As hard as I've tried, virtually no one in my house likes vegetables.
Well, that's not technically true. Most of them like baby carrots, and fresh peas are tolerated in a pinch, as are green beans. Salads go over reasonably well, sweet potatoes are liked by one or two, but that's really about it.
No matter how many times I tell my kids You really do need to eat your vegetables, no one really wants to eat their vegetables.
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This summer, so far, I have spent the vast majority of my time in the truck.
My youngest has elected to take a super speedy Algebra I course - learning High School level Algebra in just 5 weeks, spending 5 hours a day, 4 days a week (7 am -12 pm) in the classroom and doing homework on the weekend. So I've been driving her back and forth. She's spent her summer actively seeking out math. I've spent my life trying to get away from it.
She also took a two week drama class from 4-8, so I drove her back and forth to that.
My second youngest started her first job as a lifeguard, at an oceanfront water park, which is about a 30 minute drive each way. Almost every day.
My "getting ready to go off to college" son has been away on his graduation trip with my mother, so I don't have another driver.
Saying that I've been in the truck a lot this first month of summer is a bit of an understatement.
While I'm in the truck, I write blog posts in my head. I almost immediately discard them as too boring, too intense, too trite, too vain, just - too much or just - not enough. When I say that I've written posts, plural, I really for real for real have. I've just never written them here.
I could, I suppose, obsess about the fact that I no longer have really good health insurance and now must work with a new insurance company - and "work with" is really a misnomer, because there really is no "working with". The new insurance is one that does not believe that the medications we all use are ones we need, and what is this nonsense about having an overly large prescription deductible per person? I really enjoy arguing my medical needs weekly. Actually, no, I don't. I'm really tired of doing this. I am really, really tired of it - when will we have a medical system that allows us to be treated as if we are adults and manage our own care, and allow our doctors to decide what medications we will be best served with, without having to argue our cases through a medical board ad nauseam?
I make lists in my head of the things I need to do to get my son off to college - we need to make at least one trip to NY to meet with the disabilities coordinator, because his 504 can go with him to school and we need to make that happen, and we need to meet with the food team to talk about his multiple anaphylactic food allergies, and finish up his funding, and then when his roommates are assigned we've got to discuss the whole food allergy thing with them - I think that this is the part that is stressing us both out the most.
So sometimes, I compose letters to these types of companies in my head. Sometimes I write letters to people in my family, on the advice of my therapist. I very rarely write them out on paper. Sometimes I do when I get home and I almost always rip them up and toss them.
I have two notebooks that I am supposed to write in every evening - one a prayer journal, who I want to pray for, and one a gratitude journal, in which I list things and people for which I am grateful, things I've seen that make me happy, make me smile, etc. I probably do this four times a week.
As a respite from writing posts, I often listen to meditations and I've got a couple of new ones lately, so those are helpful. Sometimes I make myself drive in total silence and think, but I can get into trouble that way.
I've developed an affinity for rugby and watch it as often as I can, although it doesn't seem to be played locally too often.
Mostly, I'm doing the things that I need to do to get myself into a healthy place - eating my mental "vegetables", if you will, to make sure that I can be the person I need to be, to be here to take care of the couple of kids who remain here - because they deserve the best care possible.
So I need to take my vitamins, get my sleep, go to the gym, do my meditation, sit in the quiet, meet with my therapist, read the books, do the work, and all of the things that I need to do - just get up, every day, and put my feet on the floor and do it. Some days, getting out of bed is the hardest part.
