Crows feet

I knock on the door and wait to hear a feeble response to enter the room. I open the door to a starch white room with a lone bed sitting the middle. Lines and tubes tangle in woven maze of such an intricate nature, only the Lord knows how to each line gets to where it needs to. Chairs are pushed to the outer edge of the tiny room, with towels, gowns, gloves and boxes of other sort to adore the shelves and window sill. What personal items my eyes do catch sit on a small bedside dresser drawer, a pair of bedroom shoes, some socks.  Despite all the distractions, my vision is guided to the bed to the frail woman who stares at me with wide eyes deepened by a set of glasses.  I introduce myself and my colleagues.  Without a doubt, the first reply is usually, “Oh no. You’re gonna walk me.” Like a owner walks a dog, so they believe we as physical therapists are there to “walk” them down the hall.  To my pleasant surprise, this woman replies not in that manner, but with great excitement and with the voice only age and experience can allow, is ready to go.  The conversation excelerates from there and before you know it our dear friend is up and cruising down the hall.  Now cruising may be a polite word, but as she walks, her gait falters and she begins to breathe heavily.  Her body bends forward in exhaustion.  While the whole time she has been chatting wildly and impressing us with her motivation to get up, she turns and looks at me with tears in her eyes, “Am I doing good enough?”

As if I here to test her, to quiz her, to grade her. This woman who is how old, with experience and wisdom beyond my years. She spoke of being an artist, drawing pictures that look like photographs. Staff members talk to her excitedly down the hallway, they speak of her passion for drawing.  They boast of the pictures they hang by their desk.  She tells us how she was given a pencil at age 5 and has been drawing life ever since.  She never forgets a face, and states our names once and has it committed to memory.  Her friend stands and watches as this woman of great beauty and power walks back to the bed.  Their friendship has spanned over 30 years. I sincerely hope it lasts much longer.

I am 25 years old, with only a minor bit of my life under my belt. I have not finished school. I have not begun my career. I am single, with only hopes of marriage and a family someday. I still call my parents everyday. I get lonely, I worry about my weight. I eat the wrong things and stress about boys.

And here, this woman is looking to me for approval, for acceptance, for praise.

It is through the eyes of God that I stand where I hold footing today. I am nothing, I am everything, I am weak, I am strong, I am brave, I am scared. I am all I am because of Him. I pray He fills me with the light and the wisdom to guide my patients, my sisters and brothers, to fulfill life as God has granted to them. To grant them a sense of health, of healing, of growth.

This is when, to me, crows feet become a sign of beauty.

~LJ

home

I’m an adult, I kept telling myself.  I should be more in control and able to handle this.  But when I curled up next to my mother on the couch this Friday evening, it was so sweet I felt my eyes water.  If Georgia has taught me anything in the past week, it is that the independent girl who can walk the airport terminals with such solitary confidence is at heart a relational being who desperately wants to hold close and cling to those she loves.  The hardest part of the week was coming home to any empty house.  This morning as I laid in bed, listening to my family get ready for church, I smiled.  The soundtrack of a family of eight is one of the most beautiful sounds in the world. 

I am a very imperfect daughter.  If there is one thing I could change about myself it is that I would drop the stoic front I so often put up and attempt to show my family how much I truly do love them.  Truly hate worrying them.  Truly feel sorry for being a brat for so many years. 

Here are the things I miss the most about home while in Georgia.  Waking up to my dad’s coffee brewing.  Random phone calls throughout the day from my sisters.  Walking into a bathroom filled with steam and the scent of another siblings body wash still lingering.  Setting a table for seven.  Wrapping a sister in a big hug.  Having to stand to eat in the kitchen because there are so many people around the kitchen table.  The sound of my brother practicing guitar.  The ubiquitous “How does this look?” question.  My mother’s smile.  My father’s laugh.  Sam’s random phone calls.  Spencer’s “Good night” each night.  Martha’s song quotes.  Mary’s baking.  Abigail’s “Katie, do you want to . . . ?”   The millions of little things that I never noticed in my striving to be self-sufficient.

 

 

the big oak tree

Rumor has it a big tall oak tree grows on the corner behind the post office in downtown Thomasville.

The week has been a long one, and yet I feel like I have just arrived here in this small, quaint town in southern Georgia.  All my patients cater to deep southern accents and request to see the therapist only once a week due to rising gas costs.  May we please fix the appointment to match with their weekly trip to the grocery store? We smile and nod and do so, for this is the way of life here.  My patients are friendly and not a scowl crosses their face, my co-workers tell wonderful stories at lunch and utter “bless her heart” after each name. Their spirits are larger than what can fit in a room, and their hearts burst with care.  I have discovered I should have been born a southern girl.

As I have found out, I drive only 2 miles to work, and downtown is 4 blocks on way and the hospital another 4 blocks the other way.  Walmart lies maybe 2.5 miles away and there is no Target here in this town.  Dinner treated my roommate and I too the most amazing handmade pizza I have ever had.  Delicious and made with so much personality I am still stuffed.  After dinner, we discovered by asking our local coffee shop server, that downtown closes around 4pm on Friday’s and doesnt open again until Saturday, and just for the day.  To grow up in Thomasville is to be used to the quiet.

The movie theatre’s floors crunch with stale popcorn, and the security man doubles as a ticket-taker.  Teens mill around the outside until the movies just begun.  Life here is simple, plain and quiet.  Life here is friendly, smalltown and personal.

We found the Big Oak tonight.  Winding branches reach out across the street.  A small sign sits in front of it, boasting of its 327 years of growth.  Chains twist amongst the leaves in effort to hold up the past into the present.  To look up into the tree is to look through time and into peace.  The tree’s trunk is 10 men thick and beats with the heart of a small, quaint town in southern Georgia, where downtown has always closed at 4pm Fridays.

on my own and ready

So the short of everything is that it has been an emmotional roller coaster of the past 48 hours.  And here I am.  Sitting in a Panera in Macon, GA (thank goodness for free wi-fi!) anticipating the day ahead tomorrow.  I love adventure, I love going to new places and exploring, I love pushing my limits – but I love doing all these things knowing at the end of the day I can have someone to share it with.  LJ came by for lunch on her way to her clinical spot and it was such a sweet blessing.  Having my parents come down with me yesterday was also wonderful – which shows I think a drastic change in myself that is completely Jesus.  Just a short while ago, I would have stubbornly pushed people away, like a 4 year-old prostesting “I can do this myself!”  Being relational is not a sign of weakness and neither is lonliness – it’s amazing how we can skew things at times.

I’m excited about tomorrow.  It will be an adventure full of challanges, successes, and failures.  And ultimately I need to be reminded that I will be on it with the most relational being in the universe – my heavenly Father. 

Awkward silence

I called the hospital I am going to work at next week. “Hello, my name is Lisa Schoch and I am a student at the University of South Carolina. I am beginning my rotation there next week. I just have some last minute questions.”

“Ok.” [insert awkward silence.]

“Um… I just had forgotten to ask what time I needed to be there Monday.”

“8.” [insert awkward silence.]

“Ok… I was told I could wear scrubs, is there a specific color I need to wear?”

“No. You can wear whatever color.” [insert awkward silence.]

“Um… I was told to go to the third floor. Is that how I can find the rehab department?”

“Yes. Just ask at the nurses station.” [insert awkward silence.]

“Ok. Thank you for your time. Goodbye.”

Awkward silences. They can be rather unnerving.  Knowing the other person is waiting on you to articulate a response.  Waiting on you to make the next move, the silence warrents an air of pure and simple apathy.  The silence lingers and becomes slowly deafening, so you talk to encourage your own confidence.  The conversation begs on the edge of unpleasant and tiresome.

Awkward silences.  I pray you get to experience awkward silences.  Do not let them linger, but instead fill them with a sense of compassion to where they are lacking.  Use them as opportunities to show your determination, your passion, your strength, your joy.  Do not fall victim to moments when it is so easy to fall to anger, frustration and irritation.  Use awkward silences to challenge yourself to be a better person, to grow deeper in your trust and faith in God.  Challenge the other person to hear and listen, and be attentive.

I have no idea what I am going to walk into next Sunday when I move to GA. I do not know much about my apartment other than it is free and fully furnished. Rumor has it, I will have a roommate, though who they are I am not sure.  I have heard my apartment is 3 blocks from the hospital. Based on the previously stated conversation, I do not know much about my rotation either.  As much as this has subdued me, I am determined to keep strong, confident and trusting in God.  I have seen his fingerprints in my life before and surely I will see them again.

~LJ

leaving soon

I am going to be honest, I am not certain how to begin.  This whole thing is a combination of wanting to let our loved ones have a way to check up on us and a desire for an outlet to tell what we are learning.  Of the pair of us, I am not the writer, but ironically I got to be the one to finally start this up.  

LJ and I will be separated over the summer, each going her own way in a different hospital in a different city as we complete a clinical rotation for school.  It will be a challenging summer on so many levels.  It will also be a chance for me to “honeymoon” with my Savior.  Though I will be learning, I will be away from all the things that pull me away from Him here – no work, no classes, no friends to run to instead of running to the true lover of my soul.  I am excited about the prospect of evenings alone to read books, write, go on long runs – a chance to reflect rather than merely roll on with the days.  Ultimately, a respite to be used to figure out who I am as His daughter and princess and know that my true identity is indeed in this alone. 

~km