As many people know our family, with the gracious help of two parishioners who applied for the grant to pay for all of this, has been planning this sabbatical for over a year. Two months in a beautiful beach house right on the gulf and then several weeks of travel. The details have been planned to the nth degree. It was such a precious gift to reconnect with our family, slow our pace down, avoid all unnecessary medical visits for Ben, no schedule but to relax.
But instead of the beach house, I am home in Conroe. “Wait, what?” you say. I swore I would not be coming back here for anything. Chris could come back if he wanted to, but I was staying put at the beach house until our very last day.
I am home because I ran myself ragged for years. I am home because I didn’t spend any time on myself. I am home because I have put everyone else before me and never got around to taking care of myself.
I finally slowed down, and my body decided to revolt. Now the lesson I am learning and sharing is not that you should avoid slowing down. The lesson is that if you leave yourself on the back burner for too long, you get scorched.
After the first week at the beach house, I started to feel like I had the flu. Chills, fever, cough, etc. Typical flu. I thought that what a better place to convalesce then at the beach. Isn’t that what the Victorians did to better their health? I imagined aristocratic doctors prescribing a seaside vacation to breathe in the fresh salt air. (Fever+vivid imagination = current story line).
Then one night I woke up covered in hives from head to toe and struggling to breath. I woke Chris up and he “kindly” drove me to the ER. A few hours later and a good amount of iv drugs on board, I had a diagnosis of Mono, Acute bronchitis, Acute allergic reaction, and pneumonia. It was like my immune system blew up in my face and quit working on me.
After another few days of my symptoms getting worse and not better, I decided I needed to go home and see my family doctor. My current drug regimen was not working and the hives were psychologically killing me. I had hives on my face, in my hair, covering my whole body including the palms of my hand and the soles of my feet.
My doctor looked me over and said, “I think that you are allergic to something in your beach house.” Nooooooooo! This is a brand new house. If I am going to be allergic to anything it is going to be my home in Conroe (which I love). My almost 45 year old house that is probably full of lead paint, asbestos, animal hair, 40+ years of dust and living should be making me sick not the beach house.
Regardless of what the root cause of my illness is, the lesson I am learning is this. Slow down. Rest. It is ok to say no to someone. The world will not think less of you if you do. I am not teaching my children to be responsible adults by enabling their forgetful behavior. My home does not need to be perfect, and I should not feel totally responsible for making it better when many hands went into making it messy!
I keep looking at this summer as our last chance to truly hang out as a family. Madie is a sophomore in high school, and the other two are both in junior high next year. How many more chances will we have? I am already missing my children and they haven’t even left the house yet.
So here is what I have learned so far on sabbatical:
- Do not wait for the perfect moment to make memories. Make memories along the way.
- Take care of the caretaker or she can’t take care good care of anyone else.
- Be in the moment. Stop thinking about what you might soon have or might soon lose. Being present for yourself and for your family is most important.
Right now I am home. My hives are starting to finally fade. (Thank, God!) Our plan is for me to stay here until Monday and try to get better. If I go back to the beach house and start to get sick again, then my doctor is right and it is environmental. If I go back to the beach house and continue on the road to recovery, then it will be more talks on the porch with my husband, more walks on the beach with my kids, more time on the lounge chair reading one of the 200 books I brought with me, and more time spent discussing with the kids on Daddy going kayaking and their worry about him flipping, running into sharks, getting lost, dropping his phone, etc. That sounds much more fun then sitting here, so I think I will just follow that plan.
The Puddles 
Katherine–I am so very sorry this has happened to you. What an eloquent blog (as are they all) and how insightful you are about being everywhere to everyone at the expense of yourself. I am sending positive thoughts that it’s not the beach house and you are able to return for your sabbatical!! In hopes that you brought a book and can rest and read there until your beachhouse return. Lots of internal and external demands on you and Chris. Your family so deserves this time. Sending cosmic hugs for a speedy recovery. In the meantime, try to rest and relax. 💅✍️🍪🥛🎞📚🎶🎵❤️💛💚💙💜😴😴😴
Connie writing your post at 3am is not too promising to me
Sage advice – I’ll work on taking it myself. And with permission from you – I might prescribe you re-reading this post at least every 6 months
Agreed. The easy part of this is sitting in my sick bed with a legit excuse as to why I can’t do something. The hard part is when you are sitting with your family eating dinner and someone calls needing something and you have to decide whether their “need” is greater than your family. That is the difficult side of ministry and any calling in the service field. When we serve others, we often have to make decisions that are counter to the well being of our family. And it sucks. In the moment that we are making that kind of decision, I logically come to a conclusion that I know God is calling me to do. But then I sit back and look at all of the little “yes’s” that we made, and see the totality of the effect of all of the little “yes’s”. All of that adds up. What is God calling us to do? To raise our family or to help others in need, and what comes first.