You Are Braver Than You Know Journal Response

I tentatively joined a Facebook group to read a book/devotional (100 Days to Brave by Annie F. Downs) I've never heard of. I was supposed to start on Memorial Day and it goes through Labor Day, I think.

I usually avoid these kind of books because the author's picture is always a big perfect, toothy grin with perfect lipstick lips, and smooth, shiny hair with a head tilt that's just right. I don't trust them.

I don't trust them to tell me anything I don't already know, or I can't imagine they've been through anything like I've been through. They exude "I have an easy life." (I'll apologize now since I know it's not true. Everybody has something they've gone through. And sheesh, an agent and/or publisher thought this person's experience was meaningful enough to publish a book about it.)

I'm always late in these book groups/studies. I get my book late. I try to catch up over several days. And then I get behind again. Eventually, I'll just shelve it along with the rest of the started-but-didn't-finish self help type books.

And with that said, even though it's technically Day 4, I am choosing to respond to Day 3 prompts today. Day 3's excerpt says "I never felt brave. But day after day, I just did the next thing, took the next step, said the next yes." And then the journal prompt says "Think back on your life. Journal about two or three moments you or someone else might label as "brave".

I laughed to myself. Two or three moments? I'm to the point where just getting up every morning is a story about being brave. So here is my journal contribution to the Facebook group this week. I don't know if this is a story of being brave, but it's definitely a story of putting one foot in front of the other and keeping on when everything in me said "I don't want to, today".

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Anxiety and sadness have been all over me this week like a thick, sticky syrup. I kept trying various tools I'd come up with that usually help, but I just couldn't escape it.

It started on Monday. I was ancy and felt my typical holiday guilt for not planning a family event for Memorial Day. No magical mom-generated memories around here. Instead I spent the day going from room to room spilling my angst onto everyone in my path.

Sometime in the afternoon, I was gazing out the back window when I noticed a weird looking bird sitting on the back wall. He had a little black plume sticking off the top of his coppery head. I'd never seen this bird before and had to google what it was.

It was a Gambel Quail. He was fascinating to watch because of that weird plume thing that kept bobbing up and down like a hypnotic watch. He kept marching up and down the wall. It was a nice distraction. I took some pictures.

Later, I tried to take a nap. I tried to read. I tried to watch TV. I sat in the backyard. Finally, my husband came out and asked if I'd seen all the little baby birds tumbling down off the wall into the backyard earlier. I said no and asked him to bring my camera so I could take a picture if I saw them. The male was still parading up and down the wall. I just didn't realize he had a family.

They were hard to find. The mother must have noticed me when I came out to the backyard earlier and had kept them pretty well hidden for a while. But after I stayed very still, I saw her venture out from behind a blue agave. Following in her foot steps were 8 chicks. They were so tiny, fluffy and cute, and the same color as the rocks; my eyes strained to see them. The way they darted and scurried after one after another, from plant to plant was so funny and terrifying at the same time. Every now and then, one would dawdle, and daddy quail would yell at it from the wall or fly down and herd it along.

I watched them for quite a while. The distraction helped push the mood into the background.

By Tuesday, I decided on a project, thinking the unfinished planning I'd done in the past couple weeks just needed to be followed through. Maybe that's what was bothering me. So I began moving Austin's day bed and equipment into the breakfast nook off the kitchen and moving all the dining room things out to the main room to be displayed where it was supposed to go in the first place according to the house design.

It was a lot of work and kept me really busy. I finally finished up Austin's part of the reorganizing project since one of Austin's nurses was arriving for her shift soon. I needed to make sure she had a place to sit in between Austin chores.

But by evening my anxiety bubbled back up.

Wednesday was the worst. I woke with dread, anxiety and sadness. The "sky-is-falling" in me convinced me this was my last day on earth. It felt ominous. I had one major job to do, and that was get Austin to and from his neurology appointment. I knew if I put one foot in front of the other, just like the project the day before, I could slog through the day and, at minimum, accomplish the task even though everything within me wanted to go hide in bed.

So I did it. The hour drive to the hospital with pesky drivers all up in my business went per usual. I found a handicap spot on the third floor of the parking garage. I adjusted to an unexpected reroute on the way to the clinic when the directory didn't show neurology in that building anymore, but alas, after walking over to the main building to find where they'd moved to, it was actually still in said first building after all.

I didn't freak out too much when the mother with the stroller took forever to exit the elevator so that it closed before I could get Austin's wheelchair across the threshold. I only spilled a little of my mood onto the intake nurse when she apparently didn't know the drill and I had to tell her what needed to be done.

I sat through the doctor's appointment answering questions about how Austin's seizure activity hasn't really changed. I was reminded about his almost total seizure control before Texas. I was given new instructions for increasing the ratio of his keto diet since it seemed to be the original controlling factor. I listened to concerns about the unexplained liver failure and why we were taking the ratio increase so slow. I agreed. The Texas experienced sucked, I'd rather not do a repeat.

I drove home into the afternoon sun and only dozed off four times on the final leg, each time jarring awake to see my car in the midst of drifting across a line or towards the construction cones. I repeatedly took deep breaths, determined to just make it home without killing me and Austin first.

I spent the evening sparring and poking with the family. Nothing I did or said and nothing they did or said felt good or soothing. It all just felt prickly.

I went outside and looked for my quail family. I snuck up and looked behind all my agave and cactus where I'd seen them hiding before. There was no dad stationed on the wall. They had moved on. It added a little to my sadness; I was hopeful for their survival, but I was sad I couldn't watch them anymore.

In fact, most of my Spring nesting birds were gone last night. My trees in the Spring are basically bird hotels with lots of loud squawking every night when the parents return to their nests. The competition for space appearing fierce, although somehow they all work it out. But now they're gone. Summer is coming, I guess.

I woke up today with a renewed sense of calm. Somehow I'd survived the past few days with hopefully as little damage to my family's psyche as possible. I'm sure the big kids will all need some kind of "my-mom-ruined-me therapy" eventually.

Oh, and I miss "my" birds.