Every morning in our house, a minor miracle takes place: I get out the door to work on time. Between sleeping in until the last possible moment, getting in a workout, preparing and eating a worthwhile breakfast that will keep me from getting hungry at 9:30, finding clean, "usually" wrinkle-free clothes, and packing up a lunch, mornings are a blur. I am so completely dependent upon my amazing husband who takes care of the dogs, gets the coffee going, usually ends up making breakfast, finds my keys, finds my shoes, and finds my brain. I can't even begin to imagine how we will survive once children enter the equation. But that's a topic for another day...
That's why Reality Row is displayed where it is. I usually have time for about 90 seconds in front of my mirror in the morning. And so I can't help but start my day with a glance at the photos, which give me lots to think and pray about during my 20-minute drive to work.
You can see that my dresser-top is also full of special things. The picture of my newest goddaughter, whom I've only met and held once, but whom I love with all my heart. The bottle from the wine we drank on the night we got engaged (NOT the whole bottle, thank you) and the gold-plated rose Tim gave me for our "one-year-until-we-get-married" day, to help break up what felt like an eternal engagement. A 4-picture frame that contains one shot from each year of high school, packed with crazy memories. Hiding in the foreground along the front edge, you should know, is my Charles Woodson jersey - VERY special. And then all the typical girl-dresser crap: lotions and potions and jewelry and candles and a little of this and a lot of that.
I thought about cleaning the dresser up before taking a picture, posting it online, and thereby immortalizing my slovenly tendencies. But first of all, that would have been very dishonest. Secondly, and more importantly, I kind of like how the insanity of the dresser-top, set up against the clean, focused backdrop of my mirror and my Reality Row, leads into my point... which I am getting to... I promise... Life just gets crazy! We all know it, we've all experienced it to some degree. So here is what I think about when I finish getting ready, take a glance in the mirror, and am reminded what life is truly about:
(from the PICTURES, not from looking at my face)
Far right: my family on my wedding day. This picture makes me grateful for SO many things. First of all, the fact that I HAD a wedding day, which brought me together forever with the awesomest person I know. Who happens to be washing the dishes right now, voluntarily, so that I can sit here and blab on the computer. See? Awesome. Then I look at my parents, who have given me so much: the gift of faith through baptism. A full Christian education. Independence and responsibility at FOURTEEN years old to go away to school. Support, unconditional love, a couple of cars, most of my favorite recipes, access to Packers Season Tickets... let's just stop there. We all know that's the best part. If I can be half as amazing a parent as they have been to me, my child will be incredibly blessed. Then I look at my brothers, and the first thing I do is laugh, which also makes me grateful. I have so many different types of relationships with classmates, work friends, church members, patients, relatives... but my relationship with those two weirdos just brings a smile to my face. It's not a very serious relationship... maybe someday it will be, but for now, it's mostly about goofing around, cracking jokes, picking on Mom, and playing games. It's so incredibly refreshing. Finally, I look at the picture as a whole, and see FAMILY, which my mind takes a few steps farther to include my fabulous grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins, and all of the NEW family I gained on this wedding day. My new parents and sister and brother and nephew, without whom my life would now have a giant void. There is SO MUCH to be grateful for in this picture. There is so much to aspire toward in this picture. There is a LOT of food for thought in this picture!
Middle: with Tim and some friends in Mexico in November 2009. As much as I DEARLY love the friends we took this trip with, they are not what I see first when I look at the picture (sorry, ladies). The first thing I can't HELP but see is the person hogging the front and center position: myself, 2 years and 60 pounds ago. And Tim, about 40 pounds ago. I think about how much more we both could have enjoyed that trip if we'd been more in shape and generally happier people. And I thank God that He has given us the strength to work through our issues, and helped us to find joy in exercise and decent food. It doesn't feel like "work" anymore. Well, it does at 5:30 in the morning when it's dark and cold and I just want to sleep. But 2 years ago, that moment would have been the make-or-break-it decision point for the whole day. NOW, should I choose to sleep in, I've developed the discipline and, more importantly, the DESIRE to fix that choice later on in the day with a lunchtime or after-work workout. No more excuses. I've been through this "phase" many times in my life, but for once it doesn't feel like it's a phase. Instead of a crash-course, it's been two solid years of good choices, slow progress, and lifestyle changes, shaping our routine into something we enjoy and value tremendously. And that is SO important, with children coming onto the scene in the near future. God sure knows what He's doing. It took over a year for me to move through the many stages that come between "ugh, I hate this" and "this is an irreplaceable part of my life." Had He blessed us with children somewhere in between, I might have let it go a lot more easily. Every extra day He gives me to work on just MYSELF, my health, my ambition, my happiness... is a GIFT. Not just to me, not just to Tim, but ultimately to the children we will raise.
Far left: a Christmas card from 2006. I'm going to make a long story short, because it's really not my story to tell. It's a story of unimaginable pain and loss, but I have learned SO much from it. I hope "learned" is an okay word. It makes me uncomfortable to reference ANY kind of goodness that has come to me out of the situation, because it comes at great cost to someone I love very much. The gorgeous couple in the picture were engaged in September of 2006. At the time I hardly knew her: we had been co-workers for a month, and I'd only met him twice before he was deployed to Iraq. I can't say I "loved" either one of them yet, because I hardly knew them, but I "loved" them as a couple. I could see that they were so blissfully happy together. They drove each other to be better, stronger people. They were absolutely meant to be. On December 18, 2006, he gave his life for his country. I found out at about 2:00 when I came back to work from lunch. When I got home at 7:15, a complete wreck, this Christmas card was sitting on the table. It absolutely did me in; I think I went straight to bed. A month later, when I started throwing out the year's Christmas cards as I always do, I couldn't bring myself to get rid of this one. It felt irreverent. So I kept it. At first it was tucked away in a drawer, because it still brought bitter tears. She was just coming back to work, and the emotions were still so raw in all of us. Then, a couple months later, I moved it out into the open, on a window ledge at home. I could occasionally look at it without crying. She and I were getting closer, which was natural. We worked together in close quarters 40 hours a week. I tried to talk about him, to help her heal. I tried to talk about anything BUT him, to help distract her. I probably did and said all the wrong things, but she could tell that I cared, and so she leaned on me and trusted me. And MOST incredibly, she let me lean on her. This tragedy she had been through was not her first, and it would not be the last. Even then, in the midst of losing a fiancee, her family was working through cancer treatment and a million other awful things. But through it all, she was a friend TO ME, holding up her end of the two-way street, offering support for all the little boo-boo's life brought me five years ago, so trivial I can't even remember what they could possibly have been. Today, her friendship is priceless to me. And when I look at the picture, no longer hidden in a drawer but a permanent part of Reality Row, I am reminded to be grateful every second of every day for all the blessings I have been given. They can be taken away so quickly.
After the frenzy of getting myself out the door, and before the frenzy of arriving at work to a waiting room full of patients and three ringing phone lines... on the days I don't call my mom with a random question, or call Tim with the dinner instructions I forgot to give him, these are the things I think about from 8:40-9:00 every morning.
I know many of you have pictures on your dresser mirrors, too, of people you love and places you've been. Or maybe things you want to achieve, travels you want to take, people you want to be like. I hope these pictures, ticket stubs, and precious memorabilia keep you grounded, bring you peace, and make you grateful.
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