Watering Trees and the Belch

Growing up I had the opportunity to help with a Church orchard. If I recall correctly I picked apples, peaches and cherries. Every time I picked one of those lovely fruits it had three possibilities. I would gently put it in the basket I had on me or close to me. I would eat one, which I had to be sneaky about. The last was the funnest for me though and that was to throw it at one of my siblings that was close by. I found that taking a bite and throwing it was just as rewarding. I would love to say that most of the picked items made it into the basket. I would also like to say that I have a private jet and own the Seattle Seahawks. As I got older the greater the responsibilities came with the orchard. There was the task of having all the trees watered. Now, this was not done by me just holding a hose and watering each tree. The water for the orchard came from an irrigation ditch. Irrigation ditches have all sorts of levels of joy with them. The first is the schedule. The schedule isn't a 9a to 5p situation. It runs 24/7. So, the orchard always seemed to be scheduled for 2am when I did it. Another level of joy was figuring out when to shut the plethora of metal gates so all the trees got watered and you didn't flood the neighboring homes. The first metal gate you shut would be the main one that shoots the water down a ditch in the orchard. From this ditch you can open / close metal gates to water the different rows of trees. Knowing when to close the ditch to a row of trees was always the struggle. If you wait to see the water hit the last tree there is still tons of water that will be coming down the row. If you guess to close the gate too early the last couple of trees don't get watered ... and of course doing this in the dark. The real joy came though when you and your friend would be sitting in church and you would be thanked for a great job AND no water escaped the orchard and flooded any homes. Only once in my many irrigation tasks did I hear about water bonding with homes ... not so much joy.

One of the consistent messages I have been given from my psychologist over our three year bonding time has been "listen to your body." Of course, I have had fun with this telling my sweet wife that my body was telling me I needed a Coke or even better I needed a kiss. There is great importance though of this message. Just like an athlete that has hurt a knee or ankle or pick your injury, they have to pay attention to what their knee may be telling them. If they keep pushing it they can actually do more harm than good. No matter how badly the athlete wants that knee to be healed he has to be patient. The nice thing for him is that people understand his injury offering support and patience as well. I personally enjoy keeping busy and have a hard time sitting still. Having my brain tell me that I need to slow down or stop for a while is something I don't enjoy. Too many times I have just kept pushing and pushing and yep, I have paid for it. I have learned that if your brain needs a break and you don't give it one it will take one on it's own. So, what does it mean to listen to your body? My first thought was a belch of some sort and of course as I asked my little guy what he thought he confirmed my thinking. For me, I have learned that when I have a hard time keeping focused, being very impatient than usual, losing control of my thoughts, becoming extreme introvert and on the verge of tears for no reason ... to name a few,  I know that I need to pause. I might be done for the day or maybe feel okay in an hour but listening is crucial to my getting better. For a person that enjoys doing projects, organizing "stuff" and constantly keeping busy this has been extremely frustrating for me. I am learning that being good friends with patience is something that will be of great help to me. I wake up and start the day not knowing what I will be able to do that day. I know what I want to do. The struggle is knowing what is too much since it can vary day to day. But if I am careless and keep pushing on I potentially can "flood the houses" and the many steps forward I may have taken I take several steps back. I wish that I was listening for the belch but having patience lets me grow and I am finding hope with this.

Planes on Fire and the Shaggy Carpet

I had the pleasure of growing up in an era where the plethora of technical gadgets we have now were simply non-existent. We had an Atari game console with few games and we had a computer that allowed me to play one on one with Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. Those "amazing" magic time wasters came a little later in my childhood though. Most of the time I was left with my siblings and our imaginations. We spent a lot of time riding bikes, playing games in the yard and other activities outside ... some we will just say weren't the most safest events. That was the danger of using our imaginations though. In my childhood home we had a fireplace in the living room. We rarely used this fireplace because it was more for atmoshpere (or romance as I got older) because the heat would all be drawn to the living room and leave the rest of the house cold. So, to have mom give the okay to use the fireplace was a grand event! On one occasion, as my two older brothers and I watched the fire one of us came up with the coolest idea. We would make paper airplanes and stand back about six feet and see if we could throw the planes into the fire and watch their demise. Quickly, we gathered paper, made some planes, slowly opened the chain-like gate and began the "fun." I recall not getting many planes in first but then we became pretty good ... probably because we got closer. It was awesome to watch the planes hit the brick in the fireplace and crash land into the fire and burn up. When we realized the flames were different colors with different colored papers we knew we had to get more paper and all sorts of colors! Before we could act on that though our mom walked into the living room. Needless to say we were taught in a firm yet loving way about how dangerous it was what we were doing. We instantly followed with our rebuttal of how safe it was ... purely motivated by how fun it was. We told our mom that the planes simply went into the fireplace, caught on fire and that was it. She simply followed up with the question, "what happens if a plane catches on fire and flies back into the living room?" We had nothing. Our mom was kind enough to recognize our point but also helped us see that pretty much everything in the living room outside of the fireplace was kind of flammable, especially the green shaggy carpet. The airplanes were taken away and we sat and watched the fire and as any young boys would do after they had been corrected by their parent of a dangerous act we fought the temptation to secretly go get more paper to make planes.

Most of my life I have lived by the principle to just keep quiet when I saw some sort of "injustice" happen. This could range from somebody saying a snide remark about someone behind their back to some sort of incident in a public setting  ... or even that unkind person sitting behind you in the movie theater constantly kicking your chair. I didn't like conflict and immediately attempted to stray away from it even if that meant not saying or doing anything. That has changed over the past few years though. It's not because all of a sudden I have this deep love for conflict. I still despise it. But I despise even more the acts of those that think they can "get away" with things by intimidation, threats, fear or pure rudeness. My sweet wife is helping me see that I don't have to take on every injustice that I see ... but to pick my battles. There have been plenty of times when she simply puts her hand on my knee and smiles at me letting me know that I need to let this one go. I have thought a lot about why I have had this change and I think part of it is vulnerability. I have thought long and hard and have even studied the word vulnerable. I have found that for me depression breaks down any walls I have had to deflect anything against me and makes me so vulnerable. I have had something said to me that wouldn't have effected me before depression came in that I have spent days even weeks thinking about how bad it hurts. It is like running into battle naked. After you get quickly taken down you are down for a while and then get back up still fighting with no armor. Yep, it is difficult. Thankfully with the help of the comfort of the leather couch and my psychologist I am learning to put armor on. I believe that is why I now stand up and say something when I see an injustice happen because I know how deeply it can effect people and they don't need to go through that!! My hope is that someday I will be able to be as strong as those bricks in the fireplace and not as vulnerable as the green shaggy carpet.

I Am A Better Swimmer Than Me

I enjoy going to the pool. There's nothing like soaking in the sun and then jumping in the water cooling off and then goofing around with the kids. I do have to admit that my favorite part of any pool is the four to five feet deep section ... just enough water to make you feel like you can swim but not too deep to be above your head when you need to stand up. My swimming techniques differ but they all have the same outcome ... I sink to the bottom of the pool. The is no natural born floating for this guy. When I was a kid this was tough because the majority of my friends were like fish and could swim at will. What a great feeling it is to be one of the few that stands on his tippy toes going as deep as he can while watching his friends swim in the deep section. I did have a friend that I will call Gus that was in the same boat as I was. In fact, my mom and his mom signed us up for swimming classes one month in the summer. We were pretty excited about it with the thought that we might be actually able to swim. Now, when I was young my close friends called me Jones. That was a nickname that was given to me and just stayed. To this day, my life long friends still call me Jones and as you can imagine Gus called me Jones the entire time we had our swimming class. Well, I worked really hard at doing everything the instuctor asked us and when all was said and done I still couldn't swim and neither could Gus. There was some disappoinment but we weren't really too surprised. The last day was a pretty cool day to us because we were allowed to wear a life jacket and jump off the diving board into the unknown deep part of the pool. That was a blast! We also were told that we would be given report cards for the class. I remember the instructor calling "Kenny" so I walked up and received my report card. I wasn't too surprised that I did really good with participation but the "results" section had a lot of "needs improvement" notes. A couple of others were called up and then the instructor called for "Jones." I looked around knowing that we didn't have any one in the class with that name and as I looked up to the instructor he was curiously looking at me and motioned for me to come up. After sifting through the confusion we quickly realized that the instructor thought that Kenny and Jones were two different people. To my surprise the instructor had filled out a report card for Jones and he thought that Jones was a far better swimmer than Kenny.

Through out my young life, and yep I said young, I have had some medical procedures done that have given me the opportunity to be admitted to the hospital. Some stays were short and one required spending the night. I have had loved ones that have experienced the same. There are those that have been given the news of a certain horrific illness that hits them and their loved ones like being hit with a truck. To this day it is very touching to think about the visitors that come by bringing flowers, cards or even those "perfect" gifts because the friend knows the one in the hospital or the one dealing with bad news well and knows what will either touch them or make them laugh. The loved ones visiting will stay for a little while talking about whatever and then leave sharing their love. Staying the night at the hospital really isn't my top things of life to have experienced. There is always those machine noises, people walking down the halls and then my absolute favorite (feel the sacrasm) having a nurse help you use the bathroom. The repeated calls and visits even after getting home makes the recovery time that much easier to accomplish. With my last job I was out for a period of time after a medical procedure and I even received a card from the Regional President wishing my luck in my recovery. He even sent me a card when my dear Grandma passed away.

After I was diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety I remember coming home with my sweet wife. I joked about it a bit because that is usually how I deal with news like that but inside I was terrified. Per my request, I wanted to keep that news quiet so my wife and I only told a select few ... some family members and of course my work needed to know since I would be out for an undetermined time. I recall walking around the house aimlessly thinking about what having depression and anxiety meant for me, my wife and my awesome kids. I was scared not knowing what the future would bring. I fealt alone looking at this dark road ahead of me. Well, three years have come and gone and progress has been made step by step fighting the entire way. I find myself thinking back about those first days and think how much flowers, cards, those "perfect" gifts and visitors would have helped out immensley. I didn't even get a card from the Regional President. Now, I will be the first to say that we didn't make it known so how would people know to do such things. I understand that point and admit that one is on me. I'm going to take that lovely trip now walking out to the limb I know and love ... you know, I'm stepping out on a limb here. Some may not like me for what I am going to say but I do it for a purpose. Last October I had enough of keeping it quiet about fighting the beast of depression and anxiety and told everyone. Hey, I even started a blog. My FB friends let me feel the love by their reply the day I announced it, which was awesome. I am going to let you guess how many flowers, cards, "perfect gifts" and visitors I got and still receive. If you are leaning to the side of "alot" you will need to lean the other way. I amazed how people will only take the time to ask you how you are only when you run into them. I understand that some people stay away because they don't know what to say or don't know how to show the love. We don't want you to fix us ... we just need the love. When you go visit someone in the hospital you don't tell them or the doc what they need to do to "fix" them. You go to console and show love by being there and just shooting the breeze. I am starting to feel the limb I am standing on starting to crack so let me step back here. Let me say to those few that have stepped up and have showed the love for me and my family. THANK YOU!! I simply don't do this to call attention to me saying that I need flowers, cards, gifts etc even though a taco and Coke sounds good :0. The point of all this is to help the majority of people that are out there that can offer love and help to those that are mentally ill. They need you! We need you! Those that are mentally ill and are keeping it a secret because you feel ashamed ... share it with others. Give them the chance to love you. My hope is that we can hear more and more stories about when someone was diagnosed with depression that they were flooded with flowers, visits, cards, gifts etc cheering them on giving them hope! Remember they need you. You may feel like they are good swimmers while deep inside they are frantically treading water not sure how much more they can do.