"What the hell?"

 
When I was growing up, there was a house around the block with wild untamed trees and vines on a vast (or vast by our so-cal standards) lot. Every time we would drive by it, I would gaze out the back of the family Suburban's tinted glass and dream of having a family of my own, and I never questioned that we would be able to have a place like that, whenever and wherever we wanted in the world. As a kid (or at least as a Johansen kid), thoughts didn't cross my mind about how the world is such a limiting place, and that one day something even so simple as your health will be stripped from most all of your determination (After all, I was the playground relay-race/monkey-bar-climbing champ that could outrun any other little spry kid in my age category). In my mind, as an adult, material and circumstances where to be as clay, moldable in my grown-up hands... because, after all, that's what “adults” do. In my little ignorant and unexplored mind, “grown-ups” control their lives; they are these walking giants who puppeteer their destinies and are often very idiotic and ridiculous (something that I of course would never be). I actually remember this fragile little thought in my inexperienced mind: “why on earth where my parents not at Disneyland everyday gorging out on churros and frozen lemonaid?”

Well, there is no other more accurate description to explain the reality of adulthood than this simple phrase: life happens.

And when it does, it hurts. It changes. It grows your heart, expands your mind. It is inexplicable and painful in all of its' wonder and beauty, and all of these truths I had learned through predictable life circumstances like graduating high school/college, and those not so predictable like losing my first baby.

So, why then am I still struggling soooo hard with the lesson that I AM limited by my health? To explain the last few weeks (after doing so well with recovery), there is no better way to explain it than to quote my GI doctor during my last stay at Cedars last week (in reference to my deteriorating health and trying to make sense of it all): “What the hell?!”

And that's it. That's about as much as I feel like writing upon that subject right now. Annoying details are unnecessary because amongst these setbacks, there are so many things going on that cut deeper than any of my health issues ever could (something that I even thought impossible a few months ago), but to be consistent with this blog and save some privacy, I will only share my health struggles. What events, what trauma, what interpersonal wounds, what new diagnosis’s with my children, what loss of control of mind and sensibility and all that has transpired in these last few months of my life have made me a completely different person. So much so that I don't feel comfortable sitting down with an old friend because I feel that they unfairly do not know that who they are sitting next to is no longer the same girl anymore.

But despite all of this, I am still a wife/best friend to Jon, still Lucy and Isla's mommy, still Miss Laura to my adoring art students, still a frequent patient at the ER, still a friend, and most of all still a child of God trying to make sense of this life.

To be honest, I'm not sure there is any point to any of these thoughts. Maybe I'm still drugged from this morning's anesthesia and should take the advice of not making any “decisions” (like posting on the internet) for 24 hours. Either way, I feel like the only way to make sense of today is to be slightly vulnerable, which is strange, that I would broadcast online in a hidden web address what I do not commingling share with even most of the closest people in my life (I know it's weird, but it' just how I work).

So, no point to this one. Only that I'm still here and still being shaped by God.

I'll write more when I feel a little more sane.