The 2011 Bucket List

I sincerely hope I don't kick the bucket in 2011! This is my list of dreams, desires, hopes and goals that I hope to see in 2011 before 2011 kicks the bucket a year from now! I intend for this to be a constantly evolving list... some things may get crossed off as unimportant two months from now, and I may see something two weeks from now that is Essential that I had completely overlooked today. Having given that disclaimer, here's my 2011 Bucket List:

1) First on the list, maybe not the most important, but the one that bubbles up above everything else: I want to be kissed by a terrific man in 2011. Not any ol' ordinary kiss... I want a make your knees weak, worthy of the silver screen, romantic, take me to another realm kiss. The kind of kiss that inspires new vistas and possibilities. The kind of kiss that you read about in fairy tales.

2) I want adventure. I'm kinda scared to proclaim that... adventure can be rugged, difficult, painful and dangerous... the growth producing kind. Not sure THAT is what I'm asking of 2011! I want the growth and excitement and challenge of adventure without the pain. Is that possible? Seriously, I ask that question. And if adventure cannot be divorced from struggle, do I still desire it? (And whether, I desire it or not, is probably immaterial... I don't really get to control what comes my way. God has God's own 2011 bucket list in mind for my life!)

BUT, if I COULD write a script for adventure in 2011, the fun and challenging kind, that is, it would possibly look like this:

Travel! I yearn to experience other cultures. I yearn for immersion in other ways of life. I don't desire sterile, comfortable hotel rooms, safe travel, and normal Americanized food. I crave rides on camels or donkeys, sleeping on the floor of a hut in some unknown village in central Asia, smiling and "conversing" over tea with people whose spoken language I do not know, hugging and being hugged by bright-eyed children, trying new food that makes my eyes water, and that I even approach with a little daring trepidation.

A pretty daunting desire for a woman in a wheelchair. All of this would require a CONSIDERABLE amount of vulnerability, creativity, and community effort. (For example, outside of the realm of the Americans with Disability Act accommodations in the US, and Americanized hotel standards, any travel would require overcoming obstacles... help standing up from a toilet (or hole in the ground) that doesn't have grab bars, help to be carried over craggy ground, etc.)

In the meantime, as I patiently await the confluence of circumstances and people to allow that kind of travel adventure to emerge, I will pay attention to the daily adventures that await just outside my front door. Every time I go to Walmart or Food City, there are always opportunities to encounter adventure. It doesn't have to be half-way around the world. I will remain open to that with my hands and eyes wide open.

3) I want to do some good in the world, and I hope to do that AND earn some income at the same time. I long to be used to touch peoples' lives and to hear their stories. I long to help them connect their stories to the bigger story of the gospel, even as they help me connect myt own life to that narrative.

At this point in my life, I don't have a clue about the specifics of that dream... is it in a church environment? Does it involve going back to school for more education? Does it involve disability ministry? Does it involve the secular counseling field? Or none of the above. Help God!!! I need you to guide this. I need to know Your plans for my future so that I don't go off in counter-productive directions. I am trying to wait patiently for guidance before making choices. But, on the other hand, I don't know if I need to take a leap and do something and trust that you will steer the ship in the right direction. Like I said, "Help, God!"

4) I want to lose another 50 pounds. AND I want to continue building muscles and enjoy the possibilities that await for using my body. I've said before that I don't expect to ever be a marathon runner, and probably not even an "around the block walker", but I KNOW that every time I exercise, I FEEL like a world-class athlete. What I am doing with my body is every bit as marvelous and exciting and challenging as, say, an athlete training for the Olympics. While the RESULTS might not be the same, there is a similar spirit of challenge, hope, persistence, discipline.

I just look forward to 2011 to seeing what happens, without any defined expectations. I am excited about continually trying new things as regards moving my body... that might mean trying out a 3-wheeled cycle down at the river walking track, or finding a gym and seeing what possibilities exist for strength-building, or going swimming in the lake this summer, or...

Along these lines of losing weight and growing more physically fit, I'm excited to see where I will be on July 24 when I turn 50. (I can see an EXTREMELY fit, sexy and healthy woman in a wheelchair 7 months down the road. Takes my breath away!)

I'm also excited to go to Kelly's graduation from High School at the end of May in a beautiful sundress and her being proud of her mom. I'm excited to take her to college in the fall looking classy and healthy and her being proud of her mom. Good stuff.

5) I want to continue the grand adventure of learning. Does that involve formal education? Does it involve weekly trips to the library? What topics? Bible, Spanish, counseling, psychology. I need your help here, too, God... there are just SO many possibilities...

6) I want to do some intentional writing in 2011. I need to devote an hour a day to writing the "Great American Autobiography about the Woman who Became Able After she became Disabled".

Let's see where I am here: I want a world-class romance, adventure in the Himalayas, to impact peoples' lives, to lose 50 pounds, to explore the marvelous physical limits of my body, to stuff my head full of wonderful knowledge, and to write a blockbuster book. Seems like enough, for now. smile. Although, as I said, this list is a living thing, and an hour from now, even, it could be different!

2011: I'm excited to know you and hope I will avail myself of all that you offer!! Excited to see what plans God has in store for my future. 2010, I have a love/hate thing going on with you. But, I thank you for all you've brought into my life this year... the good, the bad, and the ugly. It hasn't been boring!

Retrospective

A Recap of a MOST interesting year:

Extreme challenges to my faith in community. Still reeling here. Still healing. Still assessing and learning.

Quit one job. Let go from another. Major challenges to my vision of who I am and the work that God has for me to do in the world. Still reeling. Still healing. Still assessing and learning.


First trip out off the country. LOVED THE ADVENTURE! (Serious travel lust has emerged.)

Speaking of lust: Major attraction to a wonderful man... a wonderful *MARRIED* man. Wrestled the attraction and pinned it to the mat. (Hey, at least I know I am still alive!)


Re-gained abilities to: roll over in bed, get off the ground with out calling the fire department... basically, every physical function of my entire life became about 50% easier. It's kind of hard to assess, but I know that so many things that I formerly had to think about, I now do without having to pay attention, just autopilot.


First time in ten years I've wanted to gaze at myself in a mirror
Saw sexy collar bones emerge
Wore skirts and tights (even a denim mini-skirt and looked damned good!)
Bought cute shoes and ankle boots (no more basic black Maryjanes!)
Got hilights in my hair. Love.

Income level dropped by 66% (hey, it was kinda cool being poor back in college. I'm re-visiting my 20 year-old self!)

Exercise level increased by some huge percentage (from zero minutes/day to between 60 and 120 PER DAY!) LOVE this! Exercising has become a MAJOR joy.


Lost 200 sticks of butter (my family's way of describing weight loss... 4 sticks of butter is equivalent to one pound. Do the math..)
(I think I might go to the grocery today and visualize 50 packages of butter. Would people think it strange if I tied them onto my body to get the full visual?)

2010: You have been one of the more interesting years of my life. I'm grateful to have known you. I'm still not sure what I'm supposed to learn from all the lessons you brought my way, but I'm sure 2011 will be an apt teacher, too.

Here's to another year of learning and growing...

A Tale of Two Walmart Trips

OMG! I have been thinking about the contrast between last December and this one, and I am completely blown away... blown away by how unnecessarily difficult my life was before and the contrast with today.

I just returned from a shopping excursion to Walmart. Last year, I went out on Christmas Eve for a few last minute stocking stuffers and some groceries for Christmas dinner. I expected to be 30 minutes in the store and then head to the candlelight service at church.

By December 24, I was running on fumes. As such, instead of trying to walk into the store, I asked a customer to enlist a greeter to bring me a wheelchair or scooter. A few minutes later, my chariot arrived. I had hoped for a scooter, but it was one of their rickety wheelchairs. Rather than trying to shop from the WC, I decided to wait for a scooter to become available. I sat near the entrance and imagined stories for all the customers coming and going. What manner of people goes to Walmart on Christmas Eve, for Pete's sake. (Oh wait... I was one of them. oh well) ONE HOUR later, a scooter appeared. And it was obviously running on fumes. I decided to give it a spin... desperate to get out of the store. (In retrospect, though, I can not fathom why I didn't just do my shopping from the WC unless I was seriously exhausted.) Anyhow, launching out into the store with a gauge showing "Dead Battery" was not well advised. I made it about 25 feet. At that point, I had to choose: leave the store with absolutely NOTHING to show for my efforts and go to church (and what would we have for dinner!!!! ARGH!) or wait for the scooter to charge.

Thinking 45 minutes probably gave the battery the boost it needed to accomodate my shopping needs, I hopped on and gave it another whirl. And lasted for about 20 minutes, before the dang thing died in the frozen food aisle. Fortunately, I noticed outlets on the bottom of the chest freezers in the center of the aisle, and plugged in to get another charge. At this point, I was NOT in a very cheery Christmas frame of mind and wanted to go "Walmart". (This is the equivalent of "going postal", just the crippled woman stuck in the freakin' Walmart frozen food aisle version.) I could have done some serious damage lobbing those stinkin' frozen cornish hens. "Hey customer, better DUCK!!" harharharaharhar... Peace on Earth, Morons!

I sat there entertaining myself for another 30 minutes while gleefully planning my Cbristmas Eve fowl deeds, and then I made a beeline for the check-out line. My sanity and the well being of all those poor last-minute shoppers was in serious jeapoardy. When I got home, I called my next door neighbor to help me into my house with my purchases.

I left my house at 4 pm and got home at 9 pm. Madness. Sheer and total madness.

Ahhh, but today... I expertly rolled my WC to my car, loaded it with proficiency (having learned by watching a Youtube video),unloaded and reassembled it in the Walmart parking lot, and briskly rolled for the store. (And wearing a bluejean miniskirt, black boots, and looking very good, if I am allowed to say so.) I didn't even think about using a scooter. I grabbed a shopping cart and wheeled my chair with one hand while pushing the cart with the other. I shopped for several hours, all over the store, and had a fantastic time.

A very sweet elderly man offered to push my cart to the parking lot, and I gladly accepted his kindness even though I was capable of handling the task on my own. When I got home, I pulled my wheelchair from the passenger seat across my body and out the car door where I snapped on the wheels and then etrieved my purchases from the back seat.

It was a little tricky rolling up the ramp holding 8-10 bags, but I carried half of them from my mouth. (It's efficient, but looks a little silly.)

I wheeled into my CLEAN house where Christmas music was playing, Christmas lights were glowing, and felt the most incredible sense of well-being and power.

It's a week before Christmas and I'm ready to relax with my kids and enjoy the holiday. The kitchen is spotless and ready for some serious holiday baking (something we have always wanted to do, but it always got lost in the frenzy of activities). This is my daughter's last Christmas at home before going to college next year, and I am trying to create a special Christmas for her. And I am having the most marvelous time giving her and Jeff this special attention and care. It feels like home.

It's Dangerous in Thar

I do not get my brain. I joke about it "being dangerous in thar", but, in reality, it is a little bit treacherous.

Yesterday, Jeff came in from cleaning the carport. (He was going through the piles of junk I had been accumulating. One major contributor to the junk: In August, I purchased a HUGE box of miscellaneous office stuff at an auction... kind of a mystery package full of God only knows what. Like space heaters with cords that had been cut off, cheap plastic fans, and some really cool models of molecules made by scientists at the Oak Ridge National Lab that made the whole purchase a coupe.) Back to Jeff: "Hey Mom, here's something you can give to somebody for Christmas... somebody you don't like." It was a huge tin full of individually wrapped chocolate chip cookies. Now, seeing how I bought this at an auction in August, after it had sat in somebody's office since at least the previous Christmas (maybe more), and it had sat on my blistering hot carport for August and then into freezing weather this winter, it makes sense that one wouldn't be too tempted by those cookies.

Ummm. That would make sense. But that's where my brain gets tricky. That tin of cookies sat across from my computer the rest of the day, and, I kid you not, I got grouchier and grouchier and grouchier. Those damn cookies, those damn inedible, nasty, gnarly cookies sang to me. I was seriously tempted to eat them. Not one of them. THEM. All 30 or 40. WHAT THE HECK??? We are talking cookies that quite possibly were bacteriologically unfit to eat. Hard as rocks. And I wanted them.

How many things in my life are like that... things that I KNOW are c-r-a-z-y bad for me, yet, I indulge anyway because I want them... just because I want them?

This sad little tale does end on a happy note: I asked Jeff to dive-bomb the tin into the garbage. (Hmmm. I wonder if there's still time to retrieve it before the garbage pick-up?)

Jubilee

I've been alive for fifty Christmas holidays. And I can safely say, without hesitation, that the other 49 were FULL of delicious food. My dad's country ham, Mom's meatballs on Christmas Eve, Grandma Jo's galettes, Grandma Ruby's oyster stuffing, banana nut cake (the best cake EVER!), bourbon balls and the list could run on for pages. My family knows what to do with food and does it very, very well.

Too well.

For 49 years it was a freakin' feast in December and a flippin' fast in January. I would spend January through... about Easter... just losing the extra pounds I had packed on between Halloween and New Years. (Oh, Lynna! You LIE, girl! You didn't GAIN 100 pounds in a ten year span by losing the winter weight!!! You don't fool me, nosireeBob! You sat down every January 1 and wrote out a great plan. And followed it for a week, ten days, tops.)

Well now. Who invited HER to share space on MY blog? As irritating as she is, that more honest version of me, I must say she's spot on. Darn her.

Ahhh, but you CAN teach an old dog new tricks. After 49 years of spending the holidays eating to my heart's content, I'm doing something different this year... I'm feasting on the good feelings that come from a healthier body and find that my heart is quite content to abstain. The most decadent thing I've had off-plan so far this month is a 60 calorie cup of hot cider. Even though I'm not indulging in treats and holiday fare, I'm feasting on the good feelings of staying disciplined and treating myself with tender care.

Maybe one day, I'll add holiday goodies back into my life... a few here and there in moderation,... as special treats; but for now, I've had more than my share over a lifetime, and I'm satisfied. What once felt like deprivation, now feels like amazingly good sense and balance.

Besides, I have a one year jump start on my New Year's Resolution since I actually started my fitness quest in earnest this PAST January. Come January, I'll just keep doing what I've been doing for a year, and be grateful that the momentum continues.

I so love Snickerdoodles and Chex party mix and eggnog with Bourbon, etc., I love even more that I'm giving myself another size smaller for Christmas. Merry Christmas, Lynna!

Everybody has a Home Gym

About a year ago, when I shared my exercise routine on my Nustep with a doctor friend, he suggested that I might enjoy more benefits in terms of strengthening by broadening my activities. Specifically, he suggested I put on some great music and begin to move my body in whatever ways seemed good... kinda like Jazzercize... ONLY (and here is the key difference)instead of in the living room in front of an exercise video, or at a gym with an instructor, to do it from my bed. (I need to be careful how I word this post... I can imagine the hits I might get if I'm not careful!)

And so, I bought a set of resistance bands (a mere $20 at Walmart) and started moving. Nothing fancy. Nothing scientific. Nothing that I had to learn from a trainer.

I begin by sitting on the edge of my bed and use the resistance bands to exercise my arms and shoulders. My bedroom mirror is just across the room and I love watching the muscles in my upper body as I move against the resistance. (I imagine one day being able to do a chin-up, something that I strained to do in Elementary school, but could not. Shoot, let's make that ten chin-ups!)

After about 15 minutes on my upper body, I swing my legs into bed (before, I had to lift them into bed, and with a fair amount of difficulty), and begin doing sit-ups. When I began a few months ago, I attached the resistance band to my foot and used the tension from it to help my too weak stomach muscles. I started out with about 5 sit-ups. I now do about 100 each night with my arms across my chest... which is to say, my stomach muscles are extraordinarily stronger.

Next, I recline and do what I call "Knee Crunches". With my legs together, I bend my legs at the knee and pull them towards my chest and then back towards the bed, repeat. Again, when I started, a couple of these and my stomach muscles screamed, "Stop!". Last night, I think I did about 300. (I'm not sure, I lost count. It has become so much fun just to keep moving until I am about to drop off to sleep; and I reach a point where I'm exercising in a state between awake and asleep.)

A variation on the "knee crunches": I pull my knees towards my chest and then with them in the air, open and shut my knees, kind of like wings flapping, 200 times. (My kids have learned to knock on my bedroom door. After a time or two of wandering in and seeing me in full-blown exercise mode, they've grown more cautious. Like Smeagol in the Lord of the Rings, they exclaim, "It burns us, Master!")

Next I lie flat on my back, bend my knees slightly, and with legs together, roll my hips all the way to the left until my left leg touches the mattress, and then to the right. And repeat about 200 times. (No wonder rolling over in bed has become so much easier.)

A new exercise I've added: I wrap the resistance band around both ankles, raise my legs straight into the air, and then pull my legs apart (like a "v") as far as I can and hold them there for a few seconds. I repeat this 100 times.

And I top it off with some old-fashioned leg lifts. I begin with my legs straight up in the air and lower them until they are at about 45 degrees from the bed. I hold them in that position for a few seconds and lift them back to 90 degrees. I can only do this about 5-10 tims before my left leg starts quivering. Time to stop.

Exercising in bed: It's safe, fun, relaxing, inexpensive, empowering. Highly recommended.

Wellness Ripples Into the Laundry Room

A week ago, this room was knee-deep in laundry. Today, all the laundry is done and I found some fun decorations at the Salvation Army thrift store. Today, this room is my favorite in the house. I even go looking in other rooms for things to launder to have an excuse to spend time there. I call that wellness. :)

PUHLEAZE can we talk about it????

Without a doubt, my biggest frustration of 2010, and the biggest life lesson, too, incidentally, is that sometimes, no matter how hard you try or how much you want to work things out with people, they might not want the same thing, and it might not be possible.

I have been a bulldog. I detest conflict and relationship ruptures with a vehement passion and probably have been offputting in the past in my zeal to "talk things through." I hate letting things sit unresolved. And, yet, I don't have control of other peoples' free will. (Hey, even God doesn't, and that is some comfort.) This same pattern has developed several times this year, and I may not be totally bright, but, after getting hit over the head a few times with a club, I start to pay attention.

Sometimes, wellness means I have to sit in the pain of broken relationships. I'm not always good at sitting with the pain, especially when the frustration mounts. My mouth... the one with the sarcastic, biting tongue... can make things worse. Oh, I might momentarily *feel* better for wreaking some pain on the other person who is being so obstinate and hurting me in their refusal to make things better, but, ultimately that momentary release results in long-term spiritual harm.

I'm getting better, marginally, at biting my tongue (to a bloody pulp every once in awhile to keep from flailing it like a rope of barbed wire against the ones I love who are the cause of such pain)and saying, "I don't have control and I just have to wait and hope that things will change someday."

No Control. Waiting. Sitting in Pain. Sucky Life Lessons. But, good lessons to know if one hopes to be well. And I do.

Clunky, Chunky, Eccentric Amazing Me

I did three things simultaneously last night: while riding my Nustep I started reading a book and had tears rolling down my face. On a lark, I downloaded "What Matters Most: Living a More Considered Life" by Dr. James Hollis (a Jungian psychotherapist) to my Kindle (in 30 seconds, a book can be delivered into my living room. this is stunning.)

These words in the introduction took my breath away and opened a torrent of tears:

We are not here to fit in, to be well balanced, or provide exempla for others. We are here to be eccentric, different, perhaps strange, perhaps merely to add our small piece, or little clunky, chunky selves, to the great mosaic of being. As the gods intended, we are here to become more and more ourselves. We, too, must enjoy amazement at what unfolds from within us while our multiplicitous selves continue to incarnate in the world, contribute, and confound.

All my life it seems I've tried to live a balanced life. to live a normal life.to be pleasing to other people. to be a model for others. And I've been on a journey of self-discovery that has led me to feeling very unbalanced, VERY eccentric, and very much alone. And here was a learned man, somebody highly regarded in Christian circles, I think, saying, "it's okay... no!, it's even necessary just to become ourselves AND to be amazed at what we find!"

YES! That has been my experience. How else could I have grown to embrace my disability? my oddness? my seemingly endless journey of swimming against the current of the status quo? How else could I have grown to be amazed at how much I enjoy my own company, and to appreciate that there is only one "me" in all the universe? How else could I have grown to feel at home within my own skin even when there is chaos all around? How else could I have grown to embrace that each person is just as uniquely, amazingly created? (Although, it seems most people awaken late to the wonder of their uniqueness, if at all.)

At the very root of my wellness journey, is the underlying belief that I have been created by a God who takes great pleasure and delight in what God created. I have been learning to see myself reflected in the eyes of that proud Creator, and that has allowed me to begin to love myself. Many in the world would see a disabled woman in a wheelchair as defective, as something broken and in need of fixing, as sad, as contemptible, as saintly, as sweet, as... a thousand other projections are possible. None of them really matter. I have internalized my birthright from God... the pleasure God takes in me. Me just being me.

That acceptance... that perfect delighted acceptance... it what fuels my journey to honor my body. My Father loves me. I love me. I want to take care of me. All the clunky, chunky, eccentric, amazing parts of me.

Added later: Loving myself is not the same narcissistic love of self wherein I seek to please myself and to march to my own drummer. The more I know God, the more I love self, and the more I am able to empty of self. The more the other becomes increasingly important. It's very paradoxical.

Slow Dancing

Holy Crap. I just read my post from exactly a year ago (it is entitled "Meanwhile I Dance"... don't know how to link to it) and my life was a TRAIN WRECK. I was drowning physically and emotionally, all the while, doing a c-r-a-z-y amount of ministry that always occurs in a church between Thanksgiving and Christmas. (I probably did more in that one month than in four regular months.) Combine that with all the holiday activities that normally occur... cooking, cleaning, shopping, baking, wrapping, traveling, decorating... AND add a significant disability and significant health issues... AND add tons of unhealthy food and church potlucks... AND add no exercise... AND add two teenage/young adult children dealing with divorce holiday issues AND I marvel that I lived to tell about it.

Tonight, I am relaxing in my tidy house. I started decorating for Christmas and was able to easily retrieve my decorations from my bedroom closet where they were carefully organized by my sister last January. I am thanking God that I have this December just to concentrate on taking care of me and my kids without my usual frenzy of ministry-related activities. (Even though I thought I would disconnect back in the spring when I didn't have anyplace to serve, I'm actually enjoying the respite now, and am even thanking God for the gift of time and space to relax and just to enjoy the peace and quiet.)

I'm looking forward to baking with my daughter, shopping with my sister, enjoying time with my son, and experiencing Advent for the first time in years. (When you work in a church, Advent can be one of the hardest times to be quiet and to reflect. Before, for me, January was my time to reflect on the gift of Christmas. It was in the still and the quiet, instead of the frenzy of December, where I would find the space to reflect on the mystery and the beauty of God choosing to enter this wacked out world of ours.)

This year, though, in this lull in my life, I'm loving that I do have the opportunity to prepare spiritually for Christmas, as well as to enjoy the beauty and simple pleasures of the season. (Serving others WAS beautiful and I loved it, but it is nice, too, just to be still.)

So, this year, I am dancing a slow dance with God. And it is sweet. And while we dance, I tell God how grateful I am for the renewed outlook on life and the increasingly healthy body I'm being given. And God dips me gracefully and we smile.

2010: A Darn Good Year

In a couple of days, I'll have been following the Medifast program for five months. Prior to that, I had been eating healthily and exercising since the beginning of the year, and had already seen significant progress in weight loss/strength gains at the time I started with Medifast.

The progress continues to be steady (and wonderful.) Just now, I noticed that my "new" black skirt (size 18) has about 4" of extra fabric at the waistline. (Size 16 may be here sooner than I thought!)

Back in the winter, I could not have imagined how much better my life could be by the end of the year.

Some of the wonderful aspects of the wellness journey:

I am rarely incontinent now. Woot! That alone would be worth celebrating with great fanfare.

I feel sexy and flirtatious.

The swelling in my legs is drastically better! Woot again!!

My skin looks younger and healthier.

I look younger and healthier (one friend said 20 years younger!)

I am tons stronger. When I started exercising, a simple action like rolling over in bed was growing "iffy". While I do have significant paralysis in some of the muscles in my legs, many of the otherwise healthy muscles in my trunk and hips were atrophied and weak from under use. Since I have been doing exercises in bed for about 30 minutes each night, my abdominal and back muscles grow significantly stronger. When I started, I couldn't do a sit up. Now, I do 100 each night. I have an exercise routine that I constantly adjust to provide challenge. Once something becomes easy, I add more resistance or increase the repetitions. There's no method to my madness other than doing what feels instinctive and exercising muscles in a way that feels like "work" but doesn't feel like pain.

Back in January, there wasn't one part of my body that I found attractive. Now, I grow increasingly delighted to gaze into the mirror. I love my neck and shoulders. I love my arms. I love my ribcage. I love my slim lower legs and love wearing skirts.

Back in January, I couldn't imagine that I would ever date. It was inconceivable... I felt unhealthy. Shoot, I was unhealthy and couldn't conceive of dating or romance. As I grow increasingly healthy, my attitude is, "Darn, I had no idea that an attractive/strong/healthy woman was hiding in there and, not only is it possible that I might date again, but I'm fairly certain it's in the cards in the not too distant future."

Back in January, I felt very, very disabled. Crippled. Today, I feel strong and lithe, and know that I've really just begun to see how wonderfully responsive my body can be. I can easily imagine that a year from now, I have the potential to be a very fit, healthy, athletic wheelchair user.

A year ago, my body was a runaway train about to jump the track. Today, I am chugging happily along and feeling quite pleased and happy with the journey so far.

Best guess: I've lost about 50 pounds. so far. Way to Go, Lynna!!!!!!!!

Food is Now Food, Not Vicodin

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I went "home" for a few days and thoroughly enjoyed the trip.

Oh, let's be clear, though, it was full of family drama and upset as well as full of love and laughter. Life, I'm learning, is like that. And I'm learning to soak up the wonderfulness and tuck it away in my heart and learning to let the less pleasant aspects roll off without penetrating my soul. I think that's called semi-permeable boundaries... my boundaries are like those spikes that stick up in pavement that keep cars from going the wrong direction. In this case, the spikes allow full access to love, and shred the tires of fear, anger, hurt feelings, etc. and serve as a protective barrier to keep them from turning into bitterness or chronic anxiety.

As such, I am so much more resilient in dealing with "negative" emotions in a calm, rational manner... they just don't have the power they once did. And, because I know I have the internal fortitude to deal with conflict without being consumed by it, I find myself growing increasingly courageous and adventurous. Because I don't have to worry so much about protecting myself, I'm able to live with increasing freedom and daring. I LOVE THIS!

It has pay-offs in the eating/physical realm, too. Food has been the primary way I have self-soothed for my entire life (at least as far back as I can remember). Eating was the unconscious means I would use to feel better when I was hurt, or to lessen anxiety when I was afraid, or to feel happier when I was sad. Any emotion that caused pain would lead me zombie-like to the fridge for emotional pain-killer. Food was like Vicodin for me.

What has changed?
1) I have much more capacity to deal with painful emotions. I've experienced a ton of pain in recent years and I've seen how it can be transformed into gold. Sitting with the anger, the fear, the jealousy, the sadness... fully experiencing the difficult emotions and offering them up to God in prayer... has allowed the difficult experiences/emotions to be transformed into increasing strength, compassion, wisdom, and a more patient, loving heart.
2) I know that I can fully experience pain and it won't kill me and it won't last forever.
3) I have God to sit with me in the pain. I'm not alone and I don't have to rely on myself or others to fix it. God is a great psychotherapist!
4) I now realize that suffering is part of life. In my younger years, I thought we were SUPPOSED to feel good all the time. I now know that the abundant life is one lived fully in the joy AND the sorrow.
5)There's alot of growth potential in the "sorrow". I don't grow so much when I'm feeling good. It's when I'm in pain that I have the most potential to pay attention and to grow into being more like Christ. (Therefore, eating to numb the pain not only led my body to grow overweight, but it led my soul to be undernourished and starved.)

A History, Biology and Math Lesson

I am growing increasingly certain that weight gain and weight loss are hugely complex processes with deep physchological, emotional, and spiritual components. Who was the first idiot to distill it down to the simplistic formula of calories in/calories out? Even on a purely mathematical level, it belies the intricacy of the human body. For example, the proponents of calories in/calories out would say that if you eat 1500 calories in food, you need to expend more than 1500 calories to lose weight.

But what about the body's capacity under deprivation conditions to become MUCH more efficient at energy conservation? (An ingenious biological mechanism, incidentally, that served our hunter/gatherer ancestors during times of famine to survive.)

The weanies whose bodies followed the calories in/calories out gurus of the Pleistocene Era (I made that name up... so if my historical knowledge of pre-civilization eras is inaccurate, I just want to say: Why in the heck do you have useless trivia like that cluttering your brain?)... where was I before going off on that rabbit trail?... ahh, yes, the weanies... the weanies died off. And their genetic material died with them. Without a mechanism to eek super-efficiency from the meager fare available during winters or droughts, they simply devolved off the biological landscape. Damn. I would LOVE to have some of THAT genetic ancestry in my double helix.

Instead, my ancestors seem to be the ROCK STARS of survival. I can picture my
Great-Great-Great (and so on, but I'm too lazy to type "Great" 7683 times)Grandmother greeting her hairy man (my great, great, great... Grandfather) as he returned home from a hunting expedition: "Honey, any man can bring home a wooly mammoth to his family. It takes special cunning and prowess to kill a vole. Why I can take that little ol' vole, a turnip, and a handful of herbs and we'll eat like (insert something here... they didn't have Kings and Queens back then, but you get the idea).

And, so they would add a little liquid each day to the stewpot (which was really the convex clavicle of the wooly mammoth her ferocious hunter brought down the previous winter when times were better)and they lived for 67 days, quite nicely, thank you very much, on 27 calories a day.

I lament that that my family's genetic code hasn't undergone a spontaneous mutation in the ensuing generations. Would that a cystocine replaced a guanine somewhere during transcription (that instead coded for burning 2000 calories for every 1000 consumed, instead of burning 57 for every 1000 consumed).
Genetecist Readers: Pipe down. I know I'm butchering the little bit of freshman year genetics that still rattles around in the cobwebby recesses of my brain. Do you really have to be so pedantic and let everybody know they aren't as smart as you! sheesh.)

And so, I'll go happily about my day today, consuming my 800-1000 daily calories in Medifast meals which should yield 2-5 pounds lost per week (according to their literature)(Wah! I WANT THOSE ANCESTORS!) and I'll content myself with the 0.2 pounds each week and be satisfied that 38 years from now at 87 years of age, I am gonna be one svelte, healthy and sexy old broad when I finally triumph over thousands of years of survival genetics. Mathematicians: For Pete's sake. These aren't real calculations. They were illustrations... do you people have to take everything so literally? sheesh

Enjoying the Journey instead of Seeking The Goal

I take a low level antidepressant for depression. It works pretty well to level out my emotions, but doesn't even come close to the mood elevating effects of my better "antidepressant": My Nustep.

A Nustep is a seated recumbent cross-trainer and is a staple in gyms and physical therapy clinics across the country. It sits in the corner of my living room across from the entertainment center. (Note: I have an intense love for interior decorating and the Nustep does NOT go with my casual cottage decor. Even so, it's so valuable, I allow it to take up that valuable visual real estate.)

With rare exceptions, I relish the time I spend exercising with it. The hour a day I spend riding is one of the best parts of each day and something I anticipate (usually) with excitement.

What a sharp departure from the old Lynna who approached exercise as a chore... something to get through... 98, 99, 100! Shew! Finally done! Exercise was something I endured as a necessary evil to get to The Goal. (The Goal was ALWAYS some distant and smaller number on the scales.)

Today, I'm enjoying The Journey instead of trying to obtain The Goal. On The Journey, I take time to marvel at the muscles in my body and delight in seeing them grow stronger. I enjoy shopping for cute clothes to honor my body. I enjoy living in the moment instead of believing that I will only be able to fully live in a size 8 body.

On The Journey, my Nustep is an important companion. It has returned to me the sense that my body is remarkable. Having a progressive neuromuscular disease and having gone from relatively able-bodied to wheelchair-user in a decades span, I formerly had the sense that my body was defective. My attitude, tho, was my main crippling disability. "What the heck. Why bother. Why bother exercising... I'll never be able to walk normally again, anyhow. I'll never be like normal people. I'll never be normal anyhow. I might as well eat whatever I want. At least I'll feel better."

Today, for an hour each day, I experience my body as perfection. Instead of counting down the minutes, I spend much of the time talking to my body. "You are amazing. You are powerful. Look at you! Muscles, you are something else! I had no idea you were in there! Why! You are strong! Thank you Body!"

That exhilerating feeling of power and gratitude is spilling over into the rest of my life. I am feeling less and less and less "disabled" and more and more and more empowered. I am taking bigger risks. I am willing to try daring adventures. I am smiling and laughing more.

Yes, I think the big, bulky Nustep, even though it upsets the balance of my cottage decor, has a permanent place in my living room and in my heart.

My Mom's Excellent Question

My mom is one of my biggest fans. She is constantly encouraging me... not just on the weight loss journey, but she tells me all the time how much she admires me, encourages my writing, and is a major source of overall life encouragement.

I had no idea how distressed she was before regarding my health. The other day, she said, (and this is INCREDIBLY telling)"Lynna, because of what you are doing (ie taking care of myself), this is the best year of my entire life."

Wow! May I just say again, Wow! And may I also say I am so sorry for the worry and the distress that I caused her. She couldn't even tell me how concerned she was because I was terribly defensive and would cut people off at the knees with a biting retort. And, I'd show them by eating more! So, the people who loved me just had to sit back and wait.

My mom asked me yesterday why I had ignored my weight all those years and why I had decided to do something about it now.

At first, I was stumped and then I had a moment of enlightenment. "Mom, it wasn't that I wasn't paying attention all those years. I WAS working. Working damn hard. On my emotional, spiritual, and relational well being.

I left a marriage wherein I didn't feel I had a voice, I grieved a significant disability and learned to accept/embrace it, I became friends with God after being "divorced from God" (my choice) for 20 years and learned to wrestle with God about the big theological questions (like why does a good Father allow disability in children he loves), I faced my deepest fear of inadequacy and went back to work and excelled in my profession, I learned to live with integrity between my actions and my values.

In short, I was growing up. I was learning to love myself. I was learning to love other people. I was learning to love my body.

So, it wasn't that something just "clicked" recently... it's been building for ten years, little healing by little healing, building upon each other. For that reason, this is NOT a diet. It is a natural flow into the next level of wellness, this time manifest physically.

It amazes me how it all works together, and I can't wait to see what healing tomorrow brings.

Saturday Morning after Friday Night

I woke up this morning feeling refreshed and powerful. I chose well last night, and today is better for it. I chose the less immediately gratifying route of satisfying my desires for food by instead hoosing to eat a Medifast "meal" and to exercise... my normal disciplined routine.

The way the thoughts of food were calling to me felt like the phone ringing back in college with the football lothario on the other end asking for a last minute date. Now, I COULD have so easily gone on that date (I've done it before... both figuratively and literally), gorged on the emotional high and the immediate gratification, but woken up this morning with a hang-over and regrets of "I so can't believe what I did to (with) my body last night." The temporary good feelings of the instant (albeit destructive and impermanent) reward, would have been replaced this morning with lower self-esteem, and probably the addictive cycle of trying to find the same reward only with more and more effort and more and more "drug". Chasing the high. (The emotional high from food or being desired, or...)

Instead of spending the evening with the equivalent of the football jock (eating crazy food), I chose the guy next door: the quiet, unassuming, steady friend (riding my Nustep and staying on plan). It was't terribly exciting or sexy or all that much fun. But it was comfortable, good for me, safe, and healthy.

And today, I am clear-eyed, proud of myself, a little bit stronger and a tad more self-disciplined, and a lot more appreciative of that equivalent of the nerdy, computer geek. The football star is beginning to look a little bit slimy and unappealing. Next time he calls, I'm pretty sure I'll tell him I've found a better love and I'm not interested in the shallow, unfulfilling "rewards" of an evening spent with him.

This whole journey toward wellness isn't a "diet". It's about growing up and getting wiser. About darn time.

Romanced by Pepperoni

It's Friday night and I'm bored out of my gourd. After a fast-paced day of lunch with a great friend, followed by shopping at my favorite Goodwill 50% off sale (found some terrific skirts and sweaters!), I'm feeling very restless and disinterested in everything... even the thought of reading doesn't hold much appeal. Gasp. (I can't remember EVER not wanting to read. Even when I've had a stomach bug with my head hanging over the toilet, I'd reach for the toothpaste tube or shampoo bottle... anything, anything, anything as long as it had words.)

Actually, there is something that's grabbed my attention. For the first time in four months, I'm having food cravings. Good thing there's nothing in the house, or I would be hip deep in pizza, cheesecake, chips and sour cream dip, chocolate chip cookies, lasagna... well, you get the idea. WHERE DID THIS COME FROM? Here I am minding my own business, happily munching a stalk of celery and preparing to settle in for a good workout on my Nustep, and BOOM! all these old food longings have reared their vicious, ugly heads.

Part of my journey towards wellness is to try to understand myself better,to understand how I use food in ways other than sustenance, and to learn healthier behaviors and emotional responses to life besides self-medicating with food.

Perhaps the past couple of weeks are catching up with me. I've had some pretty major highs and lows emotionally. Amazing adventures coupled with surprising defeats. Right now, I'd like to curl up on the couch with a giant bowl of ice cream smothered in chocolate syrup and whipped cream and just eat myself into oblivion.

I've done that before... the eating into oblivion thing -- eating to numb the pain and to create a food-induced form of chemical unconsciousness. I don't want to go there again. Getting healthy, fit, and looking good is too much fun.

During the past 24 hours,running into acquaintances at restaurants and stores, I've been told:
" You look GREAT!" (Weird, this is the first thing almost everybody exclaims.)
"You look 20 years younger"
"You look healthy and happy"
"Seeing you like this has made my day!"
"Look at you! Love seeing you wearing makeup and jewelry!"
"HOW MUCH WEIGHT HAVE YOU LOST?!!!"
"You look marvelous."
"Lynna, is that you? I wasn't sure if that was you?"
"You have beautiful eyes. They really show up now."
"You seem so grounded and balanced."

I've had people in the past week go out of their way to send me messages (facebook and even a greeting card in the mail) remarking on how wonderful I look. It's pretty amazing stuff. Even more amazing, I agree with them. I know I am looking really good and know I am feeling even better. I feel a sense of power, accomplishment, and well-being knowing that I am taking care of myself and I'm getting healthier and stronger every day.

In the midst of the circumstances of my life (the good, the bad, and the ugly), it's comfortingly solid to have a sense that I do have some control over my well being and that I can affect some changes for the better.

Okay. I feel better. Don't feel quite the urge to call Domino's for the stuffed crust pizza that's been calling my name like a tantalizing lover. Nustep: It's you and me tonight, babe. Sorry for being so lukewarm about our date. You may not be as sexy or exciting as pepperoni and sausage, but you are true-blue and I'm glad to have you. Let's get this party started...

A Little Green Around the Gills But Loving the Journey

Life can be so unexpected. A little over a week ago, I was on a major career-path toward a lucrative and influential position in the publishing business and had an opportunity to do some significant good in the world. I was going to be co-editing a book with a "rockstar" and the horizons looked golden.

In an instant, reading an email sent to tell me that it didn't seem to be working out, the skies filled with ominous, black and ugly clouds and the smooth sailing turned, once again, into, "batten down the hatches and prepare to be tossed by fate's sea so violently that you puke" turbulence. Adrift in the storm, once again.

Maybe I'm getting better at sailing, but instead of hunkering down in my cabin with my head poised over the slop bucket, I've tossed on my yellow rain slicker, carefully fastened my life jacket, and I'm standing on deck with the rain pelting my face and the lightning crackling all around, riding the wild waves and with triumph on my face, I'm exclaiming to the wind, "I will NOT be beaten down. I am strong. I am courageous."

If the ship goes down, it's going down with me LIVING to the fullest. It's going down with me raising my arms in victory to the sky and proclaiming that I will NOT be derailed by unkindness and untruths. With my hair whipping like ropes against my face and with water cascading down my cheeks, looking somewhat wild-eyed and a little frightening, I shout into the furor and the din, "I am magnificent. I am loved. AND I WILL NOT LIE DOWN AND I WILL NOT BE QUIET!" I will ride this storm and I will look forward with breathless anticipation and surprise to the destination and direction the wind blows the vessel. The wind blows where it will blow and I am triumphantly calm in the storm knowing that God is the Captain, the anchor is strong, and adventures await. What seems like a storm may really be the wind taking me to the destination for which I've been created.

Healing for the Heart

I did something yesterday that I never thought I would do in this lifetime... I googled my first love's name (we were 18 when I knew him... ancient history), learned that he has his own law firm, and here's the daring part, I emailed him.

Not only did I email him, but I was transparent about my disability and the bumps and bruises I've endured along life's journey. Until recently, when I thought about old boyfriends, the thought of running into them was terrifying. I didn't want them to know how close they came to being saddled with a woman with a disability had things progressed in our relationships towards matrimony.

My old flame was sweet as pie. Although he's happily married, we shared a few email exchanges wherein we reminisced about the tender romance we had shared, asked one another for forgiveness for our lack of maturity and the mistakes we made that hurt one another, congratulated ourselves for turning out to be fairly decent human beings, and for a couple of emails, remembered what it felt like to be 18, foolish and in love.

It was tender, and I very much got the sense that he didn't give a second thought to my disability as a detractant. If anything, he was admiring of how I've lived my life. Rather than being relieved that he dodged the bullet, I got the sense that were we both single, the old flame could be fanned. We both agreed that while it had been lovely to reconnect, it wouldn't be wise to continue corresponding.

He broke my heart at 18. In a few sweet and tender emails over a 24 hour period, we returned to that long-ago time, and found healing and closure. The almost magical gift of a few brief exchanges: I find myself looking at the world with an 18 year-old's eyes... full of hope, expectancy, and unlimited possibilities. It's pretty cool to have the outlook of an 18 year-old coupled with the wisdom of an almost 50 year-old.

Thank you, Scott. Love, Me

Arresting Entropy

My sister jump-started my fitness quest last January. She hooked the jumper cables to my battery and revved the gas pedal and gave me a super-charge that continues to this day.

She arrived on New Year's Eve with my precious 4 year-old niece for a short visit to celebrate the holiday season and to have some family time.

Somehow, that short visit, intended to be a few days, extended to several weeks... and what amazing weeks they were.

My sister, seeing the disorder of my life and my household, set about organizing and cleaning. She would get up early, get to work, and not quit until late at night... some days not even changing out of her pjs! She was possessed. By the end of her visit, there was not a baseboard, heating vent, appliance or cranny in my entire house that had not received her magical cleaning touch.

She organized EVERY SINGLE STINKIN' ITEM in my ENTIRE house. I kid you not... one day I put a paper clip in the wrong place and she POUNCED on it to put it in the designated spot. We shopped for lovely organizing bins (I have an addiction for organizing bins!)and created closets and cabinets worthy of Martha Stewart. She MADE me go through my clothing and we took a truckload of clothes to Goodwill. (Haven't missed one single item!) More painful, she MADE me go through my books and divest myself of enough that the remainder would fit on my bookshelves. (We survived a little turbulent conflict over the books, and it was good.)

She cleaned mold out from under my kitchen sink. She turned cabinet doors on their hinges so they would open for better wheelchair access. She organized my toiletries so I would have smooth access to a better grooming system. She boxed up Christmas decorations and stored them where I would be able to access them this year without having somebody retrieve them from the basement. She scolded me for not doing a better job keeping my house tidy on a daily basis. In short, she helped me think through my life and sought to give me more control over my environment so I could enjoy living more and would hopefully be able to maintain order.

On day two of her cleaning/organizing frenzy, I jokingly told her that for every hour she worked, I would repay her by exercising faithfully for one month on my Nustep. (I didn't know when I said that that she would stay almost to the end of January, and I would owe her that "payment" well into my Senior years!)

Well, little sister, I haven't done a splendid job maintaining the order you created out of the chaos (although it remains TONS better than before), but I will tell you that the gift you gave me continues unabated to this day and the sense of well-being of having received such an amazing gift of grace and love and selflessness from you continues to propel me forward with taking care of me. You're battle and victory over the entropy of my house gave me encouragement to battle the entropy of my health/body.

Even though the paperclips might be in the wrong drawer and dog hair might be accumulating under the refrigerator since then, the re-ordering of ME continues on a wonderful path. Thank you, thank you, thank you, a million times, thank you! Love, From your Sister Who Adores You and Loves You and is Grateful for You! (Just don't mess with my books!)

"Stop Dissin' My Best Work!"

What an interesting week I've had. I've been working at my church in a sales position to assist members in previewing proofs and purchasing portrait packages as part of our church directory project.

After the shots are taken, folks come into an adjoining classroom where I click on their proofs which appear as images on a large computer monitor.

All this time, I thought I hated to see my image in the mirror or on film because I was overweight and/or disabled. (Until recently, that is. Lately, I've grown a little too enamored with gazing in the mirror, but I digress.)

We've taken photos of about 75 families, and I have heard only ONE woman who was self-complimentary. EVERYBODY else, especially the women, but also the men, have been incredibly negative about their photos.

"Look at all those chins!"
"I had no idea I had all these wrinkles!"
"Why didn't I get my hair done first?"
"Why did I get my hair permed this morning?"
"My teeth are yellow!"
"I look so old!(or fat)"
"My hair is really getting (thin, gray)!"
"Look at those bags under my eyes!"
"Oh my, look at my lazy eye!"

I sit there clicking on the thumbnails, and I see something very different. Get out! Don't you see what I see? Don't you see how lovely you are? Don't you see that you are beautiful? How can you possibly not find this image pleasing?

It led me to think about God having to hear our negative self-talk day in and day out. I picture him scolding us (in my mind, I hear a thick Brooklyn accent): "Hey you! Yeh! You! I'm talkin to you! What the hells the matter whichya? You're dissin MY work? You don't like what I'VE created?"

God's got a point. He says we are fearfully and wonderfully made. Who are we to say otherwise? Why do we think that our opinion (or other peoples' opinions) are truth? Who are we to say that wrinkles, blemishes, signs of aging, disabilities, etc. are "ugly".

I want one person, just one person, to come into that preview room and exclaim, "Look how lovely I am! God sure created a masterpiece when God created me!" (And the less that person is Madison Avenue beautiful, the more my heart will soar that they "get it"!")

We don't honor God, ourselves, or anybody else when we are negatively critical about our appearances. It just fosters and perpetuates the lies.

I'm choosing to live in the truth that I am beautiful. Somebody lovely to behold. My God sings and dances in delight over me. And you. And you. And yes, you.

It's a choice. Choose to believe. (Easy for me to say. I haven't had to face that computer monitor and judge my appearance. I so hope I am able to be one of the people who sees herself through God's eyes.)

Glad I Was Invited to This Banquet

I went to Mexico last week looking for direction for my life.

Mariposa Ministry, on-line, was responsible for saving my life and for giving me hope that I could live an abundant life, even with a disability, at a time when I was full of despair.

Born on the border of California and Mexico over thirty years ago as a ministry with disabled teens to explore the spiritual and emotional aspects of disability, Mariposa has grown even as those first teens have grown into middle-aged grandparents.

As I understand the early years, it was never an "organization"... more loosely characterized as a community coming together to share stories and to try to fit those stories into the framework of the larger story of the Gospel. (If the Gospel, as the church proclaims it, isn't perceived as Good News by the least of these-- and so often the message of the church IS hurtful to people with disabilities-- then perhaps our understanding of the Gospel message is deficient. For example, many churches teach that if you have enough faith, God will heal your disability. That creates a terrible tension for a person with a disability who approaches God with a heart full of hope and faith and doesn't receive the healing they anticipated. Is the Good News good enough and are the promises of "abundant life" for people with weak and twisted bodies, people with missing limbs, people born without eyes, etc.? Mariposa Ministry has wrestled with theological questions such as these and through times of deep, heart-wrenching sharing, liberal use of Kleenexes, healing prayer and laughter, the men and women of Mariposa grew and healed and began to live with a sure and certain hope and dignity that they could offer their broken bodies to God as living sacrifices, and God would be pleased and would glorify himself through them. (I'm not just writing as an observer... I am one of "them" and this has been my healing journey, too.)

Fast forward from those early years with awkward teens in the 70's to the present. I was blessed to attend an event in Mexicali this past Saturday "Disability with Dignity" that was a gathering of veteran Mariposa participants who had invited people with all manner of disabilities throughout the city/region to come together to explore what it means to live with a disability. (Mariposa has always been about sharing the gift of healing with others. Some of the first participants became "peer counselors" and traveled the city of Mexicali taking the healing hope to people trapped in poverty, hopelessness, and living lives characterized by indignity.)

Not knowing what to expect (would anybody want to come to such an event? would anybody be able to come given the transportation constraints?) they found a neighborhood center that graciously donated space that would hold the hoped-for fifty participants. The main meeting room was small by US standards and I thought it would be quite "intimate" if 50 people showed up.

Do you know the story Jesus told in Luke 14 where he talks about a rich man throwing a party and telling his servants to go into the highways and byways and not just invite but COMPEL the blind, the lame, the poor to come to the banquet?

I had the joy of seeing that parable brought to life this past Saturday! By mid-afternoon, we estimated that 80 people with disabilities had squeezed into the center. (One or two more wheelchairs and we would have had a traffic jam we'd still be trying to untangle in that room! It was like one of those little, hand-held puzzles with sliding tiles with one empty space for moving the tiles into order.)

Of the 80, I believe I heard that about half were new participants. (My Spanish is very rudimentary.) What was so beautiful and exciting was the vast array of disabilities represented: mobility, vision, cognitive, auditory. What was even more exciting was the sharing in small groups where we found that even though the nature of our disabilities was hugely varied, our thoughts about them, our experiences living with them, our emotions and our questions about God related to them were very similar.

The main activity of the day was to break into small groups of about six people per group and to share answers to a host of questions contained on slips of paper in a baggie. How would the new people respond to these " preguntas metiches" (nosy questions)? Most people with disabilities never have opportunity to talk about their experiences with disability, not even in their families (maybe especially not in their families!) Would people be shell-shocked at hearing such things uttered? Would they retreat? Would it be too much too soon?

It was a pretty daring experiment, but one born of faith, knowledge of the healing power inherent in telling one's story, and wisdom.

Examples of some of the nosy questions (as I remember them:
How do you feel about asking for help? How do you feel when other people try to help you?

What is the worst part about being disabled for you? Do you see any good in being disabled?

It was extraordinary how readily the new participants dove into answering questions. The group in which I participated had 7 participants, three who had never experienced anything like this. ALL shared deeply and I didn't sense any discomfort (unless it was trying to be heard over the noise in the room); rather, I sensed a deep relief and freedom in being able to talk freely about "taboo" subjects. My only frustration with the experience was wanting to talk/listen for hours upon hours more... I saw it just scratching the surface and pray that there will be ample opportunities in the future for people to have opportunity to go deeper.

Lest I am painting a picture of hand-wringing and "serious" times, rest assured, there was an aspect of people taking seriously the questions, but the day was infused with laughter, hugs, old friends connecting, new friends being made, little children playing, praises being sung, and a FEAST! The party went on well into the night. (I asked one man how long parties in Mexico go on. He answered, "Two days!") I'm pretty sure that people departed for only two reasons: 1)They had to because their transportation options were limited, 2)We had to clean the center and return it to readiness for the next day's activities.

As I think back to this day, I will be pondering for a long time to come what was so COMPELLING about that day, and what the church could learn from it. How does the church issue the invitation to the banquet? (Does it issue the invitation? Does it even want those guests? How does it prepare to be hospitable to people with disabilities? Is it nibbling the appetizer at the banquet without fully feasting on all that is offered? Why do people with disabilities not feel compelled to be in church?) Little questions like that.

In the meantime, I am very grateful to have experienced a day full of grace and beauty and want very much to share the gift with others.

Hear that, God? Tell me how... (umm, please!)

Reflections on a Different Decade

Ten years ago today, I had returned from Kentucky, where my dad was dying a horrible death from esophageal cancer, to be with my kids for Halloween. While they were getting into their costumes and we were eating a light supper before hitting the neighborhood for trick-or-treat, just at sundown, the phone call came. My dad's horrible battle was over. No longer would he have the morphine-induced terror, no longer would he struggle to pull air into his cancer-ridden lungs, no more assaults on his poor, skeletal, emaciated (ghoulish-looking, even) body.

It was a relief that the horror was over.

In the ensuing months and years, however, I realized that the pain of his death wasn't just because of the nightmarish experience of watching a robust 200 pound kayaker become a skeleton in less than a year; nor was it the hole created in our family by the absence of his large personality; but, for me, it was something uniquely my own: He died and with him went the opportunity for me to have peace that my dad was proud of me.

Oh, I knew he loved me. I just never got the impression that he was proud of me, that he took pleasure from me.

For the longest time, when I thought about my dad, all I could picture was his displeasure. One scene was particularly powerful. On the day before he was to have surgery to remove his esophagus, I took him to the hospital for his pre-op appointment. Afterwards, we stopped at Arby's. While he was in the bathroom retching, I ordered and started eating lunch. He walked out of the restroom, took a look at my tray, and sneered, "Well, you didn't waste any time eating all those french fries did you?" No doubt, that comment was largely fueled by his own misery and fear over his body's assault on his digestive tract, but all I heard was, "Lynna, you are a disgusting, overweight pig."

After he died, I remembered the gifts he had given me on Valentine's Day that I had received as messages of displeasure such as sugar-free chocolates and low-fat cookbooks. I felt like I had allowed my dad to die unhappy and I felt a terrible burden of guilt that I was so defective that he couldn't die in peace. Not only had I let him down by carrying 50 extra pounds, but I also carried the visible representation of our family's "secret" that somewhere in our family genetic code there was an abnormality resulting in CMT.

For years after he died, I grieved and I ate more. "Damn you! I am not going to lose weight to gain your approval!" Yes, it is possible to continue battling a ghost.

As I have healed over the years through counseling that has allowed me to accept my body -- my disabled body-- and to begin honoring it for the gift that it is, my need for my dad's approval has dramatically lessened. I have realized that all the regard I needed did not die when he died, but that I could have that regard in abundance... first from God (who delights in me!) and internalized within myself as self-regard. I thought when my dad died that the chance to feel good about myself had died. (That was a gift I thought he had to bestow.)

Today, as I seek to have as healthy a body as possible through exercise and losing weight as a gift of honor to myself, I miss my dad. I wish he was here to share in my happiness and freedom. I think he would be proud. I love you, Dad.

A Dazzling Decade

Before leaving on vacation, I dutifully packed 35 Medifast "meals", fully intending to continue the plan by eating 5 Medifast products and the 1 Lean/Green meal each day. As soon as we got to California, though, I quickly realized that I could not easily follow that plan AND be receptive to the hospitality that was being offered and avail myself of the wonderful opportunities to try new cuisine and broaden my horizons.

Had I stayed on plan, I would have missed the opportunity to eat the best Chinese food I've ever tasted at the Yum Yum Restaurant in Calexico, Victor's juevos rancheros, the best orange juice EVER!, barbacoa (similar to pulled pork with hot chili spice), refried beans, tripe soup (yes, I even enjoyed the opportunity to eat soup made with the lining of a cow's belly!), and authentic tamales.

It was wonderful to eat freely without guilt or hesitation. I find that my relationship with food continues to change. Even while trying new food, I found myself choosing NOT to eat chocolate cake, fast food, hotdogs at the zoo, etc. I felt completely free of any compulsion to eat, and completely free to eat that which seemed a good thing.

Now, that I'm home, I'm 100% back on track. (If you read my last post, having my pants fall off my hips was a MAJOR rush... one which I am excited to continue... umm... that is to say, I'm excited to continue losing weight so that my pants continue becoming looser. Don't worry, East Tennesse, I'm retiring those gray jeans. It's the experience of getting smaller and healthier that I crave, not the opportunities to flash poor hapless men. Although...)

Not only was it a rush to lose my pants (three times! but who's counting!) but also to be able to do things with more ease and confidence. Several times during travel, especially in Mexico outside of the reach of the Americans with Disability Act accomodations, I was SO grateful for the strengthening exercises I had been doing. None of the bathrooms in Mexico had grab bars and that would have been HIGHLY problematic just a few short months ago. Instead, I managed.

Because of losing weight and exercising, I felt stronger, more adventurous, healthier, more vivacious, and more attractive. Flirtatious, even.

When I turned 40 back in 2001, God "told" me to hold my arms up to the sky and prepare to be amazed at what was going to happen during this decade of my life. It has been and continues to be an amazing journey of healing in every possible way that a person can be healed, especially emotionally, spiritually, and now physically. Once I stopped defining for God what healing entailed (strong "normal" legs), I have been enfolded in healing grace and would honestly choose God's way of healing (healthy in a wheelchair), as weird as that might sound, to having a standard-issue body. God, you dazzle me.

David Hasselhoff, Eat your Heart Out

Hoo Boy! Do I ever have a humdinger of a story...

Before going any furter, I urge you to go watch this youtube video. It will definitely add to your enjoyment of this post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X9AUZoG0I0

Pants on the ground. Pants on the ground. Looking like a fool with your pants on the ground... catchy, ehh?

On the last day of our Mexican/Californian adventure, Kelly and I decided to spend some time on one of San Diego's gorgeous beaches. Having learned through a serendipitous email just days before we left for vacation that CA beaches have special beach wheelchairs available for use by disabled persons, I was over the moon at the thought of "walking" the beach and searching for shells. (The beach had become something I could not do about six years ago after gradually becoming more and more difficult.)

We traveled to the southern-most beach, just a couple of miles from the border with Mexico, on a drive that was phenomenally beautiful. At the lifeguard station, the poor lifeguard seemed a little bit puzzled about where the chair was stored, how to assign it to me, etc. (He was sixty years-old and was obviously tired of his job saying it was nothing like Baywatch... monotonous, low-pay, no retirement... stuff like that. He was about as effervescent as flat diet coke.)

This is where the story gets good and I hope you've read this far because you are about to be rewarded. When I stood up to transfer from my standard wheelchair to this weirdly specialized motorized chair with huge rubber tires, I felt my pants slide down over my hips, smooth as silk, and then begin gaining momentum as they slid down my thighs to my knees. My quick reflexes stopped them from puddling in a heap at my ankles. Yes, old, lifeguard excitement man was standing inches away. Just when he thought his job could offer nothing new! And I started babbling like diet coke exploding from a shaken bottle, "Kelly! Look! My diet is working!" I didn't care the Mr. Old, but still slightly hot, lifeguard man had seen me standing with my hole-free (thank God for that grace!)white panties shining for all the world to see.


I'm almost certain he audibly exhaled a sigh of relief as I toggled the joy stick forward and descended the sand bank towards the ocean's edge. His relief was short-lived. Two minutes later, I looked up to see him barrelling across the sand in his big, shiny red truck at a hurried clip. Leaning out the window, he hollerered with a BIT more animation than he had exhibited before, "Oh, you can take it on the moist sand, but you can't get it wet!" ( You see, I had made a beeline for the waves. In my excitement about feeling waves lapping at my feet and reveling in the sensation of sand receeding beneath my toes, a larger wave had landed and water had swirled mid-tire. I was trying to remember what I knew about flash floods and driving through swollen creeks and wondered if I was about to be swept out to sea on my newfound toy.)

Do you agree with me that this would have been an excellent plotline for Baywatch?

After about an hour of "beach-combing" we headed back to the lifeguard station only to find the battery was almost exhausted and the chair kept lurching to a stop. Enter the same red pick-up truck with a different oldish lifeguard coming to the rescue. (He seemed perturbed that LG#1 had not gone over the safety checklist nor had me sign the liability release. (Bet they were sweating bullets when they observed me from the glass enclosed guard tower as I was about to be swept towards Hawaii on their chair! Can't you just see the newspaper headlines!!!)

We managed to push me up the dune and parked outside the station.

I stood up to transfer to my own wheelchair, and,... yes, I think you know where this is going... I'll be danged if my pants didn't begin their descent towards my ankles once again. "Woops!", exclaimed LG#2. "Kelly, look! It wasn't a fluke. These pants really are too big!"

I'm glad I was able to relieve their boredom. It was fun appearing in this parody of Baywatch. (And my freakin' pants FELL off! Twice!!! Well, really, three times... again at the airport later that evening for the Indian cab driver. San Diego, I'll definitely come back. This was too much fun!)

Miraculous Healings Still Happen

My friend whom I hadn't seen in a few months stopped by the other day and ended up leaving my house in tears. (I have that effect on people, you know!)

At the end of our visit, just as she was standing to leave, somehow the conversation came around to my legs. She saw my legs and her eyes instantly became awash with tears.

Let me set the context for this: M is the friend who helped a year and a half ago to take the derailed train wreck of my life and get it back on track. With her amazing skills as a nurse, she did triage to assess first steps and helped break it all down into manageable little baby steps. The first step was to get treatment at the Wound Center for the deep, decubetous wounds on my lower legs. She drove me to EVERY appointment (once or twice a week) for months, she sat in and asked questions, she made sure I had the knowledge and the resources to follow aftercare instructions, she took me to lunch. In short, she was the hands and feet and heart of Jesus for me, and her love was a catalyst of empowerment within me for my ability to be stronger and healthier. She allowed me to be in control of the process but was always gently making suggestions, asking questions, providing assistance in a non-judgmental manner. It was a partnership. A lovely, life giving partnership of saving a life.

Back to the present and the tears: Not only are the wounds a very distant memory, but the skin on my lower legs is dramatically better. I'll spare you the details of the former skin quality, but now it is beginning to look like normalish skin. The swelling that resulted in the former skin breakdown is well under control and markedly less.

Last year, my lower legs were so swollen that I literally could not find any shoes that I could wear. They looked like small tree trunks. Today, they look normal. Last year, I struggled with wrapping them every night with ace bandages. It literally took an hour to wrap both legs and it was with great difficulty. Today, perhaps as a result of losing weight combined with stronger legs and greater flexibility, I am able to wrap both legs in about 10-15 minutes and it's a breeze. Today, I have a cute pair of ankle boots I love to wear with tights and a mid-thigh length skirt.

M took one look at my legs and with emotion said, "Lynna, this is a miracle."

I think she's correct. Healing miracles still happen, although not always the way we expect. I know in my case, I prayed, "God, please heal my legs." and hoped to look down to see instantaneous changes. Instead, God answered that prayer, I think, by sending me people who could help me heal my life (emotionally, spiritually, relationally, as well as physically), and gave me the desire to begin doing MY part to take care of me and to affect the healing process by eating well, laughing more, and moving my body (some people call it exercise).

I hope to never forget and never to stop being grateful for the healing grace that is poured out on my life through the inner working of the Holy Spirit and the external workings of Christ through people who serve. (I have about a hundred posts rattling around in my head that need to be written to express gratitude to individuals who have made a difference. Hopefully, you know who you are!)

Cheekbones Romance the Narcissist

Gazing in the mirror hasn't been my thing since I was a teenager. Yet, the other day, I caught a glimpse of my face in the mirror, and had to stop and marvel. I sat there mesmerized by the reflection, turning my head this way and that, wondering where the extra chin(s) had gone, observing tendons in my neck, enjoying the reappearance of cheek bones after a long hiatus. I thought I looked pretty and it felt so very, very good to enjoy looking at myself.

Until I glanced away and noticed that the truck traveling in front of me had stopped to turn left! Instantly, I knew I wouldn't have time to stop. With oncoming cars in the left lane, and a steep drop-off and drainage ditch to the right, there was nothing to do but slam on the brakes and plow into the poor, hapless Ford truck. Significant body damage resulted to both vehicles. Significant!

Cheekbones, I love ya! Truly, I do. But did you have to choose that mirror to turn on your flirtatious charm?

PS Adding an addendum to say that I am perfectly fine, as was the other driver. Could have been bad, though, and I am grateful it was only twisted steel and smashed glass. Damn mirror.

Fashion Conundrums

I am growing addicted to shopping at thrift stores! I love finding bargains and being creative in putting together outfits on a dime. Ever since I learned how to load my wheelchair by myself, with the resultant freedom to go places by myself, and since I've lost weight and look so much better, I find myself ENJOYING shopping. (For the past ten years, it has been torturous... like having one's toenails ripped out. When I was still trying to ambulate, I had very little stamina to shop and, more often than not, I'd just grab something and make it do. Since there were very few clothes in my size that were truly attractive, it didn't matter very much. I wore alot of black pants and simple sweaters or blouses.)

My one difficulty in this, however, is that I am a little bit fashion schizophrenic. I can't settle on a style. I love them all... Bohemian, classy Chanel, frills and ruffles, pencil skirts and twinsets, BIG jewelry, simple pearls, short skirts and tights with ankle boots and a low cut top, business suit. WHO AM I???

I'm at a strange and exciting time in my life. Essentially, with fashion, I have the opportunity to project an image and I'm not sure who it is I want to project or what I want to project that impacts the world the way I want to impact it. (So many people with disabilities pay little attention to grooming and dress and that perpetuates negative stereotypes of disability. I want to be different. I want people to see me and do a double take and think to themselves, "Wow, maybe disability is different than I thought. Maybe it's not tragic or ugly or asexual.")

So, I am in the midst of a vast experimental phase, trying new things, and trying to find who I am in the midst of tensions. For instance:

1) Trying to dress stylishly without looking like a teenager or a matron. I'm at an in-between age that seems to be in fashion no-man's land. Too old for Junior styles, too young for the (ugly) Women's department. I am erring on the side of dressing younger, rather than older, and hope it doesn't look silly. (My 18 year-old daughter finds my new clothing a bit disconcerting. I can't decide if she is a good fashion consultant and I need to listen to her or if she is just discomforted by change and wants me to be familiar, old mom.)

2)Dressing to be alluring without dressing trampy. (A little peak of cleavage is a good thing. Too much cleavage, however, is hoochie mama. How much is too much??? Who decides???)

3)How do I wear dresses/skirts without exposing the goods? Anybody watching while I'm getting into my SUV might get more than they bargained for. Since I'm wearing tights, there really isn't a possibility of anybody seeing anything, but it would still have the feel of being provocative and exhibitionist. How do I get around that? (Or do I exploit it? Ha. Just kidding!)

It's going to be fun to experiment with styles as I discover my fashion sense and to observe how people respond to different images. Gotta go. More shopping.

She Wore a Skirt (and loved it!)

I realized yesterday that half of my lifetime has passed since I paid attention to fashion, makeup, nail polish and such. Yes, twenty-five years! When I was fresh out of college with my first grown-up job, I shopped endlessly and had a great wardrobe. Shoes, purses, jewelry to go with every outfit. A closet full of designer labels. It mattered to me, ALOT.

Then I got married and had babies and became a stay-at-home mom, and fashion morphed into function: stirrup pants with tunic tops, jumpers with turtlenecks. I dressed and looked like a kindergarten teacher. Then, about the time my kids became adolescents, my disability really started progressing. I became depressed, gained weight, and basically didn't give a crap about my appearance... my subconscious attitude was "Why bother. I'm screwed in the physical realm anyhow." Then, I became a Christian and thought I had better, loftier things to attend to than putting on lipstick... like changing the world. While at the height of saving everybody else,about two years ago, a homeless, recovering alcoholic told me I would be taken alot more seriously if I didn't look like her.

Ouch. WAKE UP CALL!!! I immediately began a quest to dress better, which was incredibly difficult since I was obese, could not wear shoes on my swollen feet, and was basically a physical train-wreck. (It's only looking back that I see where I was. At the time, engrossed in helping people, I was oblivious to my own need to be saved.)

Sometimes salvation comes through the backdoor. Back in March, when my world crumbled, I had nothing to do and nobody to save. In the midst of the confusion and the loss of bearings, I focused on the only thing that was left: me. Oh, I lamented and mourned and wanted real work to do and people to help. Instead, in the absence of that, I rode my Nustep. and rode it. and rode it. and cried.

Yesterday was one of those days where you suddenly see that life has changed even while you didn't realize it was changing. I spent most of the day trying on clothes. For the first time in ten years, I dressed in front of a full length mirror that I had placed in my bedroom. I had been shopping for the past several weeks (online, ebay, department stores, and thrift stores) and had piles of clothes to sort through... to try to re-learn what I knew at age 25: that looking good is an art and it takes work. Not everything works on every body. Compounding that, a disabled body brings a slew of additional challenges.

Just take trying on clothes, for instance. The average able-bodied person bops into the fitting room with an armload of clothes. Stands, stoops, twists, turns, tugs and returns to the racks for more armloads of clothes. I, on the other hand, don't have the physical stamina for that. Usually, I buy clothes that might work and try them on, a little at a time, at home. Most go back to the store, which entails another laborious shopping expedition. (I don't just park in the fire lane and dash into the store for a two minute return. Even that trip has to be carefully orchestrated and planned.)

Yesterday, I tried on tights. With paralyzed legs, something as simple as putting on a pair of tights is a challenge. I reached over and lifted my left leg and set it on my right thigh. Then I started rolling the tights over my foot, which slipped and fell to the floor. I repeated this until I got the tights over my foot. Then I repeated that for my right foot. With the tights pulled to my thighs, I stood up from my wheelchair and tried to quickly pull them up the rest of the way. (Quickly because I have terrible balance.) Ha! Ain't nothing quick about trying to pull tights (think about the name!) over size 18 hips. I thought about wearing them scrunched at mid-thigh, but was so excited about the fashion doors that tights could open, that I persisted. In order to gain better balance, I put my forehead against the wall. The resultant trapezoid formed between the wall and my two feet gave me the stability to coax (read, wrestle) those tights (did I buy toddler sized by mistake?)over my womanly hips. And then I looked down and saw I had pulled a large snag in the fabric and had to start all over again! But it was worth the effort and more!

For the first time in ten years, I wore a skirt! It was a cute, military styled knee-length khaki skirt. (And size 18! If you had told me 25 years ago that one day I would be delighted to be small enough to fit into a size 18 skirt, that would have sounded totally nuts!) With my gunmetal gray tights, new pewter-colored flats, red sweater set and gray pearls, I looked fantastic. It took an entire day of trying on clothes, and discarding items that just didn't work on my body (like long shirts or skirts... I couldn't believe that I looked GOOD in thigh length skirts!!!!) but the end result was a polished, cute, fun outfit. I spent extra time on my hair and makeup, and for the first time in a long, long, long time, I felt like my exterior matched my interior. It was one of the best days of my life.

Two years ago, I couldn't wear shoes on my swollen feet. I had wounds on my legs. I was a size 24. I dried my hair by hanging my head out the window. I rarely wore makeup.

Yesterday, I had polished nails, cute shoes (still a challenge to find cute shoes for my still partially swollen feet), LEGS!!!, great hair (getting caramel colored hi-lites next week), and I felt like the bell of the ball.

I could write all day about the wonder of it all, but, hey, I have shopping to do.

And by the way, this is not a Madison-avenue, fear-based, vanity trip. This is saying to myself and to the world, "An overweight, wheelchair-using woman can believe she is worth of this kind of honor and attention and she can live out the beauty that she feels inside." Maybe that changes the world without trying to change the world.

Something About Lynna

Last night, while exercising, I had the tv on in the background and found myself laughing at a scene in "Something about Mary", a comedy that was produced, what, ten years ago? My laughter turned into dismay, however.

Quick plot overview: Boy likes girl in high school. Girl moves away. Ten years later, boy hires PI to find girl. PI falls for girl (played by the lovely, sprightly Cameron Diaz). In order to pursue the girl for his own, PI lies to boy that girl has gained weight. "Not bad for deuce or deuce fifty." Dismay crosses boys face. PI goes on to say that she uses a wheelchair. Boy's dismay turns into despair. Oh, and she has four kids, never been married, and lives in the projects! The plot line leaves no doubt that the writers of this spoof were seeking a caricature of the worst possible scenario a guy could imagine for the high school prom princess of his youth.

The movie proceeds with the guy overcoming his disgust and pity at the thought of his sweetheart's fate, and he sets out to find her anyhow. He is portrayed as noble. A man of rare valor and depth. A man willing to overlook her porky crippled state with high hopes that he might rescue her.

Hollywood! You got it exactly wrong. This overweight, wheelchair using, very smart, very accomplished, attractive woman says, "Please stop perpetuating the pity party! Please stop with the shallow and untrue portrayal of people with disabilities as pathetic."

Hollywood, you might be unable to see beauty beyond the shallow size 2 botox box, but I'm here to tell you and the world that a 200 pound woman in a wheelchair can be strong, intelligent, sexy, powerful, brave, loving, beautiful and a "catch" for any guy who is smart enough and worthy enough to earn her affection.

Hollywood, you write whatever plot line you want for your silly tales. I'm living my own drama and in it, I am the beautiful heroine. In it I am the prom princess grown up to use a wheelchair and to glide in regal splendor. Hollywood, THAT's an interesting story. Your version... well... just a little boring.

When you're ready to tell a good story, send my agent a proposal.

Wonderful Abundance

To anybody reading this, I just say, "God Bless YOU!" My kids make fun of my writing all the time. (I think they're gently ribbing ol' mom, but you never can tell for sure. "Overwritten" "Flowery Tripe" "More of your usual Blah, Blah, Blah". Yup, they MUST be kidding around just to see if they can get a rise out of me. Come on! They couldn't be serious, could they?)

Enough of that... let's get on with the overwritten tripe, shall we?

This past weekend I had a marvelous adventure at a day-long auction of surplus materials from the Oak Ridge National Labs. A gigantic warehouse was full to the brim with vintage industrial lab furnishings and equipment. Seriously geeky, wonderful, scientific equipment. Have you ever wanted a positron accelerator distillation thermo-coupled neutron microscope? It was surely there. Not only was the warehouse full of all this gloriously wonderful stuff, but intermingled amidst the items were throngs of wonderfully geeky men: scientists, businessmen, machinists. I had so much fun kidding around with them, bidding against them, and enjoying the confusion on their faces when the woman in the wheelchair beat the pants off of them in the psychological war known as bidding.

Every once in awhile I would lose out on an item I really wanted. When that happened, I would tell myself, "Self, there is abundance in the universe. Don't sweat missing out on that xyz."

It would be a good question for you to ask at this point, "What does that have to do with a freakin' blog about wellness?" Glad you asked... EVERYTHING!

I realized that there was a time in my life when auctions could be really distressing. If I wanted something and didn't win, I'd think obsessively about it. Instead of paying attention with gratitude to the items I had won, I'd dream about, yearn for, cry over the one thing that I hadn't.

Such was my approach to food. Instead of that attitude of "there is abundance in the universe", I approached food with the attitude, "I better grab and eat everything I can because I don't want to pass over something because it might not come this way again." Approaching food with the attitude that there is more than enough today, and there will be more than enough tomorrow and potentially better things tomorrow, no less, I am able to easily pass up the chocolate brownie or lasagna or...

Tomorrow is another day, and it will come with its own surprises and abundance. I may drive along the road and come upon an even better geeky piece of equipment in some body's roadside trash than the one I lost in the bidding war; or I might learn that NOT having the item and being content is the real prize; or I might learn that feeling my ribcage for the first time in years is more abundance than a bakery full of cake...

Abundance. There is more than enough. And I don't have to have it all, and especially don't have to have it all today.

(Can't wait for the next auction. Did I mention all those wonderfully abundant men? :)

Wellness Breeds Wellness

This morning I arrived at work and parked in front of the smoking area for the adjacent business. Standing there were three very attractive, young, fashionable women. There was a time in my life, not so long ago, that I would have chosen to wait until they were through with their break before leaving my automobile. I wouldn't have wanted to endure the shame of the judgments that would surely be occurring. I wouldn't have been able to stand seeing myself through their eyes as I projected my damaged self-image onto them. Like a boomerang.

Not any more, though. I noted that I had changed and went busily about the business of getting my wheelchair reassembled, gathering my belongings and rolling towards my office.

As I smiled and said, "Hello" to the women, one particularly fresh-faced and cute 20-something said, "I hope you didn't think I was staring at you. I was watching so intently because my husband was in an accident a few months ago and is now a paraplegic learning how to do things like load and unload his wheelchair. I wanted to see how you did it." Cold chills.

Imagine the opportunity that would have been lost had I not experienced healing/self-acceptance and had hidden away in my vehicle! We talked for about 10 minutes and I sensed that I can help this young couple navigate the new and difficult terrain in which they find themselves. Pure grace.

Wellness. It creates ripples and fosters more wellness. Glorious system God has designed, dontcha think? :)

Instant Replay of Movie Adventure

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THuqXi8g5ao&NR=1

Thanks to my friend, Diane, I found this video on youtube. There are a few differences between this video and Saturday night:

We were NOT drunk (don't have that excuse!)
It's at a home instead of a movie theatre
It's dudes instead of a bunch of church ladies

Even with those exceptions, this gives you an idea what my friends made me do on Saturday. Really,guys, did you have to goad me into careening down the stairs! (If only I had that as a real excuse!)

Movie Adventures (Part 2)

From my perspective, this is where the story gets interesting.

The movie ends. Credits roll. Theatre empties. Sweating begins. Time to execute my creatively crafted "Operation Get Lynna Off the Ground". I sent Jen off to my car for my crutches, kindly thanked the lovely man who earlier had offered assistance, and began reassuring my friends that I was okay and that together, all of us doing a part as the Body of Christ, we could do this thing.

This is classic. Diane said, "I hadn't realized you had fallen when I saw you over there on the aisle. I thought you just wanted to sit there. I thought it was kinda odd." (If my bladder had been full, I definitely would have peed from the belly laugh this evoked.) She then said, "Lynna, you are supposed to go down stairs backwards!" Why in the heck did this ablebodied woman know this and I DID NOT! Diane, I need you to teach me how to better navigate disability!

Jen returned with my crutches and I took a deep breath and rolled over onto my knees, knowing that was the first step in the process. I instructed somebody behind me to lift my right ankle and uncross my leg off of my left leg, as I could not do that myself. I tried to pull up using the handrail, when Jen suggested crawling up a step so I would be at the top when I got in the chair instead of down one step. Yup! Great thinking! So here we are: Jen is steadying my chair so it doesn't roll backwards, others are following my directions to help position my feet, knees, crutches etc., others have been instructed their job is to pray (really), and still another assisted by keeping the well-meaning and concerned staff from impeding progress. "She's okay and we've got this under control. Relax." Truly, we did this together. And we did it with style, grace and laughter, and, surprisingly, with ease. Once I was seated, the manager asked if I would give her my name, address etc. and a synopsis. Upon hearing, she looked puzzled and asked quizzically, "You mean, you slid out of your chair because you were trying to go down stairs?" Well, duh, doesn't everybody in a wheelchair do that!"

As we left the theatre, some of my favorite memories of the evening occurred in the parking lot.

Michelle: They were probably worried you might sue them.
Me: Hey, Jen, next time we go out let's start with you dumping me out at the restaurant and I'll get us all free meals. And then we can repeat that at the movie, and...

Jeanetta: I was surprised to see so many people using the handicapped seating area.
Me: (between gulping laughter): Yeh, well everybody else in the theatre was surprised to see the handicapped woman sitting on the ground!
Me: I wonder if everybody thought I was inebriated and felt sorry for the drunk crippled woman?

It was fun and silly. Once we got to my car, I announced, "I have something to say here. (choked up a little) I need you to know that disability can be really hard and it can suck at times. But there are moments when the difficulty can be transformed into joy. And you guys have done that for me tonight. Thanks friends."

And we got in our cars and headed home. Until our next adventure... (if they are brave enough to give it another go, that is!)