Begin Again Part 2

Begin Again: The Brave Practice of Releasing Hurt and Receiving Rest by Leeana Tankersley
Read: 4/7/18-4/24/18

Last week I started to tell how I found this book, and about my grief with my mother in the late stages of dementia.

I left off with listening to The Next Right Thing podcast, the episode Be a Beginner.

I'd just been told, by multiple people, that I didn't know how to do this, how to proceed, because I'd never done it before.

So this week, if you're in your own grief, anxiety, or transition, I invite you in with these words from the transcript:

"If you are newly engaged or newly pregnant or if you are a new step-parent or just moved into a new house, you are grateful for the new role that you have and maybe excited about the future. But there’s a lot you don’t yet know and there isn’t a handbook to teach you.

Begin Again Part 1

Begin Again: The Brave Practice of Releasing Hurt and Receiving Rest by Leeana Tankersley
Read: 4/7/18-4/24/18

This book is based on/inspired by the line in the Rule of St. Benedict, "Always we begin again." I absolutely loved it and would recommend it to everyone, but especially anyone who's in transition now, and especially especially anyone who's grieving anything.

Why? It's not a book on grief, right? I mean, "Hurt" is in the title, but "Releasing Hurt?" What if you just lost someone and the thing you're beginning is grief, and you're not ready to be done with that process yet?

This isn't a book that only applies to happy beginnings. Beginnings also involve endings, even the "my world is falling apart" sort.

I could give you a beautiful quote from the introduction to prove it, but first, let me tell you a story.

Here's how I found Begin Again. What I've written so far, anyway, and we'll finish the story and review next week. (Hopefully, that's the plan.)


My mom isn't doing very well. Nothing especially new there, but she's at a stage of not doing well that seems to be closer to the end, and I've been surprised at how hard it's been hitting me.

Release Day for Not Alone

Do any of you remember when I said I have a thing, and it's getting published?! Today's the day, today's the day, guys, it's RELEASE DAY!! SQUEEEEEE!!

I've said some things about it in the past, but I shall gather them together here now, for accessibility. Here you go.


From last year, "I Have a Thing!":

"My 'thing' is a personal essay. It will be included in a collection about infertility and miscarriage, from Kalos Press. Mine is about miscarriage.

"'This isn’t a book that offers solutions – there are plenty of experts for that. Nor is this a book that expounds theological explanations for pain and loss – that necessary job is already well done elsewhere.

Announcement and More to Come

Sorry I haven't posted here in a while. I've been... busy isn't exactly the word?

If you hadn't heard already elsewhere, this is how I announced it on Twitter:

Shirt fit more optimal later... please wait. pic.twitter.com/dERcU21lBm

— Marcy (@quettandil) March 25, 2015

Practicalities of Living Life in a Hard Season, Part Three: A Narrative

Practicalities of Living Life in a Hard Season, Part One
Practicalities of Living Life in a Hard Season, Part Two: High Sensitivity

Okay, so Parts One and Two explained my main dilemma, with two especially resonant links. Musings on the line between excuses and reasons, what self-care looks like and how hard it can be, and what happens when you throw high sensitivity into the mix. Keep in mind that, as I mentioned in the beginning, when I feel like my life is spiraling out of control, I tend to numb myself out in various ways, to gain a sense of pseudo-control. So not helpful. But not something I want to be beating myself up for either, because it IS understandable, and beating myself up just makes me feel more out of control.

I've been thinking about that sense of control and the narrative I tell myself. Why I really, really want a good narrative, one that makes sense of me, one that tells me how to work with myself.

Practicalities of Living Life in a Hard Season, Part One

Note: I wrote most of the material in this post and series at the beginning of November. Comments on time frames reflect that, I didn't go to the trouble to update them all. "Last Wednesday" means the Wednesday before the day I wrote this in November, not actually last Wednesday. The "Merry Christmas" part is current, but not the rest.

Okay. That is all. Carry on.




Merry Christmas! This may not be the best time ever for a new six-part or however-many-parts series, but I've been working on this one for a while now (see above), and am feeling particularly inspired at the moment to finish it up and put it out there, so. *shrug* Eh, it's okay if you're busy with your family right now. I'll link back to it again later.

(And if you're not busy, or you're feeling particularly sad or lonely or let-down or frustrated or all of the above right now and that's why you're online, welcome! This is for you. Hugs. I wish I had easy answers for you, instead of my story. But I hope it helps a little.)

A Reply to a Reply to a Reply (Because. Heh.)

Trigger warning: Miscarriage and pregnancy loss, spoken about in very general terms. Possible postpartum depression. I'll go back and add similar warnings to the beginnings of earlier posts about my miscarriage. I hadn't read very many of other people's accounts yet when I posted them, and wasn't thinking yet of possible needs for warnings. If

Things I Wish I'd Said, or: Snark, Incoming

I probably wouldn't be posting and linking to this on a weekday morning normally, but I have an eye appointment later and I'm not going to work until after that.

Meanwhile, I am feeling very squinty. *cues up unnecessary explanation*

My glasses are broken. Well, sort of. They could be fixed. One of the screws holding the frames together came out. I didn't lose it, but it seems to be stripped.

How that could possibly be, when my glasses are only about a decade old... oh wait.

My last eye appointment was around eight and a half years ago, before I married. I didn't get new glasses at the time, I got contacts, probably a year's supply. I haven't bought contacts again since they ran out, though I might in my next appointment after today, after getting new glasses. The last time, eight and a half years ago, he said my prescription hadn't changed much, so I didn't bother with the glasses. My appointment before that was probably... oh, I don't know, maybe a few years earlier. Maybe more.

Anywho. *back to not exactly regularly scheduled programming*



In a recent Facebook thread about personality types, someone commented on the phenomenon where you think of the perfect thing to say in a discussion -- a discussion which everyone finished days ago, and which feels silly to bring up again.

Heh. I am ALL OVER this. I said,

"I've been thinking about adding a category to my blog along the lines of, 'Things I Wish I'd Said' -- totally understand! I'd use it even for online conversations, because even though they're written and technically I could come back to them, sometimes the answer that keeps bugging me doesn't get used right away, but it STILL KEEPS BUGGING me, even a year later, and in online time, that's like decades, and is just ridiculous!"

So. They get their own category, here. It's not like I'm going to put up EVERYTHING which could possibly qualify -- I want to be careful, I don't want to post anything that would make people feel like I was attempting to talk behind their backs, for example. I also want it all to fit within the focus of the blog, though arguably, writing extensive analysis of arguments I'm highly passionate about automatically qualifies. Nonetheless.

For quite a while after I first thought of the idea and toyed with it, I didn't think it was necessarily a good one. It kept coming up, but... nah. Besides my reservations, I have a backlog of ideas, not enough time to develop and post them.

I still won't be promising or even trying for any kind of a posting schedule for this series/category -- things will come up when they come up.

But I'm doing it. The final straw? A comment thread that's almost two years old -- which I found last week. Doesn't technically fit the series specs, but close enough.

The working title of the blog post about it is, "I read too much of the internet, and my brain exploded."

Taking notes on it has been fun so far, if in a rather "Wow, these comments seem more and more wrongheaded the more I think about them, which is impressive, considering where they started!" sort of way.

Snark. It's coming. You've been warned.

That's... Not Normal

You might be a linguistics nerd if you ever find yourself thinking any variation on the following:

"I should teach Gracie Spanish. She's working so hard on her voiced bilabial fricatives, and I don't have the heart to tell her we don't use those in English."

Control and God and Us

I have a tendency to do stupid things when I'm feeling out of control. My underlying unhelpful belief seems to be that I get my control from passive rebellion. That is, as long as it doesn't involve direct conflict, making the wrong choice makes me feel more powerful than the right one. At least temporarily. After all, if I do the thing I'm supposed to do, I'm just letting other people and factors push me into it, right? If I do the opposite, it's my choice. I think that's the emotional thought process operating below the surface.

Everything that I feel I should do is in danger, even if it's something I really want to do. Even small things like replying to an email (sorry, friends). Of course this leads to feeling even more out of control, for I'm not following through. I'm all over the place, and I can't trust my future self not to sabotage my present self's desires.

Now, what Christians like to tell anyone having control issues (or to just say in general, informing the public at regular intervals) is that God is in control.

This is very true. He is. I'm not, or, at least, I'm not in control of quite a lot of things.

This is an important distinction. Maybe if I were a better person the fact that God is in control would be sufficiently comforting and helpful. But then again, maybe there's another truth, not so frequently mentioned, that He wants me to grasp. Just maybe.

See, God is in control, but He's given us a certain measure of control as well. That's why we're held responsible for our actions -- He's given us choices! We have the power to decide how we will act! Isn't that... control? Yes, yes, I think it is.

So no, I don't have power over life and death. I can't make the sun shine or water fall from the sky. But I am not one hundred percent helpless, either. I have power, and I will be held accountable for that power. That's important. Really, really important.

I mean, even if you're a hardcore Calvinist, you still have to do something with all the passages in the Bible that hold us responsible for our actions. There's a tension there, and woe to him who destroys that tension in order to fit everything into his nice little box. I once heard it said, "Pray like a Calvinist, live like an Arminian." I can go with that.

You (O theoretical Calvinist) might say that God is still in control of our hearts, desires, and decisions, but that He will punish us for our wrong decisions nonetheless, and who are we to question God? I don't believe that's supported by the whole of Scripture, but even so, in practice, regardless of who you believe has ultimate control of your decisions, don't you try not to sin and to live a holy life? That's more or less what I'm talking about here. Living in accordance with God's will, how He's designed you to live. (If you don't know what Calvinists and Arminians are, don't worry about it. These paragraphs are written to those who have a hangup on this issue.)

So what does this mean? When I find myself doing stupid things because I feel out of control, what should I tell myself, if not "God is in control"?

Well, I've started reminding myself of the decisions I've made recently. This includes the decision to get out of bed, and at what time. It might not seem like much, but some days, it really is. I might think I don't have a choice, but I do. If I'm in that "let's do stupid things because I feel out of control" mode, I often get up way too late, and even make myself late for work. Sometimes very late. To just shut the world out and stay in bed all day, hiding under the covers? Yeah, I bet I could do that. Given sufficient depression, yeah. I could do it, and screw the consequences.

So I remind myself that I didn't, that I got out of bed. And so on. Good and bad, I look at the decisions I've made. Then I look at the decisions coming up that I'll be able to make.

Weird that reminding myself of my screwups can make me feel a little more safe, but it can. Because I had the power to make those screwups. They weren't inevitable, they were choices. I might make them again, but I really don't have to. I don't have to. Okay, it might seem obvious to you, but it means a lot to me.

It's no easy instant fix for all that ails me, but it does help a little. Thank God.

On the other hand, it is true that it's not a technique that seems to ever be portrayed in Scripture. I'm trying to think what was normally said to the people in the Bible who just wanted to curl up in a little ball because the world seemed like too much...

There was Elijah, running off into the desert. Hmm. God's answers in such cases seem... complicated. Individual. Unique.

Anyone else see a pattern here that I'm not getting? Am I wrong, does God tend to just tell people to trust Him?

Crap Half-Marathon-Runners-in-Training Say

Have I mentioned I'm going to run a half marathon? At the end of March?

Um, well, I'm not.

No seriously, I'm not. I waited too long and the race is full, I can't register anymore. (Cue expression of Deep Shame.)

I think I shall pick another race on a different date and keep training. Maybe. It's fun.

So yeah, I'm a nerd and I like physical activity of some kind. Sue me. But hey, if you're a nerd and you're going to enjoy a sport, running is the way to go. It's got to be the nerdiest of all the mainstream, offered-in-high-school options. So... it doesn't damage my nerd street cred too much.

Plus, I use phrases like "nerd street cred" with a completely straight face, and it is so inappropriate. I've got to be a nerd.

Not that anyone was doubting. Maiden name and all that.

Er'hrm.

So... I'm training for this half marathon thing I'm not actually doing after all. And... you know how sometimes my own reactions to things kinda crack me up? Well, I'm not sure this'll be very funny to non-runners, but I'm definitely going to tag those of you I know are also training for a half. And some other runners I know who are not training, to make sure I got it right and I'm not just making running jokes. Though... I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who's ever said some of this stuff.

If you find yourself saying crap like this, you might be training for a half marathon:

"Just a little four-mile run."

"Woah! I broke a twelve-minute mile pace! That's my fastest yet!"

"Oh noes! I need to wait for my phone to finish charging so I can use that app with the GPS that tracks my distance and pace, and the battery runs down faster with the GPS on, but soon it'll be dark and if I do that one run on the dirt paths I might twist my ankle in a rut, but I don't want to do a long run on sidewalk, that's bad for my knees..."

"See, I like this app because I can take my fastest pace for a given distance, and make sure I hold myself back to that pace for the first several miles."

"You know those giant hills on Rosecrans, past Beach? Yeah, I ran up those."

"I don't like driving to Arby's, it's farther out of the way than any of the other fast food places around here." "Yeah, so I was running past Arby's, and..."

"My shoe came untied again! Dang it, I just retied you an hour ago. Sorry, I'm not tying you again until I'm done. You're just gonna have to wait."

"I really like eating a mixture of golden raisins and Cheerios on the longer runs."

"That was a long run, I'm tired. __ Quick! I need 300-400 calories with a 4:1 carb to protein ratio!"

"Blast it all, I need to go to the bathroom and I have at least an hour left in my run! Thank God for park restrooms and the pause button on the app!"

"I'm supposed to do Gentle Pickups at the end of this workout. I think I'll drive to Biola. If I run from Biola to home and back, I can do the GP on the track, but if I run to Biola and back I'll have to run them back and forth in front of my apartment complex."

"Do you think if I got some kind of holster for my phone and ran the app while playing Ultimate Frisbee, it could tell me afterwards how many miles I ran and what my average pace was?"

"My goal is just to finish the race without injuring myself. __ And if I could do it in under three hours, that'd be nice, too."

Ack, I'm a Bad Person

I know, because sometimes I sit in my car for a little while after I park at my complex, and then a car will come up behind me and start to wait, thinking I'm about to leave, but I'm NOT, and I crush their hopes, and I know how that feels because that guy who drives and parks the motorcycle does it to me ALL THE TIME (he's a Bad Person, too).

That is all.

My Apartment Complex, Nature, and Me

Ah, "special."

My first reaction on seeing the very high water level in the pool:

"I wonder if the ducklings were trapped, again."

Then I thought about posting this.

Then I remembered it's January, and the ducklings probably don't exist yet.