Let me set the record straight: when I first broke my arm,
and especially after I was told I’d need surgery, I was not a happy camper. God
doesn’t care about me, life sucks, and all that.
However, I’ve always been one to eventually see the silver
lining around most clouds that pass through my life. As the first two weeks
after the event passed, I began to see the good in all this expensive and very
inconvenient mess. In fact, I eventually saw six good things that have come out
of it. Here they are, in no particular order – except that the first two might
just be the most important to me.
1. We realized we wanted a smaller house than what we’d planned.
When I first contacted Conrad’s Castles about building us an
earth-sheltered home, I asked what was the smallest they’d build. Just under
600 square feet, they said, but expressed reluctance to drive six hours north
to build something so small. They also told me that we would be lucky to
sustain a summertime inside temperature below 85 degrees before turning on the
air conditioner.
One of the reasons I wanted an earth-sheltered home was to
not have to run A/C much during the summer. So eventually we decided to go with
1700 square feet.
But as time went on, J and I began to feel overwhelmed at
the thought all the work that would be involved to excavate for, finish out,
and bury a house of that size. And I found that despite the interior air being
relatively cool in the summer, we would still need to run a dehumidifier and
ceiling fans all year long. So much for saving energy.
Besides, we are all about living frugally. How frugal is it
to build an energy-efficient house when it would take you 100 years (I’m not
exaggerating!) to recuperate your investment in energy bills? Not to mention
that we originally had planned on spending not more than $15,000 on a house
(because we were going to build a small one ourselves).
Then I broke my arm and was facing a very expensive surgery. And
even though we technically could afford a $90K + house after such a huge
medical expense, the idea of spending that much on a house that was three times
larger than what we really wanted became very suffocating. When you’re in your
forties and living on a modest nest egg, you have to be extra careful with your
finances.
So because I broke my arm, I called the builders back and
strongly implied that if they wouldn’t come and build us the small house we
wanted, we would be demanding our $8,000+ down payment back.
They’re going to do it. Upon hearing that news, J and I both
felt like a ten-ton weight had been lifted off our shoulders. And it had only a
little to do with the cost of the surgery. We had set our hearts on living in a
small house for a bunch of reasons, and are happy that we are going to get what
we truly want.
2. J has learned all the household chores.
Ladies, ever looked your husband on his day off while he was
playing ball with the kids, watching T.V., or reading and wondered if he had a
single clue as to how hard you work to keep the household running smoothly?
I have. But, thanks to breaking my arm, I know that J will
have more than a clue. Keep in mind that we live rather primitively, so not
only has he had to learn to prepare meals and do dishes, but also do laundry by
hand, remember to change the ice in the coolers every day, keep the water
container full, and empty the tub that we use as a sink as it fills up.
Don’t think for one second I wouldn’t rather have J go on
being clueless and never have to break an arm. But I’m glad he can now better
empathize with my plight as the Household Manager. Besides, now we share the laundry chore - in fact, J often does all of it (we do a small load every day) since I am homeschooling B at that time of day.
3. I reviewed my notes on essential oils.
Unsure that I had remembered correctly that chamomile oil
was anti-inflammatory (I needed a few anti-inflammatory oils to create a
natural pain medication), I went through all my notes about essential oils that
I’d taken a few years back when I religiously listened to the Wednesday night
conference calls that Be Young Essential Oils holds for its distributors and
other interested parties.
Yes, chamomile is
anti-inflammatory. But even better, I was reminded that oregano oil is almost
as effective as morphine in relieving pain! Too bad I went over the notes a
couple days after my surgery, rather than a week before. Alas, I messed up my
body for about a week total with ibuprofen and acetometaphine.
I also thoroughly read my essential oils constituent
guidebook for the first time, and consequently changed some of the oils I was
using to help heal my torn-up elbow and fractures. My elbow was doing great
within a couple of weeks of treating it with lemongrass and a couple of other
oils – the pain was gone, and it no longer felt like my forearm was going to
separate from my upper arm.
4. I proved my diet healthy.
After my surgery, I had to stay overnight in the hospital
because the anesthesia took so long to wear off. At some point early in the
evening the nurse on duty came in to ask me if I needed pain medication, if I
had any tingling in my hand, etc. She was surprised when all I wanted was a
Tylenol. “You have orders for a morphine drip, if you want it,” she told me.
What I infer from that little nugget is that most people who
go through a similar surgery that I did request heavy pain killers. I did not,
not because I was gritting my teeth and bearing it because I hate drugs so much
(which I do), but because I did not have that much pain.
What can I say? I eat a non-inflammatory diet – grains only
very occasionally, and then only the “safe” ones (buckwheat or white rice), a
lot of greens and fruit, seeds and nuts, and rarely animal products except for
the one cup of clabber (which is fermented raw milk, in this case goat milk).
It’s not like I didn’t know my diet was supremely healthy,
but it was nice to hear a medical person confirm the fact.
5. I’m learning to take life less seriously – more patience, lower expectations.
Type A, choleric, shaper, lion, ISTJ – whatever personality
profile you put me through, I turn out to be a perfectionist who likes to be in
control – and, yes, Dee, to be in a hurry to complete projects or achieve
goals. While there is a lot of good to this kind of temperament, there are also
some bad facets to it; for our purposes here, the important ones being that I
have trouble relaxing and tend to have impossibly high expectations for myself
and others. I therefore take life too seriously, and sometimes drive other
people away.
During this recuperation period, I have been forced to
reduce my daily activity to a quarter of what it usually is. At first, this
drove me crazy, in part because J doesn’t do all the chores he’s had to take
over exactly the way I want them done, in larger part because I feel I’ve lost
control over most of my life (newsflash to self: I’ve never really had control
over any of my life!)
In addition, I went through a period of depression and anger
towards God. Why did He allow this to happen? Why me? My life is ruined! I’ll
never be able to lift a heavy jug of water again. Et cetera. (I am back to lifting jugs of water, thank you very much.)
I cannot claim to have any of the answers to “why.” Maybe
because I needed to see how loving and doting and industrious (his temperament
is not known for being industrious) my husband could actually be. Maybe I
needed to be reminded that I will always need other people in my life,
regardless of my health.
Maybe it was simply an attack from the devil to make me
doubt that it was God’s will we move out here in the first place, and/or to try
to tear our family apart (if so, his plan against me, I am happy to report,
ultimately failed).
But one lesson arches over all the others: I’ve learned that
the trials in life do eventually pass, and that it is only my perfectionism and
need for control that gives those trials the sting they always seem to have for
me. I’ve learned that I need to enjoy life with all its imperfections and
flaws, because taking it too seriously and getting angry over every little thing
that doesn’t go exactly my way is what depletes my heart of joy, and my life of
happiness.
I’ve learned that life is going to happen, and I don’t have
to hurry it along. This revelation – I hope – is making me a more patient
person.
Having a broken arm that requires surgery is no picnic, but
it’s not the worst thing that could happen to me. And God is still here,
working out the plan He has for my life. In the meantime, there remain many
good things about life to appreciate and enjoy, and I can appreciate and enjoy
them if I would but take myself and life a little less seriously and have more
patience with the journey.
Happy reading,
Emily Josephine
