I Have Returned

My apologies for being so late in updating this. I was away for a week with my community at Interlaken, NY. We stayed at a friary right on Cayuga Lake, and had a beautiful, yet simple, week-long stay/retreat. It's something that they do with the ministry team every year, both at the beginning and the end, and I think it's a fabulous tradition. A simple change in scenery can do wonders for a team's morale, energy, and spirit. We were all given a chance to reflect upon the year: our joys, our sadnesses, our accomplishments, and the things that we could have done better. Overall, it was incredibly therapeutic for the team as a whole, as well as for me personally. I am grateful to be a part of an organization that deeply values the spiritual and personal well-being of its members. Without this attention to our own wellness, our retreats wouldn't be half as good as they have been this year.

We got home from that on Thursday of last week and then I had planned on spending a quiet weekend at home, when my best friend from Rochester surprised me out of the blue Saturday night with some interesting news that she had to tell me in person. My ex-boyfriend is getting married. My ex-boyfriend is getting married in a month. My ex-boyfriend, whom I dated less than half a year ago, is getting married in a month to a woman he started dating four months ago. Now how's THAT for news? It was shocking, to say the least. I'm not as torn up about it as one might expect, because I genuinely want him to be happy and secure, and if this woman can do this for him, then it's great. The most surprising part of it all was that my ex-boyfriend is notorious for being indecisive, wavering, and anxious about commitment. So, it's pretty out-of-character for him to get hitched four months after meeting someone, which began two weeks after breaking up with someone else. After the initial shock, it was actually kind of hilarious that this happened. Even more so, I found out about it because he invited my best friend and her boyfriend to the wedding, since he's good friends with the boyfriend. He didn't invite me, I guess, but he invited them. My best friend politely declined, but we put the boyfriend on spying duty so he can tell us all about the wedding.

At first I was a little angry with my ex because it seems pretty clear that he only broke up with me in order to start dating this other woman, which kind of sucks. Moreover, I wish he had told me that from the get go because then I wouldn't have been looking for closure and trying to discern the best time to start talking to him again. But, you know, I'm not really angry anymore. I've learned from my past relationships that holding grudges doesn't actually help anyone. I think it was Gandhi who said something like (I'm paraphrasing): "Anger and hatred are like holding hot coals in your hand...in the end, only you end up getting burned." So, I've tried to hold onto that philosophy over the last few years, knowing from experience that "it doesn't do to dwell on dreams, Harry, and forget to live." Ahh, sorry, Harry Potter, quote! I couldn't resist. ;-)

So that was my weekend. And if you could believe this, it got worse. I started feeling achy and sore in my shoulder on Sunday and when I went to the doctor on Wednesday, he diagnosed me with a mild case of shingles. SHINGLES! Really?! Like, the thing that old people get because their immunity is down? Yes, the very same. I have shingles. It's pretty funny, but also kind of painful and frustrating because it's highly contagious. Because of this, I got kicked off the island for our outreach week next week, where I would have been working with little elementary school kids at a Vacation Bible School. So, not only was I kicked off the program, but I left my partner in a lurch who now has to work with a new person and plan everything out herself. The meds I'm on (prednisone for the inflammation or Valtrex for the virus) are okay, but I have to take a lot of them and they have some not so great side effects, like nausea, vomiting, dizziness, and....oh yeah, psychosis. Luckily, apart from a headache, I haven't experienced any of these, so I'm grateful for that.

So, my ex boyfriend is getting married and I have a diseased nervous system that only happens in 80-year-olds. And I got kicked off of one of our biggest programs of the year, because my boss wants me to be rested enough to heal and go on our big mission trip in two weeks. Needless to say, it's been a long week and I'm glad I got that week of retreat in before all of this happened. It was like God planned it just like that. And indeed He probably did.

Still, though, I'm content. The past week I have been showered by generosity and care from family and friends. I mean, my best friend drove SIX HOURS just so that she could tell me the news of the engagement in person, in case I needed to vent or cry about it. And my mother took me to the doctor and got me my prescription, on her week of vacation. My community has lovingly began to refer to me as "Shingles" (think Eat, Pray, Love's parallel of "Groceries", via Richard from Texas), but it's all in jest and I do appreciate their flexibility to work around my limited contributions. I'm grateful that my diagnoses wasn't something worse, and that my parents' insurance covered the cost of the meds so that I can get better, quicker. It's in these moments of weakness, and yes, shoulder pain, that I appreciate God and the people in my life even more.

So, that's about the update that I have for all two of you who read this. Hope all is well out there in cyberland, and I'll try to write another entry more quickly than this one. I'm wishing you all sunny days and relaxing summer nights!

Peace.