[joy] way down in the depths of my heart

After church yesterday, we met and talked about making the season surrounding Christmas as joyful as possible by choosing to focus on the things that are most important to us and setting aside the things that are distractions or burdens.

Many of us named mini-disciplines -- things we took upon ourselves or things we cast off -- that would help keep us joyful and focused in the last days of Advent and into Christmastide.

So how is everyone doing?

I said I would stop trying to add things to my already-whirlwind trip back east, and... I successfully didn't make plans with one of my cousins, although it's hard. Part of me really does want to see everyone, even though I know that logically I can't, and that I want to be able to enjoy leisure and rest with the people I am going to see.

How about the rest of you?

[triumph] the second biggest hill in the world

The biggest hill in the world, of course, is the one Niki climbed after Merry Wives of Windsor. (Well, okay, actually, this is the biggest hill in the world, but setting that aside for the moment.)

The hill leading up to my apartment complex is the kind of hill that kind of prevents me from ever walking down it because I know that, no matter how good the rest of my walk is, it will have to end with GIGANTIC HILL OF DOOM.

So:
+Every Wednesday night, I go to meditation down in Westport. (Please ask me for details if you want to join us. It's a great blessing for me.)
+My car is still in Iowa, scrunched up and sad and with blood in the hood from the deer I hit last Monday.
+My girlfriend is in Wichita, visiting her family, and for reasons that fall into I Do Not Blog Publicly About My Health, I chose not to couldn't come with her.

So I walked to Westport. It's a four mile walk. I did it in jussst over an hour, so I'm just under my preferred walking speed (4 mph), but basically I'm pleased that I can still walk almost 4 mph despite being ever so slightly out of shape from several years of no exercise at all. So that was a physical triumph. Laziness, 0, Ruth Ellen, 1.

Then, before meditation started, I had a lengthy and enthused conversation with the people I meditate with (about the only subject I can reliably talk about at length and with enthusiasm: church. Specifically ours.) Still! Social anxiety, 0, Ruth Ellen, 1.

Meditation itself? Was so much better than for instance last week, when I was so anxious about the deer strike and related issues that I couldn't turn my brain off long enough to even try to meditate. This week, tired from walking and feeling lots less anxious, I actually managed to meditate without my brain exploding. General anxiety, 0, Ruth Ellen, 1.

Then I walked back home, since I canna sleep in Westport, and made that trip also in just over an hour. It seemed easier, too, except for that incredibly large hill that makes me never want to walk down from the safety of the apartment complex again.

So I walked eight miles yesterday. I give me 1 gold star, and my dad gives me two (one for every state I walked in) and my mom gives me one, and my best friend gives me one, and I am open to more. :)

+++

Then I stayed up until 5 in the morning talking first to best friend on the phone for nearly 6 hours and then to best Australian friend on IM (we almost never have the chance to chat because of the halfway around the world problem) until I finally had to collapse asleep. So sleep remains a problem.

But I walked eight miles yesterday, you guys. And had a real conversation and meditated deeply enough that my brain was almost, almost silent for half an hour.

\o/

prayer request

If you would hold me in your prayers this weekend? That would be super lovely.

*adores*

joy

Ruth Ellen: 1, anxiety disorder: 0.

Or, did you see what I did there this morning?

Yeah, that's really all I got. I'm just basking.