Can't Keep a Good Man Down

I'm happy to report that Ben has made it through the surgery. We were up before 5 this morning and we finally made it home around 1:30 pm. The actual surgery was between 7:45 and 10:45, during which I drove from Burbank to Pasadena so I could get groceries, walk the dog, and attend the weekly training at my practicum site. Oh, and write a paper that was due today.

Welcome to my coping mechanisms: denial and distraction.

Seriously, though, Ben's doing really well. The worst bit so far is his sleepiness. Which really, is neither "worst" or "bit" - he' slept most of the day and who wouldn't want that?! His pain is being thoroughly managed through a pain pump implanted in his shoulder that gives him a constant supply of morphine. Then he has this nifty electric cooler/water system that constantly circulates cold water through a compress strapped around his shoulder. He'll use these two gadgets for the next few days until he goes back to see his doctor on Monday, at which time the pain pump will be removed and ... well, I don't know what else.

I'm not going to lie - I've been a bit nervous about this whole "surgery and out of commission for six weeks" plan. Here's the thing - I'm a pretty independent person. And I proudly and stubbornly held onto that identity when I got married...which wasn't the best move on my part. (I.E. Having an attitude of, "Back off, bucko, I can handle this on my own," isn't too conducive for a relationship.) So, I've been learning to rely on Ben more, much to my chagrin. Because look how that's worked out for me: now I panic at the thought of not having his help in our day to day lives. You mean I have to walk Mia every morning when she wakes up at 6:30?! And I have to unload all the groceries by myself?! And when I have 30 papers to grade and 2 of my own to write tonight before my prayer group comes over, I also have to sweep the house and put away the dishes? Wow. Life all of a sudden got much more overwhelming.

But at least he's okay and this isn't a forever plan. And that's a good thing. Because I am SO not cut out to be a nurse.

On a more serious note...

Church was very thought provoking today and reminded me of a conversation that I had with a friend from back home a few weeks ago. Her Bible study group had just started reading Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell and she was telling me what she thought of it so far. After listening for a few minutes, it became apparent that we were of two very different minds about the book and I realized, once again, just how much I've changed since coming to Fuller two years ago. Our conversation soon focused on the topic of the emerging church and I did a poor job of explaining just what I thought about it all, tripping and stumbling over my words. I'm the first to admit that theology is not my strong point and that much of what I hear in class goes over my head (but B's get degrees, right?!). Yet, at the same time, even if I can't fully explain the transformation that has taken place in my mind and heart, I also can't deny the fact that it somehow feels true and right. Amazing debating skills, I know.

My friend had really good questions that challenged me, questions that I don't have any answers to. But I think that's part of my process - being okay with not knowing. Through Bell's book and others (Blue Like Jazz, Inside Out, and anything by Anne Lamott), I'm struck, again and again, with the realization of God's grace. As someone who has felt guilty for one thing or another pretty much every day of her life, I cannot tell you how freeing this is. And that's what I was reminded of again at church today as we started a series on Galatians. It's about Jesus. Period. Jesus plus nothing. I've spent a lot of years adding things to Jesus, a lot of years with a legalistic mindset and a huge list of what I have to do in order to be a good Christian. And I'm tired. I'm tired of always falling short and heaping guilt and shame upon myself that God never meant for me to experience. I'm ready to see myself as a child of God and really believe it. And rest in it.

And because this blog is way more serious than my normal ones, I better go ahead and share the rest of my heavy heart, or at least the pieces of it that are left over from it being broken again and again as of late. Ever since Cambodia, God's opened my eyes up to a lot of suffering. I'm finding opportunity after opportunity to learn more about injustice, whether it be child soldiers, trafficking, homosexuality, or through the stories of my clients. I feel like everywhere I turn God is prompting me. I just don't know what He's prompting me to do. Do I get involved with this organization or that? Do I focus my trauma research on sexual trauma or AIDS in Africa? Do I take further classes in SIS to learn more about international needs or do I focus locally? All I know for sure is that I'm supposed to do something that I never thought I'd even consider before. And it's rocking my world.

After this recent two-week intensive, I'm overwhelmed - physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I didn't realize how much until I went to a play last night called Butterflies of Uganda, which depicted a true story of a girl-child soldier. I was so raw from everything leading up to that night that it didn't take long for the tears to start falling. And they kept coming. It was as though I could no longer keep it all in - all my questions of direction, of pain, and of theodicy. We talk a lot about containment in therapy - how we help hold our clients pain and suffering. When we do that, we take on that suffering, too. And as I'm learning to do that for my clients and as I'm exposed to more and more themes of justice, I'm finding that it's hard to hold it all. I can't do it alone. Community helps. So does creativity and exercise. And apparently becoming a blubbering mess at a theater helps, too. Fair warning to those who sit next to me.

Almost Accidental Carjacking

Dear Sir,
Please accept my apologies for scaring the bejesus out of you when I mistook you for my husband. See, I had just finished therapy after a long ten-hour day, and if you know anything about this therapy business, you know I was a bit discombobulated. So, when I saw your Pilot out of the corner of my eye while walking home tonight, I thought, "Surely that's not Ben - he couldn't have finished laundry that quick!" But then I heard you honk and thought I had underestimated my husband's ability to speed launder. Now I realize that honk was a "Please move out of my driveway" honk, not a "Hey, it's me - get in" honk that I mistook it for. So, really, you can hardly blame me when I walked around to the passenger side door and tried to open it. Now, you might have reason to blame when I tried to open the door a second time, after you had locked it and moved the car forward a few feet. But you can just blame my husband for that one, too - he's always pulling that crap on me. Anyway, I hope you noticed that I at least had the decency to blush when I realized you were, indeed, not my husband, and how quickly I backed away from the car after that.
In closing, I hope you agree that all's well that ends well and hold no offense.
Sincerely,
Robin Blair
PS If you stop honking at strangers you might be able to avoid this situation in the future.

I'm officially That Girl.

The one who dresses up her animals. This is Mia's Halloween costume - can't you just FEEL her excitement?!

Ben found a camera on the side of the street a few weeks ago and when no one responded to the sign we posted, we decided it was a gift from God and have been having fun with it ever since. It's amazing - quick like lightening! And it's a Cannon Elph, so I'm still loyal to my brand. Ben has claimed it since the Rebel is mine, but...we'll see who ends up taking more pictures with it. Here's what we took while playing with it tonight. Ben got tired of playing way before I did.

























Smoochable Dexter & Ladybug Mia




Bad-Mood Husband

High/Low

High: Finishing the first week of a two-week intensive that has made life slightly hellish. Making new friends in said class, including one with an adorable Southern accent that reminds me of how I used to think I was going to marry a cowboy some day.


Low: One more hard week ahead of hard topics like sex trafficking, child soldiers, and street kids.


High: Farring a lot better at football today - just a jammed finger. And witnessing, quite possibly, the funniest play ever. Long story short, it involved an illegal (but totally understandable) forward pass that had me rolling on the ground in giggles and thinking back to a junior high PE class in which I ran the wrong way while playing flag football. Hey - next time you have a bunch of hormonal preteens running straight at you, see what your instinct is. That's what I thought.

Low: As a whole, our team sucking air. We simply could not get our act together and now have a record of 1-1. Oh well - there's always next week.

High: Art Night. We didn't exactly see any art this go-around, but did enjoy digging through the library's book sale and listening to fantastic jazz. I'm not cool enough to be really into art, anyway, so the fact that the evening centered on two of my favorite things, books and music, made me want to skip. But the boots I had on were definitely not skip-friendly.

Low: Waiting for over an hour at a hot sushi place for dinner prior to Art Night. We ended up skipping out so we could catch some of the attractions of the evening and finally ate around 10:30 at Rubio's. Glamorous, no?


High: Playing darts in the back room of the jazz club.




Low: Realizing I'm equally as talented at using both my right and left hand when throwing darts, which is to say, not at all. Here's my favorite shot of the night:




High: Listening to George Strait's greatest hits while baking pumpkin bread and doing dishes today. There's just something about country music from the 80's that makes me smile.

Low: Listening to country music from the 80's also makes me long for a house with lots of land, animals, and books in a library equipped with a rolling ladder. And that's not going to happen for awhile. And sometimes I feel like I can't take one more minute of life in LA, but I need to be able to take a lot more minutes of this chaos.

High: Oktoberfest at the Miller's tonight. Good food, good spirits, apple bobbing, pumpkin carving, and taboo. Sometimes I really, really love this life in LA. I've got a feeling it has nothing to do with the city, and everything to do with the people who are in it.

I think I'm old.

And it has nothing to do with the recent birthday. I spent all last week falling asleep with an ice pack on my left quad. And I've been in bed all day today with a heating pad on my neck. I think I have whiplash. Or at least, I'm experiencing what I think whiplash would feel like.

I knew yesterday that today was going to be bad, since even coming home from the game I felt discomfort in carrying on a conversation with Nathan, whom was sitting to my right, requiring a turn of the head to provide proper eye contact and other friendly non-verbals. Then as the day wore on and I found myself making a side dish for the quarterly dinner with my advisor, I thought to myself, "This is not good." [The neck, not the dish, mind you.] At said quarterly dinner I experienced the normal slow and painful death of interacting with socially awkward individuals and listening to repeated stories, I thought to myself, "This night is worse than usual and I think I'm done." So, I made an early exit and got home in time to see the ending of a pretty intense game of darts amongst a fog of cigar smoke before I passed out on the couch out of sheer exhaustion. I woke an half an hour later so we could meet up with friends at Margarita Joe's or Rose or something and found that I should ALWAYS go to this Margarita mecca after game days because by the time we left, I was feeling no pain.

And then I woke up this morning.

Where's the love?

That's all I'm asking.


Football and sports in general are on my mind right now. Children at risk should be on my mind, since I need to write a paper for class on Monday. But I need to get pigskins and pendants out of my system before I can focus on trafficking and labor laws. And why is it in my system? A few reasons: today we had the first official flag football game (I may or may not have a concussion - another blog for another day), my television is locked in on college football all day today as it is every Saturday, and I just read Adam #2's blog.


From conversations I've had with other sports fans, I realize that the hatred Adam speaks of is not uncommon. But I just don't get it. How can one hate an entire TEAM? A team made up of people that change every year, people whom you've most likely never met. It just doesn't make sense to me. So I decided to use my best therapeutic skills and get to the root of all this madness. I know Ben's favorite team to hate is Notre Dame, but I wasn't sure why until I asked him 5 minutes ago. And after refusing to speak to me because he hates being blogged about, he finally opened up the floodgates and in a matter of seconds was spewing: because they "always get all the breaks and get to have a tv contract even when they're crap like now. They haven't won a single game yet! And they don't have to play in a conference, so their schedule is easier and..." He went on and on. And on. I stopped listening after awhile.


I guess I got an answer. But I'm still confused - why does all that matter? I think I have to really love a team in order to really hate another. That must be the secret. And even though I married into a family of Nebraska freaks, I'm still just a fair weather fan. So the fact that Notre Dame "gets all the breaks" really doesn't hurt my feelings. And I'm okay with that.