above are minuscule when compared to the problems filed under The Universe above.

I am grateful for my husband, thousands of miles away who takes pictures with his camera phone of the "Mary, Queen of the Universe Shrine" because, you know, I am Mary, Queen of His Universe.

I am grateful that my daughter is sleeping peacefully in the next room.

I am grateful that my son wants to show me clips of shows that he has recorded on the DVR. He wants to share such silliness with his mom.

Finally, I don't make a big deal of it, but my faith in God is the absolute foundation of my life. My worldview is completely informed by my belief in God. So, when I complain about my life, despair at the state of the universe and go on and on about everything, it is with an underlying certainty that God is the creator of life, the universe and everything. I believe he knows what he is doing, that I cannot possibly grasp all that he is doing and that there will come a time when all will be explained.


Note: It is customary in the blogosphere to create links to books, news items, places, etc. Tonight, however, I am just WAY TOO TIRED to go through that work. I apologize for the complete lack of linkiness in tonight's post. I'll try to do better next time.