I am sick. My chest hurts, my throat is raw, my lungs feel tight, my body aches, I'm exhausted and I have a fever. So that's me right now.
CD10 it is, making this weekend the "big" weekend. J is sick too, with something else, so it may not be the most romantic baby-making effort ever. You know, sex with masks on so germs don't get spread around and the occasional break to hack out a piece of lung. Sexy.
I had quite the lovely weekend. It reminds me of the Jason Mraz/Colbie Callait song "Lucky" which says, "I'm lucky I'm in love with my best friend, Lucky to have been where I have been, Lucky to be coming home again, Lucky we're in love in every way, Lucky to have stayed where I have stayed, Lucky to be coming home someday."
So my brother and I decided to take a road trip. I'd been wanting to go to Virginia for a while, and he had some vacation time he needed to use up, so we decided to match up those objectives. We left Friday under blue sky and tons of sunshine and had an awesome drive. We took turns choosing songs to listen to, so there was great music the whole way, and we laughed our tails off at ridiculous stuff (like Big Muskie Bucket - an actual place in Southern Ohio), and got lost in Charlottesville looking for what we now believe are fictional restaurants, and then waited in our friend's driveway for 30 minutes laughing some more at how ridiculous we were for not going in. And he got scared of an axe murderer that I casually mentioned. And it was great.
These friends of ours are an amazing family - single mom, five great kids. I want to know the secret to raising up kids that are so happy and love each other so much. I know they're not perfect, but they're really something anyway. They just shine. All 6 of them.
It was funny, because this friend of mine knew me best about 7 years ago, back when I was a mess, in love with my own darkness, and so needy. She was a saint with me. When I was there this weekend, she said that I seem so blissfully happy now and I realize I really am. There is a raincloud on the horizon - a fairly substantial one - but for the most part, I am completely happy. I am secure in my marriage and my faith and my friendships. There has been an incredible outpouring of grace and mercy in my life. But I've also worked hard to get here, and I'm sort of proud of it.
It's funny realizing how far away some things are. I'm not going to get into any of it here, because in this case it's not important to understand the history to understand the present. But this weekend was the 7-year anniversary of a particularly devastating and particularly pivotal event in my life. It was the culmination of everything I had become and the trigger that launched the change. It was the best thing that could have happened to me, in a way, because it broke everything in my life that was breakable. And everything was swept away. And I have been rebuilt. And it's cool.
I also didn't know, really, how much I love Orthodoxy. I'm not, in a general sense, impressed with Christians. I'm a bit afraid of being "that Christian" who doesn't shut up about her faith and puts people off, etc. I don't really talk about it (my faith) much. My friends know I'm Orthodox, they know I fast, etc, etc, but it's not something we discuss. We agree on the basics - about what's important in life - and our friendship stems from that. But this weekend, I found myself talking about it. A lot. Sometimes I worried that I talked about it too much. But it was interesting because I had to put into words things I've been thinking about and learning, but had never really had the need or opportunity to articulate before. And I realized in doing so how rich and robust the Orthodox take on Christianity is and how much I love it. So there's that.
I'm on day 3 of the fast, and it's going well. This week we're still allowed dairy products, so it's easier. I'm not looking forward to the next 6(?) weeks with no meat or dairy. My goal is to totally forego meat with maybe two exceptions per week and forego dairy with one exception per day. I'm excited though, because I remember how much Pascha meant last year when I had fasted before it.
Ummmmm.
Lots to think on. What a good weekend.
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