Memories are wax sculptures in our minds. As we handle them, they get warm, and reform, or perhaps deform, to fit more comfortably in our grip. The sharp edges smooth out. Bits that make us look foolish or selfish shrink, and sometimes fall off. Parts that we are proud of are enlarged, and made smooth.
When I met her, I had no idea that she was the answer to my prayer. More plea than prayer, really, a literal mountain top surrender to God's will. Begging for help. I was revisiting Nepal, where I had apprenticed in being alone, where language and geography had tag-teamed me into believing that my previous life in America was nothing more than a half-forgotten dream. I was once again experiencing the isolation that lives in the places where all you can see is the sky, green fields, and gray stone. Where there is nowhere to go but down.
In Nepal the doorways trained me to obey one command: keep your head down while passing through. The penalty for disobeying? A direct assault on the organ responsible for the poor decision. My rebellious brain suffered one punishing blow after another, for I come from a race of stiff necked people. Eventually the tedium of washing blood out of my hair and the desire to spend a day without a splitting headache gave rise to obedience. I bowed my head as I walked through doors. At first resentfully, with much grumbling, then with resignation and sadness. Finally, like a well trained dog, without even thinking about it. Weeks after returning to America I found myself nodding deeply as I passed through door frames that would allow even the most elevated of hats to pass undisturbed on my head.
In Korea there was a different kind of training, with a different command: keep your heart to yourself. The girl who chose alcohol instead of me. The girl who suddenly stopped returning my calls. The girl who lied to me. The girl who agreed with me that we didn't belong together. Each one a blow urging me to stop looking for love, to get used to the idea of being alone. To keep my heart down.
I returned to Nepal for a month. Alone. At the top of a 9,000 foot hill in the shadow of the Himalayas I sat down on a rock and talked with God. I cried out, "I am so tired of being alone, but if you want me to be alone for the rest of my life, then so be it... But I have no idea how I am going to do it."
The only answer was silence, though by the time I returned to the Land of the Morning Calm, I was cloaked in a calm of my own. Vacations are often refreshing, so I did not recognize this calm as an answer to prayer. Hindsight reveals that it was part of the answer, the Breath before the Word.
The Answer showed up in my classroom on February 1st, 2000. One of four students in a class that should have been cut from the schedule. The highest level of English conversation available at our institute, it was a class for talking. The news, science, social issues, food, our hobbies and habits. Some grammar, but mostly talk. Lousy attendance. Usually two students, sometimes four, but always The Answer was one of them, ready to talk, listen, learn.
During the third week of class her father invited me to have dinner at their home. As he was driving me home afterwards, she and I sat in the back seat and held hands. I didn't know what she was thinking, and couldn't have told you what I was thinking either. A conversation without words flowing just under the conversation with her father about something that I pretended to be interested in.
The last class, a Friday. I was early and she was waiting, so we talked in the hall for an hour before class. No other students, so we talked for another hour, then we went out and talked for two or three hours more. As we talked over one neglected beer, my hand wanted to continue the conversation it had started in the car with hers the previous week, so it did. Neither of us said anything about it as our hands conversed, at first casually, then more intimately. Once again, we ended the evening without acknowledging the silent conversation.
On the way home I took a detour to the mountain top by way of a pedestrian bridge over the rail yard in Bujeon. The joy that had been percolating in me just bubbled up and for a moment I Gene Kellyed my way across the bridge, laughing and telling the sky, "I've found her! I've found her!" My moment of clarity, when The Answer to my prayer was made abundantly clear to me.
Two weeks later, after dinner in a top floor restaurant, flowers, chocolates, and perfume, I suddenly realized that I was going to propose to a woman I had met only six weeks previously. No more than a hundred hours of conversation, only two weeks of actual dating, but I had never in my life been more sure of anything. "Will you marry me?"
Her answer, forever emblazoned on my heart, "I beg your pardon?" An opportunity to laugh in this sacred moment, I took it. Her second answer we are still living out for the world to see, for she said, "Yes!" and we have never looked back.
To you, the reader, this may seem like the magic moment, when it all came together. In actuality, the magic is bound up in the days that follow. In the joy and pain, the boredom and excitement, the triumphs and defeats. The magic is not in the moment of clarity, but in remembering the moment of clarity and believing in it when you can't see your hand in front of your face for the fog.
Showing posts with label marriage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marriage. Show all posts
Friday, May 01, 2015
Thursday, April 02, 2015
A Family Divided
In Korea staying in the hospital is not nearly as big a deal is it is in The States. For starters, if you have insurance it is surprisingly cheap. At less than $50 per day*, including meals, it's often used as a sort of quarantine. They keep you hooked up to an i.v. so you don't dehydrate, take your temperature regularly, and the doctor comes to tell you how you are doing on a regular basis. My kids have gone through some version of the flu, an H2-N something. Contagious, messes with the digestion, but not too serious. In an effort to avoid spreading this bug, they've both spent time in the hospital.
Last week Maxine stayed in the hospital for five days, and with Horyon's parents for one more. Horyon stayed at the hospital with her, and I stayed home with Quinten. We were hoping that Quinten wouldn't catch the flu. It didn't work.
This week Quinten stayed in the hospital for five days, and will be coming home tomorrow. Horyon stayed at the hospital with him, and I stayed home with Maxine.
During one of our rare moments together this week I said to Horyon, "Whose turn is it next week, you or me?" She laughed, an even rarer gem these days.
"You can't get sick," she told me, the italics clear in her voice.
"Fine," I said. "You go next." Another laugh, but this one was tinged with exhaustion. It is possible that staying at the hospital where you have easy access to an I.V. is the only thing that has kept her from getting sick.
We were very fortunate in one respect. This week Horyon's school took their spring trip on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. She was originally to have gone with them to Yangsang, about an hour and a half from home via public transit. She would have spent the days out there and come back to spend the nights with Quinten in the hospital if it necessary, but she got permission to skip the trip, so she spent those three days as well as the nights in the hospital with him instead. I suspect that she found it very restful.
It has been interesting observing how my children behave when they have long stretches of sibling-free time. Maxine has definitely adjusted to it better than Quinten did. To her, he is still the interloper. But Quinten was generally quieter without his sister. He was more demanding of my time, of course, but playing with me was much less likely to lead to crying and fighting.
From him, at any rate.
During Quinten's week I helped him with a few projects, mostly encouraging him to keep making. I am still sure that he will be the first kid on the block to have a 3D printer. But in the mean time, he gets so frustrated when he can't get the picture in his mind to manifest in the real world the way he wants it. The most valuable lesson I can teach him is patience, a lesson which is difficult to teach if you struggle with it yourself. The sound of Quinten whining and crying wears down my patience like using a belt sander on a cookie when I am tired. The best way for me to deal with it was to push bedtime earlier. If we start to get ready for bed after he is tired, the whining is inevitable. But if we can do snack, pajamas, and the brushing of the teeth while he still has enough energy, then he can get some bonus playing/making time, and still have time to read some books together before bed.
Maxine and I get along much more easily. We can both spend time reading without getting uncomfortable, and tonight I made a wonderful discovery: she has been learning the recorder since she started at Apple Tree School, and I have heard her play in groups and at home a few times. I was moving some stuff around and found my recorders, a soprano (the one you are probably thinking about) and an alto (a few inches longer, lower, mellower tone). I can't usually resist taking out the alto and playing a bit, so I did. I let Maxine play the soprano. She immediately started playing the Pachelbel Canon. So I joined in playing one of the counterpoints. Well, probably more than one, as I have never studied the piece. We then moved on to a couple of Christmas carols, Amazing Grace, and one or two more. She can hold on to the melody while I play a harmony! We will definitely be making time to do this again. She wants to surprise Horyon and Quinten with a duet, so I will try to get us some practice time before we are all together again.
I am so looking forward to being all together again.
I especially miss Horyon. We talk on the phone from time to time, and even see each other a bit. It's not as bad as last summer, and has been good in a strange way: the last seven months have been relentlessly stressful, and we were both becoming more and more sensitive. Every married couple has times in which they lash out at each other. We know that for a short time we can let loose the dogs of war that have been chained up in our hearts, because the target is the only one who will take the full brunt of the attack and immediately forgive. If not immediately at least by the next morning.
We can take it because we have bound ourselves together. Every time we have ever kissed and made up we added a strand to the bond. Every time we hashed out a disagreement, and came to share the same resolve it tightened and strengthened the bond. Every tough decision we've made, every crisis we've weathered, every tear we've shed together has built up that connection a little more.
At Kwanganli Beach there is a display case with a sample of one of the cables holding up the Kwangan Bridge. It is made up of hundreds of cables, each about the thickness of my pinky finger. Any one of those cables on its own would snap under the weight of the bridge. A bundle of ten or twenty would do little better. But hundreds are practically unbreakable. Even if there is a flaw in one cable, and it snaps, the load is immediately taken up by all the cables around it.
With fifteen years of adding strands to our relationship, we can handle this. God knows we could take more of it if we had to, but just between you and me, I seriously hope that this is not the warm up for a repeat of Job. Because we do need to fix a few broken strands, and it would be nice to get back to adding new ones.
We will be a complete family again tomorrow. I think our first plan is to sleep late Saturday morning.! Wish us luck!
*I'm not absolutely sure of the price, as I don't handle the bills here, but I think this is the price for a double occupancy room.
Last week Maxine stayed in the hospital for five days, and with Horyon's parents for one more. Horyon stayed at the hospital with her, and I stayed home with Quinten. We were hoping that Quinten wouldn't catch the flu. It didn't work.
This week Quinten stayed in the hospital for five days, and will be coming home tomorrow. Horyon stayed at the hospital with him, and I stayed home with Maxine.
During one of our rare moments together this week I said to Horyon, "Whose turn is it next week, you or me?" She laughed, an even rarer gem these days.
"You can't get sick," she told me, the italics clear in her voice.
"Fine," I said. "You go next." Another laugh, but this one was tinged with exhaustion. It is possible that staying at the hospital where you have easy access to an I.V. is the only thing that has kept her from getting sick.
We were very fortunate in one respect. This week Horyon's school took their spring trip on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. She was originally to have gone with them to Yangsang, about an hour and a half from home via public transit. She would have spent the days out there and come back to spend the nights with Quinten in the hospital if it necessary, but she got permission to skip the trip, so she spent those three days as well as the nights in the hospital with him instead. I suspect that she found it very restful.
It has been interesting observing how my children behave when they have long stretches of sibling-free time. Maxine has definitely adjusted to it better than Quinten did. To her, he is still the interloper. But Quinten was generally quieter without his sister. He was more demanding of my time, of course, but playing with me was much less likely to lead to crying and fighting.
From him, at any rate.
During Quinten's week I helped him with a few projects, mostly encouraging him to keep making. I am still sure that he will be the first kid on the block to have a 3D printer. But in the mean time, he gets so frustrated when he can't get the picture in his mind to manifest in the real world the way he wants it. The most valuable lesson I can teach him is patience, a lesson which is difficult to teach if you struggle with it yourself. The sound of Quinten whining and crying wears down my patience like using a belt sander on a cookie when I am tired. The best way for me to deal with it was to push bedtime earlier. If we start to get ready for bed after he is tired, the whining is inevitable. But if we can do snack, pajamas, and the brushing of the teeth while he still has enough energy, then he can get some bonus playing/making time, and still have time to read some books together before bed.
Maxine and I get along much more easily. We can both spend time reading without getting uncomfortable, and tonight I made a wonderful discovery: she has been learning the recorder since she started at Apple Tree School, and I have heard her play in groups and at home a few times. I was moving some stuff around and found my recorders, a soprano (the one you are probably thinking about) and an alto (a few inches longer, lower, mellower tone). I can't usually resist taking out the alto and playing a bit, so I did. I let Maxine play the soprano. She immediately started playing the Pachelbel Canon. So I joined in playing one of the counterpoints. Well, probably more than one, as I have never studied the piece. We then moved on to a couple of Christmas carols, Amazing Grace, and one or two more. She can hold on to the melody while I play a harmony! We will definitely be making time to do this again. She wants to surprise Horyon and Quinten with a duet, so I will try to get us some practice time before we are all together again.
I am so looking forward to being all together again.
I especially miss Horyon. We talk on the phone from time to time, and even see each other a bit. It's not as bad as last summer, and has been good in a strange way: the last seven months have been relentlessly stressful, and we were both becoming more and more sensitive. Every married couple has times in which they lash out at each other. We know that for a short time we can let loose the dogs of war that have been chained up in our hearts, because the target is the only one who will take the full brunt of the attack and immediately forgive. If not immediately at least by the next morning.
We can take it because we have bound ourselves together. Every time we have ever kissed and made up we added a strand to the bond. Every time we hashed out a disagreement, and came to share the same resolve it tightened and strengthened the bond. Every tough decision we've made, every crisis we've weathered, every tear we've shed together has built up that connection a little more.
At Kwanganli Beach there is a display case with a sample of one of the cables holding up the Kwangan Bridge. It is made up of hundreds of cables, each about the thickness of my pinky finger. Any one of those cables on its own would snap under the weight of the bridge. A bundle of ten or twenty would do little better. But hundreds are practically unbreakable. Even if there is a flaw in one cable, and it snaps, the load is immediately taken up by all the cables around it.
With fifteen years of adding strands to our relationship, we can handle this. God knows we could take more of it if we had to, but just between you and me, I seriously hope that this is not the warm up for a repeat of Job. Because we do need to fix a few broken strands, and it would be nice to get back to adding new ones.
We will be a complete family again tomorrow. I think our first plan is to sleep late Saturday morning.! Wish us luck!
*I'm not absolutely sure of the price, as I don't handle the bills here, but I think this is the price for a double occupancy room.
Thursday, March 27, 2014
My reaction to stress
I have decided that on this occasion of my 24th birthday, instead of spending the next 30 minutes doing the dishes before going to work, I will do the Roblog:
In times of trouble I tend to stop communicating with the people around me.
In times of trouble I tend to stop communicating with the people around me.
This is not because I don't need people in general, or want to keep my problems super-secret, but because I am more introverted than I usually show. Dealing with people is draining for me, though not as much as with the serious introverts. (They are the ones spread out over there not looking at each other.)
As much as I like writing, sometimes the idea of spreading my mind out on a board and pinning it up for display is not as attractive as it sounds. But I believe that doing so lightens the soul, and perhaps helps to lighten the burdens of others. So...
In October Horyon found out that her teaching contract would be renewed for at most one year, perhaps not even that. She also found out that there was another job opening at the school at which her father used to be the principal. Check my post from November for details.
From the time of that posting, the stress kept building. She passed the history test (short lived relief), and started prepping for the English and Teaching Pedagogy tests, which were scheduled for the same day and made the history test seem relatively simple.
When she came home from the big test, I thought it was behind us, but it clung to us like a vicious spider monkey, pulling our hair and snatching the food out of our hands. For starters, the online forum in which the people who took the tests discussed their answers, the grading, and all the other details of the test. The test-takers were allowed to keep the pages with the questions, but the grading of the test is a black box out of which comes only a score. If I hadn't been living in Korea for so long, I would have called it unbelievably unprofessional. So call it cungly unprofessional.
I felt like we had just finished a marathon, stopped for a breather, and heard the sound of hounds at our heels.
Eventually we found the the results were a typical mix of good news and bad news: the bad news was that her score was not good enough to be hired as a permanent teacher. The good news is that none of the candidates were good enough to be hired as permanent teachers. The resulting bad news was that three or four of them were hired, and the administration decided to make one or two of them permanent after a year of seeing how they work.
As a mother who wants to spend some time with her children during the week, Horyon is at a disadvantage. Some of those candidates are staying until 9 p.m. every day to show their dedication. Horyon has been put in charge of testing for freshmen, a data analysis and preparation job that will keep her busy this year. It seems that if she knocks this one out of the park she may be made permanent. She found a way for me to help her chances as well: twice a month I will be teaching a Saturday "club activity" class at her school. It will be students who signed up for it, but everyone has to sign up for some activity. I have no idea how this will be, other than busy.
My goal is to take this job as a blessing, and a chance to bless Horyon. If I am there, she can be home with the kids, and her school won't ask both mother and father to come on the same Saturday. I haven't had to wake up early on a Saturday for that yet, so it's still pretty easy to be positive about it.
Just stopping to breathe here. I hate going whiny on you like this, but I promise that there is a silver lining coming up.
In addition, God has taken an opportunity to teach me about what I should pray for, and which problems I should not worry so much about and trust to God's good will:
I am planning to take Maxine and Quinten to Kansas this summer. By myself. Horyon just can't get away for long enough during the summer to be worth an $1800 plane ticket. Even so, I had little idea how to pay for the tickets. We have money in the States from the sale of our former home, but spending a big chunk of it like that is tricky, and our credit card here was maxed out.
Did you catch that "was"? It's important.
So instead of praying about it, I decided to do something about it: I committed to teach at an elementary school this year, twice a week for four hours at a time. It would have enabled us to save enough money to pay off the card, freeing up the card to buy plane tickets, and pay off the plane tickets by mid fall.
One week into the semester and elementary school job, Horyon got her severance pay from the high school at which she just finished working. It was almost $9,000. Enough to pay off the card and pay for most of the plane tickets. It took a few days for it to sink in, but I eventually realized that God had answered the prayer that I was supposed to be praying, providing for a need that I took upon myself to take care of.
And now I am paying the price. The elementary job is not too hard, but eight hours of teaching each week, plus an extra hour or so of commuting by bike (doubled if it's raining and I have to take the subway) means that I have to teach two night classes at KIT, so Maxine and Quinten are spending more evening time at Horyon's parents home, not with me or Horyon. It's actually more accurate to say that my family is paying the price for my lack of faith.
Now for the silver lining:
The stress of the past six months was becoming unbearable. I have also been witness to two more couples, friends of mine, going through marital difficulties. I was crying out to God, gravitating to the Psalms about how much life sucks, but also how gracious God is through suckiness (my paraphrase), when a friend recommended a book called Sacred Marriage by Gary L. Thomas. (It's only $3 for the Kindle edition at Amazon right now! I paid $8 for it! If you are married, or think you may be married sometime, go get it!). It changed the way I viewed marriage in general and my marriage specifically.
I'm not sure if I ever thought of my marriage as a chance to be a servant. I considered serving my wife to be something done as a quid pro quo, part of "the deal" of marriage: I serve you, you serve me, we serve the kids, and hopefully they take care of us when we're old and even more feeble than we are now.
Just a contract, of sorts. And of course it was built on love, and in front of God, and all that, but those were just details. During the past few months I have come to learn that those details lead to the greater potential truth of marriage: it is a series of opportunities to better see myself and my sins, my selfishness, my pettiness. The way Horyon knows me is still just a shadow of the way God knows me, but it's closer than anyone else has known me since I was young and living with my parents.
Let me reassure my single friends that it is not my intention to say that you cannot reach spiritual maturity without marriage. But for me, living single was leading me down some self-destructive paths that I may never have left without Horyon.
I am having serious trouble putting this revelation into words, people: I am finding that stress on our marriage is breaking me to God's will, rather than just breaking me. I am turning to God, rather than my wife for basic sustenance. And I know, I knew that depending on people rather than God was a recipe for disaster, but there is knowing at an intellectual level, then there is knowing at the gut level, where you make the snap decisions.
Our life is not perfect, but God is good.
I still have no claim to understand God. Now we see God dimly, as in a dirty, scratched bare metal mirror. Then we shall see God face to face. But prayer, reading the Bible and taking counsel from those wiser than I helps me to polish the mirror, maybe bang a dent or two out.
I need to get going. I've gone well over my allotted 30 minutes, and will have to rush some food before starting class in 42 minutes, but my birthday feels more complete for taking the time to let you know how I am doing.
In October Horyon found out that her teaching contract would be renewed for at most one year, perhaps not even that. She also found out that there was another job opening at the school at which her father used to be the principal. Check my post from November for details.
From the time of that posting, the stress kept building. She passed the history test (short lived relief), and started prepping for the English and Teaching Pedagogy tests, which were scheduled for the same day and made the history test seem relatively simple.
When she came home from the big test, I thought it was behind us, but it clung to us like a vicious spider monkey, pulling our hair and snatching the food out of our hands. For starters, the online forum in which the people who took the tests discussed their answers, the grading, and all the other details of the test. The test-takers were allowed to keep the pages with the questions, but the grading of the test is a black box out of which comes only a score. If I hadn't been living in Korea for so long, I would have called it unbelievably unprofessional. So call it cungly unprofessional.
I felt like we had just finished a marathon, stopped for a breather, and heard the sound of hounds at our heels.
Eventually we found the the results were a typical mix of good news and bad news: the bad news was that her score was not good enough to be hired as a permanent teacher. The good news is that none of the candidates were good enough to be hired as permanent teachers. The resulting bad news was that three or four of them were hired, and the administration decided to make one or two of them permanent after a year of seeing how they work.
As a mother who wants to spend some time with her children during the week, Horyon is at a disadvantage. Some of those candidates are staying until 9 p.m. every day to show their dedication. Horyon has been put in charge of testing for freshmen, a data analysis and preparation job that will keep her busy this year. It seems that if she knocks this one out of the park she may be made permanent. She found a way for me to help her chances as well: twice a month I will be teaching a Saturday "club activity" class at her school. It will be students who signed up for it, but everyone has to sign up for some activity. I have no idea how this will be, other than busy.
My goal is to take this job as a blessing, and a chance to bless Horyon. If I am there, she can be home with the kids, and her school won't ask both mother and father to come on the same Saturday. I haven't had to wake up early on a Saturday for that yet, so it's still pretty easy to be positive about it.
Just stopping to breathe here. I hate going whiny on you like this, but I promise that there is a silver lining coming up.
In addition, God has taken an opportunity to teach me about what I should pray for, and which problems I should not worry so much about and trust to God's good will:
I am planning to take Maxine and Quinten to Kansas this summer. By myself. Horyon just can't get away for long enough during the summer to be worth an $1800 plane ticket. Even so, I had little idea how to pay for the tickets. We have money in the States from the sale of our former home, but spending a big chunk of it like that is tricky, and our credit card here was maxed out.
Did you catch that "was"? It's important.
So instead of praying about it, I decided to do something about it: I committed to teach at an elementary school this year, twice a week for four hours at a time. It would have enabled us to save enough money to pay off the card, freeing up the card to buy plane tickets, and pay off the plane tickets by mid fall.
One week into the semester and elementary school job, Horyon got her severance pay from the high school at which she just finished working. It was almost $9,000. Enough to pay off the card and pay for most of the plane tickets. It took a few days for it to sink in, but I eventually realized that God had answered the prayer that I was supposed to be praying, providing for a need that I took upon myself to take care of.
And now I am paying the price. The elementary job is not too hard, but eight hours of teaching each week, plus an extra hour or so of commuting by bike (doubled if it's raining and I have to take the subway) means that I have to teach two night classes at KIT, so Maxine and Quinten are spending more evening time at Horyon's parents home, not with me or Horyon. It's actually more accurate to say that my family is paying the price for my lack of faith.
Now for the silver lining:
The stress of the past six months was becoming unbearable. I have also been witness to two more couples, friends of mine, going through marital difficulties. I was crying out to God, gravitating to the Psalms about how much life sucks, but also how gracious God is through suckiness (my paraphrase), when a friend recommended a book called Sacred Marriage by Gary L. Thomas. (It's only $3 for the Kindle edition at Amazon right now! I paid $8 for it! If you are married, or think you may be married sometime, go get it!). It changed the way I viewed marriage in general and my marriage specifically.
I'm not sure if I ever thought of my marriage as a chance to be a servant. I considered serving my wife to be something done as a quid pro quo, part of "the deal" of marriage: I serve you, you serve me, we serve the kids, and hopefully they take care of us when we're old and even more feeble than we are now.
Just a contract, of sorts. And of course it was built on love, and in front of God, and all that, but those were just details. During the past few months I have come to learn that those details lead to the greater potential truth of marriage: it is a series of opportunities to better see myself and my sins, my selfishness, my pettiness. The way Horyon knows me is still just a shadow of the way God knows me, but it's closer than anyone else has known me since I was young and living with my parents.
Let me reassure my single friends that it is not my intention to say that you cannot reach spiritual maturity without marriage. But for me, living single was leading me down some self-destructive paths that I may never have left without Horyon.
I am having serious trouble putting this revelation into words, people: I am finding that stress on our marriage is breaking me to God's will, rather than just breaking me. I am turning to God, rather than my wife for basic sustenance. And I know, I knew that depending on people rather than God was a recipe for disaster, but there is knowing at an intellectual level, then there is knowing at the gut level, where you make the snap decisions.
Our life is not perfect, but God is good.
I still have no claim to understand God. Now we see God dimly, as in a dirty, scratched bare metal mirror. Then we shall see God face to face. But prayer, reading the Bible and taking counsel from those wiser than I helps me to polish the mirror, maybe bang a dent or two out.
I need to get going. I've gone well over my allotted 30 minutes, and will have to rush some food before starting class in 42 minutes, but my birthday feels more complete for taking the time to let you know how I am doing.
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