Wednesday

I woke up to Darrin's alarm and nudged him. He groaned and rolled out of bed and onto his knees. He cracks me up, because when we first got married, the hardest thing in the world for him to remember was personal morning prayer. He'd lie in bed until he ABSOLUTELY must get up, or be late for work/school/whatever, then he'd jump and run and totally forget about talking to the Lord. One day he told me he'd decided he was never going to miss another day. I suggested that maybe he should ease into it, and allow for occasional failure. No, he was firm. He'd decided not to let the soles of his feet touch the ground until after the prayer was said. I laughed at him, not really believing it. But it was true. He rolls out of bed every morning, directly onto his knees, says his prayers, then allows himself to stand and get ready for the day. And he hasn't missed a morning for the last 10 years. I did my morning routine, but skipped my run today--I ate something yesterday that was STILL not agreeing with me by morning.

I checked blogs and e-mail. Then I sent an e-mail to David with two addresses of potential cyber-friends. Okay, I'm going to say something now. The traffic to my site has increased in the past couple of weeks. I never started my blog because I wanted to make connections with people, or because I was hoping they'd visit. I started it because there were things inside me that were aching to come out. I would do free-writing for my counseling sessions, and that was fine, but then I'd come home and wonder, what was the point of all that? I'd written a hidden aspect or emotion in my life, I'd shared it with my counselor, but it was still a secret, it wasn't real. So I put it on my blog, knowing that if it was "out there", it had the potential to be found, to become known, to become REAL. It didn't really matter if no one ever found it. The fact that it could be found was all that I needed. For some reason that lent value and truth to the things I was expressing, and I felt relief.

But now that those things have actually been discovered, I'm feeling a bit of reticence when it comes to expressing feelings. Part of that is that I know some of those visiting my blog know who I am, which is a little uncomfortable. However, all that aside, I have realy experienced some marvelous healing through being able to talk in this cyber-world, and I don't want it to stop. So I'm hoping that everyone visiting is just as messed up and slightly insane as I am, and that they understand that by expressing those miseries and insanities here, I am allowed to continue acting "normal" in the real world. Although, I suppose that no one who really knows me would ever say I'm normal. So I'll modify that and say, "normal" in the Samantha Stevens capacity.

I know it's silly for me to have all these emotions right now. Life was easier when I didn't have emotions.

Tonight I worked on lesson plans for the music institute classes I'll be teaching next week. I have to audition all the piano students on Sunday. Usually I team teach with former professor of mine, but she's in Greece with some friends, so I have the entire piano curriculum to present, as well as coaching the top ensembles. It will be fun, but lots of work. Before bed I ordered plane tickets for my kids. Darrin is going to Las Vegas in July, for a work seminar, and I'm going along for the ride. So we're sending the kids to New York to stay with family there. They love visiting and touring the City, and Darrin's family loves to have them come. This is the first time we've vacationed apart--it's weird.

I have so much going on inside right now--I thought I'd never be able to sleep. But I actually fell asleep before Darrin came to bed. I'm more tired than I thought.