I'm Fertile.

YAY!! But we have been called to a small family. Boo. But we are both on board with that, so abstaining hasn't been a problem. Yay! Yeah. Abstaining hasn't been a problem. Boo.

NFP, health problems, and us. I ache so badly sometimes that I can't feel my lower extremities. Hard to feel aroused, when numbness is more common. So. How do I overcome that? I take pain pills I don't like, but help me function. I go to a doctor every two months and poas. That's "pee on a stick" for those not in the know. But the stick I pee on is not to check for hormones. It is to check that I don't have too much of the pain drugs in my system to show I am not overdosing, and enough in my system that I am not selling them. Careful balance there. (Don't worry criminals, getting to the drugs is tough. I am always home. And armed.) It is a gift to have this type of pain management available. I can't fathom the level of pain people dealt with when they still thought chronic fatigue was a "fake illness."

Being called to a small family probably hurts more. I wanted a bunch of children so I would never know who was the "baby," so I would never raise her as one. (I am the family baby, and I have issues.) I wanted a bunch of kids who entertained each other and helped each other laugh. Instead I have 2. They are enough to be a conspiracy all on their own, though. They make each other laugh, and also scream and fight. I missed the parent memo that an older brother would lick his sister's upper arm just to annoy her, and then claim, "I just breathed on her." Um. Ew? What are we? Cats? Yuck. "Spit that thing out. You don't know where its been!" (Points if you get the Ice Age reference.)

I wanted a lot of kids. I wanted to be Fertile Myrtle. I also wanted to be healthy and conquer the world. Didn't work out that way. God always has other plans. I have a younger friend with 4 children who sometimes feels intimidated going in public and dealing with the comments. (Don't you have a TV?) She is shy and reserved, while I would have loved to answer with my favorite all-time quip that I picked up somewhere online, "Sir. If you think TV is better than sex, you're doing it wrong." But, God had other plans for most of us.

I wonder if there is anything good on TV tonight?

16 and 25 to 41

I often joke that the 16-year-old version of me would laugh if you told her where she would be in 25 years. But recently, I have decided that she wouldn't laugh so much as be entertained by her own rudder. I think that no one who knew me then is terribly surprised when they find out the directions I have gone in. I am sure that every guy I dated, and lectured on his and my own lack of morality, is not surprised at all that this is where I went. I have always had this in me. There is not a teacher who wouldn't be surprised that I express myself, most often, in the written word. I talked constantly in school. But I also wrote. An essay test answer from me was sure to go on... and on.

My religion teachers knew me as the one who always had a question. If I didn't have a headache preventing me from participating, I was right in the fray. I wanted to know everything about every religion. None of that has truly changed. I still do. I still struggle to "get" homilies. I keep wanting to make them relate to me. I often discover that it is me who needs to do the relating. That hasn't changed either.

The biggest part of me that hasn't changed is my fear of letting myself be exposed. I still fear letting the world see me in all of my yucky sinfulness. I still don't want to write when I don't feel up to it. I still keep ideas in my head, and in my ipod recorder; ideas that I am afraid to put out there because I might offend. I still haven't changed in many ways from that 16-year-old. I still want everyone to like me. Silly, I know. And pleasing people will not get Truth revealed. That is likely one of the only things that would shock 16-year-old me. "You aren't going to like the Truth sometimes, and neither will others. Deal with it."