Moving on up...Pt II

And so we wait.  The Project goes in next week and it is well on the way to completion (97% done...); then 2 exams, then Luke's life at College and our life in community really begins to wind down.  


Other couples/families who are also finishing are starting to book their movers, and get packing boxes so they can begin the arduous yet now familiar task of de-cluttering and packing up the flat/home.


And we still wait.  I could start packing boxes and getting Luke to carry them down to our garage.  It will make my life easier in the long run if I do.  I know it will.  


But I am reluctant.  I feel like if I start packing, I move out of my accustomed home in Egypt where College never ends and community (and friendships) lasts for ever, and into the more harsh and scary world of reality where we have only about 6 weeks until we have to be out of our College accommodation.


I still wait.  I still want to know where we are moving too before I pack.  It's silly.  It's procrastination gone mad.  I don't even like Egypt all that much.  The real world has its upsides.  


But it also has one big downside that I am currently the most afraid of: Isolation and Loneliness.  It's funny because I don't take as much advantage of community living as I should.  I don't go to coffee at someone's house every day and I don't leave Bede with someone else when things get hard.  But I could.  And that is the hard thing.  


Knowing that soon, I won't be able to just drop in on friends and neighbours at Moorewest; knowing that my closest friend could live ages away.  And knowing that if Bede is having a meltdown-y kind of day that it really is all down to me- no Moorewest friend will walk in and say "Let me take him while you go for a coffee".  I haven't really let them.  But they could.  And it's that eventuality that I am really dreading.

Pragmatic about friendships? Not me!!

I am not a fan of change.  I like stability, and lots of it.  I lived in the same house for 21 years, and went to the same school for 13 years.  So for me, the idea of moving house and church frequently is not a friendly thought.


One of the problems I have with moving churches in particular is the question of moving on from friendships.  I don't do it.  For me, if you are my friend, you stay my friend irrespective of how often we talk on the phone (or chat on facebook), or how often we see each other.  I have friends that I would consider very good friends who I haven't seen or spoken to for a long long time.  


This hurts me.  I often wonder if I need to re-think the way I 'do' friendships.  Maybe I need to be like a person I know who is very 'pragmatic' about friendships when she moves church; essentially she says goodbye to people, and cuts them off from her 'friend list', expecting to take up the friendship again in heaven.  


I find that idea hard to stomach.  Especially since I considered her to be my friend after we had moved churches.  Then I heard her ideas about friendship.  


And I stopped.  


And I thought: was I ever her friend?  


Was I wrong to assume that we could stay friends after moving on to new churches?  Am I wrong to assume that when we move again (at the end of the year) that my friends from Terrey Hills will remain my friends after we're gone?  I hope not.  Because I hold friendship to be deeper and more important that that.  I hold friendship to be something that lasts and is there even without constant contact.  Even when life situations change (getting married/having kids) in my mind friendships continue on.  


So if I haven't phoned you in a while, or you're not on facebook, or we haven't seen each other in person lately (or even for a long time), please don't assume I don't care about you as much as I did when we saw each other often.  Please don't assume I have moved on from the friendship.  Please don't assume I don't still pray for you.  


Because I do care about you.  


I have not moved on.  


I do still pray for you.  


And chances are, I would LOVE to catch up with you in person.  Why don't we make a date?  

Moving on up...?

We are in a very weird place at the moment.  Luke has just handed in his last big essay for College apart from the Project.  He has just 2 exams to sit this semester.  This means that we have nearly finished four years at Moore College.  It means that in the not too distant future, we will be unleashed on a (yet to be determined) parish.

This is a double-edged sword.  I have loved being a "College wife".  Moorewomen, and Biblestudy and living in community have been wonderful fulfilling things.  The churches we have been serving have welcomed us as  members of their spiritual family.

But the end of College is bittersweet for me.  I always intended to study myself, but God had other plans for me.   I will miss living in community, and sharing my life with my Biblestudy ladies from week to week.  In some cases we have lived close to each other and shared a Biblestudy for the whole of College.

I will not miss living in a tiny flat though.  I will not miss living more than half an hour from church (which has meant my involvment can only be so much...).  A bigger place to live close to church is starting to look really good. 

But is it worth the moving?  the loss of College community?  What other (positive) things do I have to look forward to in parish life?  I need some encouragement to want to move on...

Is it just me?

...or have you also noticed the positive rash of people who are pregnant at the moment?  I notice it because I live in community and a fair few members of the community are currently pregnant, or have just recently (in the last fortnight) had babies.


This used to drive me nuts.  In my pre-pregnancy days, in my pre not-trying days, I used to feel like I was surrounded by pregnant women.  Or I was surrounded by women who had recently been pregnant, or women who had young kids.  It was crazy. 


Every week I had to run the gauntlet at Moorewomen... "do you have kids?"..."No it's just us"..."any on the way?"..."not at the moment"...


And then if it wasn't that conversation, it was the listening to others talk about their pregnancies; how sick they were (or weren't)...what they craved (or didn't crave)...; their labour/birthing stories...  I was going insane!!!


Now don't get me wrong.  I was happily not pregnant.  I was working, and loving it (for the most part).  


But I know many many women at College (now and in the recent past) who have struggled and are currently struggling with infertility (either explained or unexplained).  I know women for whom Moorewomen was a weekly torture session to which they subjected themselves because they knew it would be helpful in their pastoral careers.  I know many more women who avoid Moorewomen even though they are aware of how helpful it will be in the future, simply because the pain now is too great.  It hurts too much to have people assume you have kids; to see women week after week fall pregnant (apparently) easily, with their 2nd (3rd, 4th...) child while you still struggle through falling pregnant with your first.  I know women who keep their emotional rollercoaster battles with IVF and other fertility assistance treatments a secret.


I have fought hard to try and keep a level playing field (so to speak) at Moorewomen, so that not every topic is related to having kids, so that people without kids (of whom I was one for my first 3 years of College) could feel free to come and learn and grow without feeling like they were missing out (even though they feel like that anyway).  


We at College and in parish ministry need to be more aware of the prevalence of fertility problems.  We need to think through how we talk to couples who do not have kids; perhaps being careful of unspoken assumptions about whether or not they will have kids.  We also need to think through how to pastorally care for those who struggle with infertility in the long term- many couples try for years to fall pregnant before going to assisted fertility treatments, and many more do not believe in those treatments, and suffer in silence.  We need to think through how we place people in Biblestudy groups, how we arrange our creche rosters...etc


In many ways I was lucky.  I was a strong personality who could deal with the baby talk week in, week out.  I was happy in my work.  I was happily not pregnant.  And when we were " not not trying" to fall pregnant, I was ok each month when things didn't happen.  People who knew me at those times will know that I would assert that I didn't really want kids all that much anyway.  


I lied.


I did want kids.  I wanted them so much that I was afraid of having them.  I wanted the security of knowing ahead of time if they would be healthy, and that my pregnancies would go well. If I asserted I didn't want them that much anyway, then if I didn't fall pregnant, it wouldn't matter.  But each month it did matter.  Six months of not not trying and I still wasn't pregnant.  On it went.  More people I knew were falling pregnant...but not me.  And I was still ok.  Had I not fallen pregnant when I did, I may not have been ok for that long really.  But luckily for us, I fell pregnant. 


And then we had to watch the faces of friends (who we knew had been trying much longer than us) fall.  And then the smiles masked the pain.  Another friend pregnant.  Not me again this month.  The hearty congratulations, masking the "why?".  Some of those friends are still trying over a year later.  


We pray every night that they will fall pregnant.  Of course prayer should be our first port of call when we seek to pastorally care for those who struggle to conceive.


What are some other practical ways we can care for those who struggle with infertility?

The obsessions of motherhood...

I have an obsessive personality as anyone who knows me could attest to.  I will read and re-read fantasy series' ad nauseam ad infinitum (Harry Potter anyone?).  If I find an author I like, I will read everything they wrote.  Not just once.  Many many many times.

This facet of my character has got me into trouble more than once.  I nearly drove a (slightly hormonal pregnant) friend nuts when I read everything I could find on pregnancy in an effort to support her through a much desired (and long awaited) pregnancy.  I spent nearly a year immersed in the mirky world of Harry Potter fanfiction (which I will candidly admit I still miss) becoming a shell of my true self.

With this in mind, I assert that all mothers have a 'parental obsession'.  For some, it may be what their child eats (only organic perhaps); for others it may be whether their little precious bundle is sickening for something ("I'm sure she's feeling a bit hot..."); for still others it may be the clothes or accessories in the nursery (only the Boori cot and Bugaboo pram?).

For me it is sleeping.  But not just any sleeping: for me it is day sleeping.  Bede has always been a good night sleeper, but from a ridiculously early age his day sleeps were variable.  It didn't take long for the quality of my day to be dictated by how long and how well he slept and whether (in the early days) he would re-settle after only one sleep cycle.  And it took very little for a good day to be turned into a bad day by one missed or unsettled nap (today was unfortunately one of those days).

I read every book I could find on baby sleeping and would flip straight to the cat-nap section desperate for a fail-safe way to make get him to sleep for longer consistently. I even keep a spreadsheet detailing every minute he sleeps day and night (yes I am that pathetic).  Needless to say my efforts were in vain.

As I have mentioned before on this blog (and in person if you know me), Bede is a comparatively easy baby and is a joy to know and love.  I am thankful every day for him.  And yet too often I find myself counting the minutes until he is supposed to go to bed next...selfishly wasting the time I should be playing with him, enjoying him.

I hate feeling like this.  Yet I know that one day soon he won't need days sleeps...and then...then another parental obsession will rear it's ugly head...who knows what it may be?  Tantrums? Discipline? Table manners?  the potential list is endless!!

So what is the Godly way to deal with my parental obsessions?  Prayer would be the place to start.   A good mummy network is essential, and has been endlessly helpful (thanks to my Mummy's Group ladies and to my Biblestudy ladies, not to mention the lovely Moorewomen).  I also think accountability is key.  Someone to talk to who is good at keeping things in perspective for me, maybe (in fact preferably) someone who has a much more demanding and high maintenance baby.

So I'll throw it out to the ether:  what is your parental obsession? how do you keep your perspective in a godly way?