Just Pondering…

Awake, early on Thanksgiving morning was not my plan. The older I get, the earlier I wake up. Perhaps it is to make the most of what days I have left and make every minute count.

This week, my planning and cleaning will all come together like a beautiful performance, is my hope anyway. I feel the anxiety building knowing in the next six hours, I must orchestrate the meal to take center stage as butterflies within are felt. Breathing in and out, calming myself, encouraging thoughts that it will all will work out. If not, we will order pizza and consider it a year, as it has been a year.

As I tried to go back to sleep, I felt my heart hurt like it does at times. I don’t like this feeling, of course, I think of a heart attack, which causes fear. I knew what was happening and now as I sit here writing while drinking my morning coffee, it is the anxiety that I feel. My stress level is increasing of which I need to be more aware of due to recent medical tests and results. Getting old is not what it is all cracked up to be, as they say.

In that moment with the aches, I was reminded of when I was in the hospital many, many years ago and they did not know what was wrong with me. Tests were done, etc., but my heart hurt. Back then they kept you for days instead of these outpatient tests or a twenty-four hour observation time in admittance.

I remember well this nurse questioning me, using her stethoscope, and just taking her time with me to figure me out. Please do. I remember this moment as if it just happened and perhaps for me to know that this pain is anxiety. After all these years, correlating the pain with what is happening in my life, I know to find a place to chill out and be calm. I will be okay.

At that time, my marriage was pretty rocky. I kept all the hidden secrets of a marriage in trouble all to myself then. I had nobody to really understand what was happening or trust. I really did not understand. As the nurse listened one more time to my heart, I said to her, “I think my heart is just broken.” Even then my comment went on deaf ears.

This morning, with the pain, my heart is broken yet again, but in a different manner.

So looking forward to seeing my youngest son today, he informs me late last night that a friend he was with on Sunday, tested positive with this virus on Tuesday.

Of course, he feels fine but was exposed. Asking if I thought it would be okay still if ‘we’ come, a friend to tag along with him. We, that means two exposed to come home. What is it with this younger generation? Now that I am old, I can ask this. Well, I was the same at that age when I took out my retirement because I’d never get old. Hello. So I understand him but I had to tell him, they could not come.
Oh my goodness, do you know how hard it was to tell your own child that they were not welcome for Thanksgiving? The tears would not stop as we texted back and forth over the hour. If you read my previous blog, Come Home, I mention that it has been four months since I have seen my son. I was so excited he would be here but now he won’t.

In that sadness, I was depleted of joy. My sleep was restless although it was nice to shut my eyes for a few hours.
To wake up with a broken heart, knowing the show must go on.
I look forward to being with my oldest son, his wife and her parents but there is a void. My youngest is not married and I know he deals with depression. He is alone. Crazy enough, I have to wonder also if he planned this, maybe his friend does not have the virus but made up to avoid coming. No matter, my heart hurts and feels broken yet again.

Anxiety is real. After so much, year after year, stress and anxiety can cause physical ailments, as I am now dealing with, yet again. This all adds up in the body and medical issues result.

So today we will gather for a short period and go back to our isolated world.

Thanksgiving 2020. The year 2020 we all want to forget but never will. Many hearts are broken today, not just mine, and in so many ways.

Thankfulness of what we do have and of those we love and care for continues. Count your blessings.

Perhaps you, too, are experiencing anxiety today or over this virus or whatever. Through it all, trust the Lord, for He cares. He knows your name and He knows where you are.

https://www.healthline.com/health/how-to-heal-a-broken-heart