My Heart and All Its Problems - Physical and Emotional

My heart sucks. I was born with two holes in my heart and suffered a heart murmur until I was about ten. When I was in college, I developed heart palpitations. They're aggravated by stress and caffeine. My heart these last few weeks has been insane. Lots of palpitations, lots of just feeling funny.

This morning, I got a latte with my freebie and forgot to say "half caf". I had approximately 1/3 of my drink before it hit.

I was nauseous. My chest felt funny. My pulse rate was slow, so slow. And I still had another fifteen minute until I got to work. So I guzzled water, I trashed the rest of my delicious latte, and I decided I needed to reduce my stress for the day.

After Natalie woke up, I loaded some toys into the car, bundled her up, and we picked Mac up from preschool. Then I took both of them back to my place. Is what I'm doing here any different than what I would have done there? Not really. But being in my place, my home, it helps. I did the dishes while I made lunch and for once it was productive for my life. I do dishes every day, sometimes multiple times, but most of the time I come home and I see that mess waiting for me. And it just stresses me out again. Yes, I've spent most of naptime watching Netflix and on my laptop just like if I was "at" work. But once they wake up, I'll unload the dishwasher and I'll put a few things in and then, I'll get to feed my charges and my husband all in one swoop. And I get to eat at a decent hour.

I spent a few minutes putting on a face mask -which was an epic fail actually. I turned into a tomato. And I'm going to do my nails. I'm going to pamper myself. I'm going to do whatever it takes to center myself, to destress, to get in tune with who I am. Because I haven't been lately.


And ya know what, I used to think confidence and feeling comfortable in your own skin was a slope. I thought once you got it, you had it. And lately I feel like I've lost it. I think back to when I was in Europe and I had it. I swear I had it back then. I felt comfortable and confident and I was active. I was walking around the city, about two hours a day. Which meant I lost weight. And it showed. I had a glow that I've lost. I survived the dreariest winter in 50 years in that city. WITHOUT my anti-depressants.

My anxiety got out of hand a few times but I knew who I was. I felt comfortable, especially when I was with my friends or on my own. But lately? I feel like I suck as an adult.

At 22, in Europe, not knowing how to cook wasn't an issue. I just ate what Kathrin made. If I was hungry at other times, I ate a slice of that delicious bread with yummy cheese. I don't think I even went so far as making pasta for myself the entire time I was there. Yes, I cooked a few times for the family. I tried my hand at burgers, lasagna, tacos. But I couldn't just whip something up. I don't think I ever saw Kathrin use a recipe. She made her tomato sauce from scratch. She whipped up some form of frittata weekly without any guideline. Things just got thrown into a pan and cooked. Salad dressing was just sprinkled on. Meanwhile the one time she asked me to do it, I looked up a recipe. How else was I to know how much oil or vinegar, salt or pepper to use?

Now, I want to be able to throw dinner together just by looking in the fridge. I want to have a month where I can toss chicken in a pot and a vegetable in another and just wing it. And have it turn out delicious. But I don't know the first thing about cooking. I can follow recipes but I cannot cook without one.

Furthermore, I suck at being a girl I've decided. I don't know how to do my makeup. I don't have a skin care routine. I manage to shower and use deodorant and that's about it. I'm not well dressed or put together and though it might not matter to some people, it's starting to bug me. I even suck at keeping a home. Both decor and cleaning. I didn't even know how to properly empty my vacuum cleaner until this past weekend!

Are these things I could learn? Yes. But I feel like by 25 I should have some of this down. And instead, I feel behind. Behind where I was two years ago when I knew who I was. Behind my friends who seem to be able to cook their own dinners without problem. Behind my expectations of where I should be.

This is a pretty dreary end to this post I suppose but I don't really have a revelation yet. I just know that I feel behind. I feel like I've lost something I didn't know you could lose and I don't know how to start getting it back.

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Bittersweet Uncertainty

On the one hand, I’m excited to go back home. I’m just so tired. I love my girls and Kathrin is amazing. I could not ask for a better host mom. (Daniel’s been gone a lot this month and he works a looooot so though I don’t have a problem with him, I don’t know him half as well as I know Kathrin or the girls.) And even though I am off at the end of my day and Kathrin’s good about making sure the girls know that I’m not responsible for them and giving me a way out if I’m trying to write or knit or chat with people, there’s still a part of me that I feel like I can’t turn off. I feel guilty if I don’t help out and clean up or if I don’t play with Ellie or calm the crying baby.

It’s just part of being family I think. When Sami was little, I felt similarly. Except that really was home. (I hate that sentence. Because this is home. I'm happy here and I feel welcome and loved and I'm never going to have another family like this one. But the sentiment behind that statement, I hope you understand. That this home is one I've made whereas the one with my little sister and my mom is one that was naturally created in my life without any effort on my part.) If I was sitting around reading and my mom wanted my help, she’d yell for me. Kathrin’s too polite/generous/something for that. She’s almost apologetic when she tells me some mornings, “Vickey, I didn’t get to the dishwasher yet. Can you do that this morning please? It doesn’t have to be right now. Finish your coffee first.” Yes, the woman lets me drink my coffee before I start doing any real work. That’s not to say that she never asks for my help when I’m “off duty”. Occasionally something happens and she asks me to help with this or just make sure that kid doesn't climb out of the high chair for a minute. But even so, it’s asking not, “Victoria get your butt in here and help me with the dishes.” There’s just somehow a difference. I think knowing that Kathrin won’t ask makes me feel guilty if I don’t do it. Because if I don’t do it, she’ll do it all herself. And she never complains about it. Seriously, this woman deserves a medal. (And Kathrin, if you’re reading this, I mean every word of this. You are fantastic.)

So because there’s a piece of me that’s on most of the time, it’s hard to kind of recover. And you would think when I go out that then I’d recharge. But I’m such an introvert that going out takes a different kind of energy. Yes my social meter gets filled up but something else gets drained. There is a very fine balance within me to keep all of my meters reading “OK”. I need to be with friends a certain amount, I need to be alone, I need to be with the family, I need to be outside, I need time with G-d, I need time to be creative. I need so much to be optimal. And I don’t even know what the amounts of those things are. I just know when they’re out of whack and I typically know how to fix them. After about ten months of trying to fine tune all of those different things, you can imagine I’d be worn out.

The thought of having to start over again in just two months is almost more than I can handle some days. Which leads me to “on the other hand”. Yes, I’m excited to go home, but I don’t want to leave. I’m going to miss the ability to walk to everything I need. I’m going to miss having little girls throw themselves on my back for piggy back rides. I’m going to miss “What are you watching?”. I’m going to miss “Oh you’re coloring your Bible again? Wow that’s a lot of ‘G-d’ there.” (Noemi knows anytime I mark my Bible in purple it’s a name of G-d.) I’m going to miss Beck’s Green Lemon and Mezzo Mix and I swear to you the Nutella is better over here. I’m going to miss my little room and chatting with Kathrin after the girls go to bed. I’m going to miss “Vickey will you draw me a wizard?” There is a lot that I’m going to miss.

(Artwork: Noemi)

And there’s a lot I’m unsure of in my future. I don’t know how I’m going to fit back into the family structure. I don’t know how I’m going to fit back into American life. I don’t know what I’m going to do for a job. I don’t know how to be in America and not be in school come September. I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do. I don’t know when my love life will change or when my living situation will. I don’t know when I’ll find my purpose in life, the job I’m meant to have, the ministry I should be involved in. I don’t know how long I’ll be in Rochester. I don’t know a lot of things.

As someone in one of my Facebook groups said this week, “I know He's got it under control, but the planning part of my brain is going crazy right now”. And that’s exactly how I feel. I know He’s got plans for me. I know He’s got big plans, plans I could never dream of. But I don’t know where to start! I don’t know what the next step is. G-d’s word is a lamplight unto my feet… A lamplight. Not a floodlight. (Thank you to one of my wonderful Londonerd TA’s for that.) 

(source)

If His word shows me the next step, what do I know? What am I certain of? I’m certain I need to go home. For a bit at least. I’m not sure how long I’ll be there. I need to get my license and then a car. I’d be good at event planning I think. And I’d like to pursue that a bit more. Aaaaand that’s all I got. I also know I need to find a church to get involved in. Both somewhere where I’m getting fed and where I’m feeding. That feels like so little to go on. I really feel lost some days.

If you’ve stuck with me that long, congratulations. Seriously I feel like you deserve a cookie. I tried to divide this up into a couple different posts (because I’m nearing two thousand words right now) but I think a lot of it’s too interrelated. It makes sense how I went from one thing to another and ultimately this is my space to write. If there comes a day when I write solely for the readers, this blog will have become soulless and I will give it up.

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Day Three: A Picture of You and Your Friends

In no particular order...

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