Balancing Act

It's been an uneventful week. I went to therapy. I stayed home a lot and babied myself because I had a big bandage on my nose and a smaller one behind my right ear. I felt off, probably because of the surgery. 

Today I got the sewn-on dressing off of my nose so we could see how the nose and the graft were looking. The doctor, the nurse, and I were all very pleased with how it looks! It's a bit swollen and there are bumps from the stitches, plus smaller bumps from the dissolvable stitches still in my nose. But it looks fine. I'm very pleased, even though I have to keep putting a smaller bandage on it for another 1-2 weeks. Beats what I've been doing, though.

I've spent part of the day getting stuff ready to go to Dallas tomorrow to stay with Sierra and her boyfriend for my birthday weekend, just like last year. We'll have a blast. I'm not even stressing about the drive this time.

I'm kind of sad this afternoon. I found out that a friend had her baby yesterday evening, but the poor little guy died not long after birth. They weren't really surprised: he had a lot of things wrong with him. But they were hoping that he'd live long enough for those things to be repaired so he could have a life with them. It's so sad that she carried that baby to full-term and then lost him. My heart goes out to them.

I'm trying to find some kind of balance between feeling sorrow for my friend and her husband, and feeling happiness for my coming weekend. It feels heartless to think "well, I'm not going to let this ruin my day, much less my weekend." Yet it seems irrational to let this event do just that. So, looking for that balance where I can feel both sorrow and happiness for the separate things and appreciate that they are both a part of living life.

I've been packing my bag and folding laundry with this cloud over my head, feeling down about my friend. But that does no one any good. I, and Sierra, deserve my full and joyful attention this weekend. For my other friend, I will find a thoughtful sympathy card and tell her how much I've been thinking of them and how much sorrow I feel for them, and that will be enough I think.

Balance — in life and in thought — has been difficult for me. It's one more of the many entangled threads I am working on. Times like today make me work harder on it. But just writing about this has helped. I feel a delicate balance. And that makes me feel better.