Finished Socks!

 Thanks to Birdie's Pie Shop and Thrivent and other generous donations, along with LOTS of willing hands, we finished all of our socks and messages for this year!  I can't wait to take them to the youth and adult inpatient mental health units for Christmas morning. 

Free

 Free.  

It's the best word I can use to describe what I felt this day last year.  It was this day that I was able to go home from the third time of being in the hospital.  Quite honestly, I was terrified.  The last two times I had gone home, I left the "safety" of the hospital and came home only to find out both evenings that the severity of anxiety was still ever-present and ever-painful.  I had grown convinced that this was my new life, a life that I simply could not bear.  I wondered if I would forever have to live in the hospital, away from my precious family, because that would be the only place where I could be okay.  I had never felt something like this before, and there continue to be no words to explain how excruciatingly painful all of it was.  

This time, I came home ready for the panic attack that was sure to rear its ugly head that evening.  Literal miracles had occurred that third time in the hospital, but I still wasn't sure if they would last or if I was still living on the high of having hope in a better life than I had before imagined for myself.

I got home, we finally celebrated my birthday since I had gone back to the hospital on my birthday, and we snuggled on the couch to watch a movie.  I continued to tell myself that this time was different, that I wasn't going to panic like before, that I really was okay, but this huge part of me didn't know what to believe, and I was beyond scared.  If those physical symptoms of anxiety manifested themselves again, especially to the intensity I had been enduring for so long, I knew we would have to make some very difficult decisions about my long-term wellbeing.  

But that evening, there was no panic.  I still wasn't convinced that I wouldn't end up back in the hospital within a few weeks or months,  but an evening without panic felt like maybe, just maybe, I had finally woken up from the nightmare I had been stuck in for 4 months.  

The next day was the same.  No panic.  Still fear that this wouldn't last, but no physical anxiety like before.  Day after day, this continued.  There were many ups and downs, but they were different.  I could tell that the cocktail of medications I was taking was working.  There were powerful triggers that would leave me crippled, but Kyle helped me through those, and I remained out of the hospital.  

This last year has been difficult in ways that are equally impossible to describe, but we are moving forward.  The hard days are spreading out farther.  The good days are becoming more of the normal.  I am finding peace.  

This is the day I gained a second chance at life, because I was finally free.

Exercise

 Happy acai bowl day to me! 😂 I told myself a long time ago, that when I made it to my 2000 lap mark of swimming, I would buy myself a dragon bowl with my own spending money to celebrate.  I took the whole summer off from swimming to spend more time with my kids (plus I was biking everywhere with them with Garrett in a trailer, so that was plenty of working out), but I got back into swimming at the start of the school year and have been going strong since.  

I used to swim 34 laps (33 laps is 1/2 mile, but who wants to stop at the other end of the pool?! 🤣) breaststroke 3 times a week.  Now I swim 3 times a week still but it's anywhere between 40 and 66 laps alternating between breaststroke and freestyle.  I've beat my half mile personal record by 35 seconds and my full mile personal record by 3 minutes.  

My body feels good, but even more than that, my mind feels good.  Toward the end of summer, some of the things we had been biking to were done, so my exercise decreased dramatically.  Not exercising as much + some medication issues + difficult topics in counseling led to a plunge into deep depression.  Now that I am swimming again, there have still been some bumps and triggers and uncontrollable life circumstances that have caused bouts of depression and anxiety, but I find that I am able to bounce back quicker and have much less drastic swings, when I am exercising regularly and pushing my body to work hard.  Hence, my reason for celebrating!