Revelations

I spent yesterday evening with my sister's family and Kathleen specifically. Colin had a Christmas concert that they all wanted to go to (he plays tuba in the Jr. High Band), but Kathleen wasn't really up for much of an outing so I went over to watch the Lifetime Movie Network with her and give her a bitter old-maid's perspective on love. But I digress because that isn't where the revelations came from.

First, my sister is amazing. I used to always call her "perfect" in a snotty voice because I hated so many things about myself and wanted my life to be more like her's (I've since learned to accept much of who and what I am and don't deflect my self-hatred onto my sister). Last night as I observed her in her natural habitat getting her kids to finish their homework and prepping for getting out of the the house for the concert; seeing that Kathleen was comfortable and getting her exercise in; getting a healthy dinner cooked and on the table; and working on a speech that she had to give at the concert I realized that she really is an amazing woman. Where she juggles, I would drop.

Second revelation, I have actually learned something from Dr. Drew Pinsky and Celebrity Rehab. As my sister was practicing her speech, she told me that she was really nervous about speaking in front of all of these people. Mind you, as stated above, I find my sister to be amazing and I never thought she had any fear...turns out public speaking is one of her fears. Now, she is a 4th Grade teacher, which would completely freak me out as I would be scared to death of talking and managing a classroom of kids; getting in front of a group of adults and talking while it doesn't give me any sort of "woo hoo" feeling, I'm somewhat comfortable as long as I know the material that I'm presenting. When I asked her what she was most scared about she said that her biggest fear was being judged (which has been a huge fear of mine for years and at one point practically paralyzed me from wanting to leave my home and be in public). I then asked her "what would you be thinking if you were in the audience watching somebody else give the speech?" Her response was "wow, I'm impressed with them." There wouldn't be any judging, so I pointed that out to her...Hopefully, that helped to sort of calm her down and then I told her that if nothing else that she should just channel our mom since Jay knows no stranger. (Oh, and to circle back to why this is something I learned from Dr. Drew is because I'm almost certain that one of the "celebrities" had this same fear that people were judging them and would therefore self medicate and were now addicts and he had to work to explain to them that people weren't judging them and for the most part most people are really only judging themselves and projecting that judgement coming from other people, when really most people just don't care...or something like that...which in the end, help me to feel okay with leaving my house without having debilitating panic attacks.)

You know, so much of this makes so much more sense when coming from the voices in my head....

Updates

A lot has gone on over the past week and for the most part it has all been good.

Kathleen had her surgery and is doing really well, at least from my non-trained eye. She is actually checking out of the hospital this morning, which makes all of us very, very happy. She can now go home and recuperate in her own home. I went with my folks on Saturday to visit her and I have to give serious props to Texas Scottish Rite Hospital, they are great, the people that work that and volunteer there get 5 stars in my book. Here is a story that my sister heard while there that is pretty sobering and makes me very happy to live in this country: A couple of the marathon runners from Kenya were in town for the White Rock Marathon which supports the hospital. At some point these runners were brought to the hospital to do some rounds, visit some of the kids, do photo ops and what not. Well, these men, who were very nice from what I understand, were amazed and taken aback by not only the facilities but just the fact that there was such a place and that there were so many children with these types of challenges that were actually being cared for. They alluded to the fact that in their country, children who were born with deformities of the nature that TSRH addresses (clubfoot, limb lengthening, pediatric orthopedics in general) were often times not encouraged to live and in their country they just didn't last. It breaks my heart to think that kids in other parts of the world aren't given the same love and care that our Kathleen has received. But, if I think too long and hard on the state of the world then I start to spiral into a horrid black hole of depression....

So, on a lighter note....the Queen and I (which, they should make a parody play off of the King and I with that name) have been carpooling all last week, which while I don't have anything of note to talk about regarding these trips, it just makes me very happy.

Also, I have the most talented Dad in the world (and yeah, that really should be I have the most talented Dad in MY world, but you all get the drift). He made a buffet/side-board/large piece of furniture for Casa ABBA and delivered it Saturday before we went to the hospital. It is beautiful and works wonderfully with my decor AND it allows me to store all of my wines and other stuff.

And, I guess now I really need to stop procrastinating and need to buckle down and do some work....