I Didn't Get Answers

...but maybe something else I needed.

The last few weeks of this month went out in a blaze of humidity and sunshine. I’ve spent them inside reading fiction and only venturing out to water my plants before the sun fully rises or after she sets. My phone tells me—with humidity—the temperature “feels like” 100°. I believe it. The air is so thick outside you could spread it on toast. I made a sheet pan of roasted vegetables for dinner last night. It was a terrible idea to crank the oven up to 425°. Oh well. It was delicious (even if I had to sit with an ice pack on my chest on the couch to cool down afterwards). 

I write a lot about being in the moment. I think because it’s one of the things I struggle the most to do. My brain’s default setting is hardly ever “here”. I can be physically in the room, but mentally in the past; trying to figure out the etymology of the word ‘undulating’, wondering about the future or thinking what daily life looks like for a Japanese middle-schooler on the other half of the world. Being “here” takes discipline. And so I write. 

And I also walk my dog. I’ve shared about it before, but I think having a dog does exceptional things for your writing. As a writer, I tend to be in my head—which is great for writing. It can also be crippling if all I’m doing is staying in my head. Getting up from my desk to be outside and move my body helps me come back home to myself when my brain has taken flight. More often than not I’ll return to my desk with words I picked up while choosing to be present and accounted for in the life I’m living. 

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Clobbered

My periods are getting worse. Living with PMDD¹ means my periods are always worse than “typical” ones. But now my periods are worse-er. I met with my doctor about it last week. She referred me to a specialist and a functional med doctor. The specialist can’t see me until August. The functional med doctor isn’t taking any new patients until September. I’m in a health limbo until then. No real answers or plans. Just trying a bunch of things to manage the symptoms as they arise and feeling completely depleted. 

I recently realized I try to live as though I don’t have a debilitating chronic illness. It’s one of those “if I act like it’s not that bad, maybe I can forget it exists” situations. And to be fair, I had gotten management of my PMDD down to a solid system to where it only derailed me for 1-2 days a month instead of two weeks a month. But that’s the thing about chronic illnesses: they can sneak up and clobber you in the head even when you’re trying to ignore them. Suddenly you’re laying on the floor wondering why what used to work isn’t working anymore. You have to start paying attention to things you thought you could ignore. There’s a lesson in there somewhere and a weary woman behind-the-scenes trying to learn it. 

Silly

I’ve been feeling a bit constrained by my public work lately. I have my Tolkien work². I have the work I do here. I have audiences I’m very grateful for in both spaces. But woe to me if I deviate from said Tolkien work or the way I’m apparently perceived here (poetic, peaceful, Christian wife/mom, Tolkien nerd). I write something that doesn’t fall neatly into those labels and people get their feathers ruffled and come flapping into my comment sections and DMs. 

I’m disappointed in you. 

You’re wrong and let me explain why. 

I’m horrified that you wouldn’t agree with the same political leanings I have. 

It’s a strange thing to gain a following for your writing when you’re in your 20s, have barely explored your belief system on your own, desperately need therapy, and have undiagnosed side effects from childhood trauma. And then, move into your late 30s and go to therapy and deconstruct toxic teaching you grew up with and shift show up as a writer. Some people aren’t ready to shift with you. 

I’m repeatedly being chided for stepping outside of the box people—who don’t actually know me—have mentally put me in. Admittedly, I can’t say I’ve never felt disappointed by someone’s work I engage with online. I understand what these people may be feeling. “I thought this person agreed with me on these things but they see this from a perspective I don’t align with. I don’t know what to do when someone whose work I like says something that I don’t”  

I get it. It’s uncomfortable. And, in the past, if things have gotten too uncomfortable, I’ve just stopped engaging with their work. Everyone should have the right to do the same. But you know what’s impacted me the most? The times I’ve chosen to stay, to listen, to ask gentle questions, to try to assume good intent. Even if I still disagree with that person on certain points, I end up seeing the person behind the points they make; I see the image-bearer and learn that—even when we disagree—I can still treat them with dignity and they can probably teach me something I wouldn’t learn otherwise.

I talked last week about where we live is thrumming with growth and the silly ways we try to contain nature³. Sometimes I think we try silly things to contain people too. 

The Unspoken Rule

The past few days have been oppressively hot and humid. One of the primary tools I have to cope with the mental and physical tolls of PMDD is to get outside for hours with my dog. Lately, it’s been unsafe (for both of us) to do that. 

Not being able to use one of my most effective “tools” combined with sleepless nights and ongoing health issues, has left me tracing the edge of hopelessness. I just want some answers and cooler days. 

And then last night happened. 

I was working in my office while Jonathan put the kids to bed. My youngest came bouncing in and I reminded her she needed to go to her room. While leaving the office she peaked out the window, “Oooh, mom!” Her newly eight-year-old voice floated across the room. “Come and see the sunset!”

Our family has this unspoken rule: if one member spots a pretty sunset we all have to come and see it too. No matter where we are in the house or what we’re doing, we come to the window with the Sunset Spotter and bear witness to the beauty with them. It’s not as formal as all that made it sound, but you get the idea. One of us shouts, “Come see this!” and the rest of us (sometimes with overdone protesting) get up to enjoy the sun going down together. It’s always worth it. Last night was no different. 

There was nothing to do but stop the bedtime routine and run outside. 

The hazy blue sky had given leeway to a thin sheer of pink and peach clouds. It looked like the aurora borealis had come to visit us in the daytime. The trees silhouetted into the smooth horizon and the breeze—the blessed, very missed!—sighed through their branches and cradled us in her cool palms. 

I didn’t get answers and the weather forecast doesn’t appear to be anything but blazing for the next few days. What I did get was a small reprieve and the reminder that you can hold questions and hopelessness and still bear witness to beauty at the same time. 

Maybe I don’t need the strength to figure it all out right now. Maybe I just need to ask for the strength to be present for this. For all of this.

1. If you want an insider look at what living with PMDD is like, read this.

2. Getting to write essays and do deep dives on Tolkien’s work over there is such a joy for me.

3. From last week’s post.