One More Semester.

This is almost it.

We're in class for one of the last times - finishing up fall semester, the last fall semester of school that I'll ever have. About to present our case reports on Friday. Applying for graduation. Applying to take the boards. Taking pictures tomorrow.
I'm surrounded by my fellow classmates, and it's weird. We've all come so far. 3 years ago, I was freaking out about whether I'd be accepted for an interview. Now, we're all preparing to go to our last clinics in January and exchanging stories about treatment and clinic sites and life in between. The 1st year physical therapy students buzz around us, the second years are practicing for their big musculoskeletal competency, and we are practicing skills that a year ago may have made me scratch my head. Talking updated CPT codes, funny ICD-10 codes, how annoying (or helpful) FOTO can be, and gait training with crutches versus gait training amputees. "Have you learned A-P mobs yet? What about strain counter strain?"
It's all delightfully familiar, and fun, and relaxed. My days have some classes and paperwork to do, but for the most part, the stress of exams, of competencies - is over. We have a clinic full of high expectations ahead of us, but we are ready for the challenge. We are making that transition from student to clinician and preparing ourselves to go out in the real world and be independent, practicing doctors of physical therapy. Next semester we will hear our names called at graduation and then we will go out into the world and live our separate lives as professionals.
My life is so much different now than it has been in the past years. I find I have more time for life skills - for every day things, such as going to see movies or play trivia in the evenings. I can paint during semesters, instead of leaving my canvas untouched for the months of classwork. All of those scary classes and long lists of requirements that I used to stare at, wondering how in the hell they were ever going to get done - they are done. I've finished them. I've run the race. I've jumped over the hurdles. PT school has sucked, it's been hard, but it's changed me. It's made me a professional. It's taken my quiet self and, yes, I'm still quiet, but it's taught me how to talk to patients and act confident and teach and to heal. Soon, I'll have a real paycheck. Soon, I'll have decent health insurance. Soon, I'll have student loan payments. Soon, I'll be managing my own caseload of patients.
It's not "eventually" anymore, or years from now. The future I've been building for years now is soon.
And it's been a long wait. It couldn't come soon enough.

Marriage Can Bring Out the Worst in You.

Marriage can bring out the worst in you.

6 months in, I think that can sound like a horrible thing to say.
"You're supposed to be in the honeymoon phase!" "Just wait until you have REAL problems!"

Well, to that I say - people like that don't know how life works.
Life doesn't care about what phase your life is supposed to be in. It doesn't care if the problems of today are easier or harder than tomorrrows - frankly, they all seem hard in the moment.
And that is where I really started to notice that marriage could bring out the worst in me.

I spend all day trying to help people not be in pain at work, it's hard to find 5 minutes to rub my husband's calves/back/shoulders.
I have time for other people but my most inpatient, worst self can be present when it comes to hanging out around my husband.
Passive aggressively folding laundry not bothering to ask him for help because, you know, I want him to want to help, not feel like he has to help.
Sometimes he tells me the same stories and I grumble about how "I know" and skip to the ending.
I'm sometimes short with him when I shouldn't be.
When a job doesn't work out, and you sit on the couch wondering how you two are going to grapple paying bills with half as much income, and you're fighting to figure out if it's human error or if it's God's will somehow trying to teach you a lesson.
When you're trying to plan your life together, and you realize the sheer depth of what it means to have your failures and shortcomings be the others' shortcomings, and how deeply yours and your spouses choices impact each other - that's humbling. That's hard.

Yes, folks, marriage brings out the worst in you. My worst behaviour is around my husband, and I'm ashamed to say it. There have been times when I am more polite to complete strangers than I am to him.

So, this brings me on to my next caveat before you go thinking "Wow Lacy, you're a horrible person."
Yes, marriage can bring out the worst in you. It's totally true: Every little flaw you found in your friend/boyfriend/fiance before: They're going to be there and if they drove you crazy then, you can bet they'll drive you batshit crazy once you're married. My point though:
I can be a nice, polite, charming person. I can also be a positively selfish, horrid person. My husband literally loves me nonetheless. He loves me the same whether I'm that nice person he met at swing dancing, or if I'm the person bickering at him over some silly, stupid thing that only married people would find it worth their time to bicker about. I literally got in a fight with my husband because he accidentally put my princess dress in the dryer. What's amazing is: it doesn't matter. He shows me Christianly, Godly love daily through his love of me, through good times and bad, and for that, he's a wonderful leader for our tiny family of 2 people (and 5 pets.)

It is so easy to fall in love, but marriage makes you work to understand what the true meaning of love means. It means that, even when you're tired, inpatient, pissed off, short fused: you choose to love instead of knocking the other person down, even if it may be easier to do that. When you are angrier than you have ever been (and trust me, that time will come), you have to literally will yourself to forgive, even though it may seem like that person is the least deserving person in the world at that moment (trust me, they aren't). Sometimes your spouse isn't going to act like a good person. Your job is to still see the good in them. Sometimes it's easy to want to blame the person you're with for absurd things simply because it's the easy thing to do! Don't do that, either. It's not your job to knock them down. The world will knock them down. It's your job to bring them back up. Uplift them.

Marriage can bring out the worst in you. But marriage makes you work hard to be a better person so that you become a better version of yourself than you ever could be alone.
Cast aside the selfishness, the thoughts of "me". Marriage isn't the place for that. This has been hard for me. I'm such a prideful, independent person. I pride myself in having it all handled and doing things just particularly my way. (Maybe it's not perfect, but it's perfect because it's my way). Independent work - independent savings - independent drive - independent, self-made life plan - independent free will. My belongings. My stuff. My choices.
It's easy to be those things or proclaim possession of your things. What's not easy is surrendering your independence in some ways. No, ladies, this doesn't mean you have to become a subservient housewife. It means that you let someone into your life to share those things with you. Our way. Our savings. Our belongings. Our life plan. Our decisions.
It's not easy to swallow your pride and say that marriage is not an always perfect, beautiful fairytale of people who build lives together and go on fun adventures and always agree on what to watch on Netflix and always offer to rub the others' feet and do each other's laundry (lol). But you have to swallow your pride. Because that's how you become better: you set your pride aside, accept that you don't know everything, and you accept the lessons that life gives you. Let life sift you and see if you are more wheat or chaff.

Marriage isn't for you. It isn't about you. And it's easy to spout those things when you're not going through hard times and when you feel blissful and happy. But when life pounds down on you hard, and makes you make hard decisions that impact both of your lives very early on, that is when you fully come to terms with this statement. Hard times will come, early on or in between or later. They will come. They test you and show you your weak points. If you get through them, you learn together. We are married for God's glory here: our marriage is to display that glory. To mirror marriages after Christ's relationship to his bride: the church. This requires harder things of us than we ever imagined, because contrary to what society might tell you, we don't get married solely to make ourselves happy. That is not the point at all. It's to show you a great, powerful, incredible love, full of ups and downs and the decision to weather the storms come what may. That it is so difficult, humbles you to think of how much love God and Jesus have, to so freely give love despite their bride's constant shortcomings.

It's through working to build our marriage in a manner that reflects this kind of love that makes us better people. That teaches us to set our selfishness, our pride, our blame, our pettiness aside, and open our minds to something greater than we ourselves alone could ever have thought of. We do it for God - and we do it because we so greatly love the person we vowed to love forever, our best friend, our closest companion, the one person that will love you despite the good and bad, that will work with you tirelessly and help you become better. You do it because although there are hard times, there are infinitely more beautiful ones. Waking up to your loved one's smile every morning. Sharing in their victories. Driving through the mountains singing songs from the early 2000's together. Being on the same side in an argument with someone else. A dancing buddy. Your Netflix and chill partner. Laughing til you cry together. The inside jokes. Sharing one life together: a life so full of meaning you can't imagine it without the other person.

It is humbling. It is hard. It is backbreaking work, but it can also be the lightest weight to carry when you do it with your best friend. It is fun. It is beautiful.

It's the greatest journey I (we) have ever been on. And I know that despite its hard times, despite my own shortcomings and the bad sides of me: it's making me, us, better than ever before.

Can't Be Perfect.

I can’t speak for anyone else’s life, but regarding myself, I feel as though I may spend entirely too much energy convincing myself that I lead this “perfect” life, when in all reality, there are a lot of aspects about my life I don’t love. Now, there’s a fine line between what I would call this pursuit of convincing myself of perfection – and choosing to be optimistic and happy about my life. I’m a become proponent of leading an optimistic life. I have been through the whole depressed (teenager) phase, and it’s not an alleyway of life that I’d like to find myself going down again. What’s more, I find that it’s simply a better use of my time to focus on the good, the happy, the positive – and to set myself up to operate under a mindset of what I can change in order to make life better, versus moping about what I do not like. I value action so much. When I am distressed, I find myself loathing talks sometimes… they seem so useless. Like, I could be spending this time doing instead of speculating. Talk is nice, but what can we do to fix this now? Activity and action are such a comfort to me. That makes me a bad, inpatient conversationalist sometimes. That makes me harsh sometimes, because I demand action from those I love to ease my own distress. Just ask my husband – it’s not always easy to be around me. And I feel bad about that sometimes, but just find myself thinking that it’s so easy to get caught up and feel helpless in this world where so much is out of your control. That sometimes – it’s simply soothing to focus on what I’m not helpless to change.

But still – it’s so easy to fall into that “wanting to be perfect” trap! It’s all too easy to screen your life through social media, taking photos of the good times, occasionally being “candid” about the things we don’t like as much, gleaming important lessons through these things for the sake of being open and real to an audience, but still reluctant to share the real things about us that make us feel insecure. Man, if I had a dollar for every one of those things, I’d never have to gripe about not having insulin again. This is something I’d like to improve about my own life, but again, I can’t speak for anyone else’s. I just think that we’d save a lot more energy if we were more honest and open with ourselves. Looking at my own life, I can find prime examples of this.

My life isn’t always glamorous. Newsflash – no one’s is. And we shouldn’t stress about it not being that way. And as a result, I get cranky, I snap at people, sometimes I get mean. I get human. I love visiting new places with my husband, going on adventures, but you don’t see the times I tiredly get home after working 10 hour shifts and then I get cranky with my husband and myself as I try and clean for the next two hours muttering about how I clean all the time.

I’m convinced every girl has these thoughts - yeah: Sometimes, I don’t like my weight. Or how I look. I'm constantly comparing myself to others and it makes me unhappy. I’m happier with where I am now – but I used to be a lot skinnier, and with being on insulin, sometimes it’s just really hard to lose weight. Or maybe it’s just me, and insulin doesn’t have as big of a role in it as I would like? Do I like to cast blame on that? That’s an ugly part of me I confront a lot. My husband brought me home a burrito once and I irritatedly asked him to make me a sandwich because I didn’t want to eat the burrito.

I’m 23 and I still spell sandwich wrong way more than I should. And restaurant.

I like to talk about my accomplishments because I’m proud of everything I’ve fought to do. But damn, if I don’t feel like it sometimes makes me a worse person. The kind that forgets to call people enough or reply to texts or have the energy to chat with them when we’re hanging out.  The kind that neglects personal growth or relationships with others in exchange for having a full schedule and trying to climb the success ladder. My ambition gets in the way a lot. The tired days when I feel stretched way too thin because I’ve worked 7 gigs but still have a 54-60 hour work week ahead of me interning. The times when I’m on my phone but shouldn’t be because Kris is trying to have a conversation with me. Sometimes, I need to learn to put the work away and just focus on the now and the people around me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful for the work, but a lot of me seems way too caught up on trying to accomplish things, to hang successes on my “mental” wall. It lets things slip through the cracks on accident sometimes. The other side of the coin I get lazy after working a lot and end up procrastinating on assignments, or not calling customers quite on time., or being late to things I said I’d be on time for.  Life is just hectic!

My walk with God – I forget to trust him all the time. I rely on myself too much. Don’t like to give up control of my life. I’m stubborn. Kris and I are now (thankfully) getting back in the habit of going to weekly church. Not just podcasts. It’s good for us.

My internship has got me down a lot this semester because I’ll be honest: A lot of the time I just don’t feel good enough, or smart enough, or charismatic enough to be a good PT. Sometimes I see patients and I’m trying to treat them and I have no idea what to do. The stakes are higher when you’re dealing with real people. Sometimes they tell you stories so sad you go home and sit in silence just thinking about the weight of those words. Sometimes you feel like you’re never going to get there, you’re never going to be that good. Sometimes I feel like I’m not making a big enough difference, especially with difficult chronic pain patients, and I feel as though all my schooling has gone to waste. Did I choose right? Am I in the right profession? Will I be satisfied with it? Is it truly my calling? Maybe it’s healthy to constantly question things. Maybe. I’ve questioned all of these things in my pursuit of finding career fulfillment.

And Diabetes… that’s the worst of all. I want to you to think that I’m in control. I want to be. But I’m so insecure and bad at the Diabetes thing somedays. Somedays, I let my blood sugar run high… sometimes I just don’t care enough. I let it run high for two weeks recently. I shouldn’t have, but I did. I’m too tired to deal with it somedays. Yes, I know the complications that can be a result. But burnout is a real and unfortunate thing that all of us diabetics succumb to sometimes. The insulin store in my fridge is getting lower than it’s ever been and I need to figure out how to get more soon. But part of me is afraid to go see someone for it because what if they yell at me? Tell me I’m irresponsible because I haven’t seen a doctor in over 2 years now? No insurance – no time. Fear and disappointment over knowing I likely can’t afford a visit and the monthly insulin anyways. Maybe I just didn’t order my priorities correctly these last few years, and I should have tried harder to get insulin.

Bottom line – none of us, least of all me, are the perfect person, the perfect wife, the perfect worker bee or student, the perfect Christian, or diabetic, or whatever you may be. We all have slip ups time to time, and they can be extremely irritating. I think it’s good to take step back and focus on the bad along with the good sometimes though. Healthy for us. Helpful to remind us how to become better people and prioritize what we want to change.

I've Worked All Throughout College, Partly Because of Need, Mostly Because I'm a Workaholic.

Ever since I was a little kid - I wanted to be a princess like my mom. My mom would come into the office dress in silky light blue, hair curled in wisps around her face, black choker around her neck. I'd always ask her, "When can I be a princess?" To which she said, "Once you get your braces off."
Well, getting my braces turned out to be a long, drawn-out, 5-year procedure that involved many awkward years of school photos.

I remember my first party: I was 14, it was a glamour party, and I was able to help with the stations and getting kids dressed while my mom face painted. I had been practicing my face paint skills with my mom for the past year, and I couldn't wait to get out and start doing parties myself. I started doing princess parties, my first princess being the classic "Blue princess" aka Cinderella. "No eyeliner," my mom would say, as I got ready. My mom or my dad would still have to drive me to parties, but that was okay. The first party I ever drove myself to was an Ariel party. My mom made the balloons for me, because I couldn't twist yet. She got me a little Aquacolor face paint kit - it was tiny, like the size of a colour pencil box, but I loved that kit and was constantly practicing face painting on myself. I wanted to be good at this. I wanted to be a princess. I was proud of the work, too - I've always been a saver. I saved my first $1,000 from the time I was 12 years old, because I literally saved every bit of money that people would give me for holiday and birthday gifts. I'd meticulously save up the money I made from princess parties, not touching my bank account all through high school. (I was spoiled, of course, I didn't pay for rent or for food unless I went out. I whined about paying for gas for my truck. I wish I only paid for gas now!)

I spent 3.5 years working for my mom in highschool. The work was perfect for a highschool/college student - only on the weekend, the occasional day care during the week. It made (Better) money than a part time job you'd work all week, with only two days of work. I knew in Senior year of highschool that I was going to move up to Macon when I accepted my letter of acceptance to Wesleyan college. I talked with my mom about taking the plunge into getting my own gigs up there. Even if I only got one, two, four jobs a month - that would be some extra income I could use for necessities, food, even for fun. It was perfect. Except, I was terrible at talking to people! I dreaded phone calls. I advertised on a website called Gigmasters and I clearly remember that first summer. Gigmasters sends bids that clients submit to vendors. Once you submit your bid, it is helpful to call potential customers in order to try and book them. I acutely remember submitting my bids, awkwardly calling people I'd never met or talked to in my life and asking them if they wanted to book a face painter/princess (now balloon artist!) My mom had taught me a couple of simple balloon animals and I also took it upon myself to watch Youtube to learn more and build up my balloon animal portfolio. Terrible as I was on the phone, I managed to book maybe two or three gigs over the summer. Fall rolled around, and I started school at Wesleyan. I remember one excited afternoon where I managed to book three gigs in a day - and two gigs per weekend that August! I was so proud of myself for doing it. Gigs started to become more steady - I'd get jobs nearly ever weekend from then on out. Occasionally, my mom would take calls for me and book events. But, I started consistently placing bids for clients, calling them, writing up invoices, taking photos of my costumes, practicing balloons. I wasn't new to doing parties - I was new to entrepreneurship, but gradually, the calls started getting easier and easier.
I learned a lot of things the hard way the first year or two. Such as, take deposits - before you end up driving all the way to a party and getting cancelled on! Some people, I'd call on the phone, and they'd yell at me! Some people were just plain awkward to talk to.
But I learned, and soon started a steady stream of business that kept me working each weekend, and I'd have to take weekends off to go visit home soon enough. I started getting good reviews. Booking more. Buying costumes. Regularly ordering supplies. Talking on the phone like a pro. The business that was supposed to only be a one to four gigs a month type thing, turned into a full blown, steady stream of weekly business with 3-6 gigs a weekend. Weekdays were filled with calling potential clients between classes, doing invoices, practicing more balloons. I started advertising on some more websites. Getting better clients, bigger gigs, regulars.

The entrepreneurship and the love for what I did made me a workaholic. I loved saving up more and more money from my gigs - I was still very meticulous with saving. I loved starting to explore Georgia, seeing the state. And the fact that it was in my own hands just... I don't know, it made me assume this kind of responsibility that I felt blessed to have at my age. Running a business is hard, and it's frustrating, but it's incredibly fulfilling and gives you incredible freedom. Doing events changed my personality from someone timid and introverted - to someone still introverted, but someone that could be extroverted, that could be driven, that could be a go-getter. A business woman. I loved that title. I loved the work. I couldn't have done it without my mom, and I've been incredibly blessed for that. I couldn't have done it without the gift of my truck from my grandparents, and I'm so blessed for that, too. I'd like to say I did it all by myself, but that's a boldfaced lie. I'm still proud, though. Proud that I took those gifts and made them into something sustainable.

Give a man a fish - feed him for the day. Give him a fishing rod - feed him for a lifetime.

My mom never coddled me. Once I was out of the house, I was on my own. Even in highschool - if I wanted things - I paid for them. But my mom gave my something that I will always attest is infinitely more valuable: She gave me the skills and the tools to become a business woman, and for that, I will thank her more than I ever would have been able to had she just given or bought me things. In metaphorical terms, he gave me the fishing rod that made me a fisherman. This business has shaped my entire personality as a woman: I am fiercely independent, I live and breathe capitalism and free economics, I love researching tax policies, and I have a damn good work ethic. I've seen different cultures, developed a love for people of all backgrounds, all races. Shared in their joy at different events. Made little girls giddy with joy over their favourite princess coming to visit them. I've been to beautiful houses in rich buckhead - wealth I could never imagine - I've played the chicken dance with a birthday girl in a wheelchair in the middle of a rainy pecan tree farm in a crowded trailer. I've taken events for deaf children only to be told, to my shock, that I'm the only vendor who was willing to accept the gig. I've learned the art of people, and that's an invaluable lesson that has helped me in physical therapy. I don't worship money, but I value it for the hard work that it represents. I understand the value of it now that I've worked for it for years and years. I value the independence that saving money since high school has given me. I am not rich, but I am comfortable. I live sustainably. I am self-made, and I revel in what that freedom and knowledge has given me. To me, working gives me the freedom to do what I want when I do take time off. I can go out without worrying what my bank account balance is. I can buy nice things. No, I don't have insurance to allow me to get insulin whenever I want, but I take comfort in the fact of knowing that I have a cushion in which I know I can buy insulin when I need it.

Of course, there's a dark side to all that, too. Going through college, I did take it too far. I'd skip out on important events, or work holidays, just for an extra dollar. Friends/significant others would get mad at me for that. I was stingy for a long time before I learned balance. And what's more... I fell victim to a lot of jealousy, which is something I do not say proudly. I love that I work for all of the reasons I've stated above. But I would get jealous, watching friends be given money, or taken on shopping trips with their mom. Their parents giving them money. I shouldn't have, but I did. How come they were just given these things, while I came home Sunday nights, back aching and drained from events? I would brush people off as lazy, many times unfairly. It was so silly of me to get jealous of petty things like that - but for a long time, I did. I did get too obsessed with chasing the dollar and working, and I knew it. Even when I had saved up enough that working on weekends wasn't always necessary - I found it hard to turn down gigs and still found myself working weekends, missing dinners, being late to things I'd promised I'd be at. I skipped out on a lot of college events - candlelighting/alumnae ceremony at college, pep rallies, the like. I found myself working for the sake of working, unable to turn down people requesting me to work their parties. I'd pledge days off to people and then cave and book something at the last second. I almost killed myself in a car accident on the way to work one day. I've gotten tickets because of speeding to gigs. The idea of having no money in my bank account scared me, and I literally slaved through weekends and even skipped classes a lot just to work gigs to ensure that never happened. I'm not brilliant, but I consider myself reasonably intelligent, as I've been able to get good grades all throughout college. Before I worked every weekend, I had incredibly good grades in college - I'd make a game of memorizing the study material after reading it multiple times and see how many 100's I could get on exams in class in a row. Tests were easy. At Wesleyan, I would take a good grade - but a lower grade - in exchange for working. No, it wouldn't be the highest grade I could have gotten if I'd studied weekends. But I took pride in the fact that I could still get the grades I needed while working. In grad school, I took it a little too far - I probably needed to work less, study more, because I was distracted and the school work was harder and I made the mistake of thinking I could coast. My grades did suffer. I had to cut back on working.

If I could go back and teach young, budding entrepreneur Lacy, anything - it would be to chill the f*** out. Maybe not sacrifice so many experiences and holidays. Drive slower. Study a little harder, work a little less. Rest... don't take only one day off per month. Don't be so stingy with money. Never put money and work before relationships and people. These are all lessons I've had to learn the hard way, and I'm glad I've learned them, but I wish I had known them before. I'm a workaholic. I have my reasons for being so, and my party business is one of my proudest accomplishments. I've had so many gifts and firsthand insights into the human experience, and I'm so wealthy in those experiences, so blessed to have seen what I've seen, to have lived what I've lived. I find purpose in what I do, it's hard work, but I would never have put myself through all those long days if I wasn't passionate about the work I was doing. My advice to others? Obvious, of course - don't be like me and make work the first thing in your life. But, value your accomplishments, and value to merit of a hard days' work. Use the tools you've been gifted with, whether it's a skill your family taught you, or something else. We, as humans, are so incredibly capable and we are built to do things we never thought ourselves capable of. Work will always be hard - but if you love it, you'll find it worth it. Do something that makes you grow as a person. You are capable of more than you give yourself credit for, if you push yourself. You've got the tools to make it. Work hard. Love life. Be a fisherman.

INFJ.

I feel like any comments about one's personality test should be prefaced by "yes, I know, personality tests are not the end all be all." I'm totally okay with this - it's unreasonable to expect that the billions of unique people on this planet can be oversimplified into a few letters. Since I was younger, though, I have loved delving into personality tests. We love anything that gives us an opportunity to understand ourselves better.

I know that personally, I am not exempt from this category - I was that kid that never felt like they "fit" in anywhere. I preferred to have one or two close friends, which I have always been totally content with.  Trying to keep up with several friendships is draining to me. I didn't like small talk - I have always preferred deep conversations about faith, politics, books or philosophy. I'm quiet. I'm slow to get to know people. I enjoy social events, but I don't like to stay at them long - they drain me, and I prefer to sit in the corner at them and find someone to have a conversation with. I like to have long drives alone to think and listen to music. I like to have thoughts in the form of ongoing dialogue in my head - and frequently stare off into space, just thinking. There's only a handful of people I feel as though I can be myself around. I'm extremely private - I'm very hesitant to open up about my private life and share information. It doesn't mean I don't like someone if I don't share with them - I love to listen to other people's stories and life details, but I can only open up on my own time, when I'm ready, and there's only a few people I have been able to do that for. I feel like I've lived almost my whole life in this little bubble of isolation, and it's not just a matter of just learning to be extroverted - it's not that simple. It's just a fact of life for me.

As a result, my introvertedness and extreme privacy meant that I wasn't ever the popular kid - a fact that I've known and voiced since second grade. Second grade me was a little sad about this, but had no idea what to do about it - I think she realized it was useless to try and fit herself into a round peg when she was obviously a square, unable to change the person she was. So, instead I learned that I didn't want to be that person. I liked people - I wished I could connect with them more - instead, I found a couple people I could connect with, and spent the years teaching myself to be content with the fact that I have to work with the personality type I was given.  I was nerdy, I would read at sleepovers (and any time, really), and I liked to follow the rules. Me trying to fit into popular social constructs made me end up feeling like I was an actress who was on stage and suddenly couldn't remember her lines. Frankly, I feel that I'm kind of weird. I've struggled with communication and self confidence for a lot of my life, and much of my college career has been spent attempting to improve these two qualities so as to make myself successful in my current and future work life. My personality makes me the type that is extremely satisfied by working for myself - I have worked for other people in the past, but I have always made children's entertainment my primary form of income, and it is the work thus far that has made me feel most fulfilled. I love the freedom of working for myself, booking events, savoring a hard days' work and mixing my creativity and love for people/happiness into my work while being able to build financial freedom for myself. I've always felt a little boxed in working for others. It's this same mindset that makes me feel relatively confident that I can be successful as a home health physical therapist. This isn't to say I'm only happy working for myself, of course. I value purpose and meaningfulness: I can find meaningfulness in anything that helps people in some way, and truly, I have been able to rationalize all of my current and past jobs into fields that have been meaningful, and thus fulfilling, to me in some way.

Despite learning to be content with my God-given personality, my feeling of "weirdness" made me desperate for anything to explain why I was the way I was. I took the Myer's Brigg at the start of my sophomore year of college for class - and there was my personality, "summed" into four letters - INFJ.

My Myer's Brigg test obviously doesn't define me. But I was thankful for it, because it made me feel that I wasn't crazy to be the way I was. "The idealist," or "the advocate", my personality type claimed to be "rare", making up only 1 percent of the population. My mode of living is focused internally - that's extremely accurate. My internally focused life has always made it difficult for me to externally express myself. I have always had an easier time of expressing my thoughts on paper, and I love to write. The way I grow is by taking quiet time to reflect and jot down my thoughts. I've kept a journal since 2nd grade and it's been pivotal to my sanity, I think. When I was diagnosed with Diabetes, part of the reason why I took it so hard was because Diabetes, a chronic illness, seemed like yet another thing that made me feel personally isolated from the rest of humanity, or at least the 99% of people I didn't seem to click with. That's part of the reason why I started this blog - it's taken the place of my journals for the most part, because I wanted to have some window through which I could try to explain what life with a chronic disease is like. And it's a hard one, in many ways - because Diabetes is an invisible illness that makes it very easy to underestimate the grave psychological as well as physical impact it has on people who have it. This blog also became a challenge to me - trying to take my introverted self and express myself in front of other people.

I'm old enough now to understand that no matter what my attempts, I'm not going to just wake up one day, connect with everyone and become a social butterfly. I have learned to be more extroverted when I needed, but that's never going to really be me. It's taken me a long time to be okay with that, but this post isn't meant to solely be me griping about my inability to fit in and have effortless conversations. If there's anything that my (almost) 23 years have taught me, it is to be thankful for who I am. I'm thankful for my internal-focused life - it has helped me to delve into writing and art, it has pushed me to educate myself through literature and to strive for furthering my education. It has given me the opportunity to have had some great conversations with people and to build very meaningful, true and lasting friendships, and connect to those who I am friends with on a deeper level. It has helped me to be a dreamer who has the push to turn her dreams into action. It has prompted me to spend time focusing on the human experience and learn how to feel empathy. It has helped me build a very stable and positive emotional mindset, to pursue a well-balanced and healthy life, and it has encouraged me to be in constant reflection of myself, which has helped me to grow.

Any fellow INFJ's out there? Do you feel that your Myers-Brigg helps explain your personality type? I'd love to hear other people's thoughts!

Two More Semesters.

Monday marked the start of my last fall semester of school - ever. It also marks two years since I began my Doctor of Physical Therapy program.

Uhh... where to begin?! I can't even begin to describe how changed I feel. Part of me looks back on my clueless 20 year old, 1st-year self and cringes. Was I really that bad at answering those questions? How did that subject matter not make sense? Why was I so bad at practicing and applying myself? Things that used to seem like Greek to me now seem so much simpler. I can rattle off transfer skills and how to treat different joint arthroplasties and perform a Tinetti from memory - things that would blow the mind of first year me. Shy, tepid, super unsure - I went into this program not knowing what to expect. And, admittedly, struggling a good bit. It took a lot of tired, sleepless nights, tears, and anxiety to get to where I am today. It took a couple of kicks in the rear for me to realize what was at stake, and how much I needed to step up my game. I came out of undergrad tired and worn out - and, what's more, used to coasting in a lot of my classes - and arrived to Grad School grossly underprepared for what was to come. Looking back, I don't feel proud about that. But, all you can do with the past is reflect and learn... right? Learn I have.
I cannot believe I'm finally almost there. All the competencies, exams and practicals... the comprehensive exams - some days, most days, it felt as though it was all too much. It felt like an impossibly long road, to traverse the 5 academic semesters to clinic.

I remember seeing the third years coming back from clinic as a first year, and they seemed as though they knew so much! Now, I don't feel like I know half as much as I thought people in my position would know, but I know I've come a long way. I still have so much to learn as I begin my internship in Outpatient physical therapy next week, but I am excited. I really feel as though clinic prepares us to make the transition from student mindset to professional mindset. There's something different about gaining real life experience as opposed to learning in a classroom. The lecture on G Codes, severity modifiers and function limitations actually made sense today since I had experience billing and coding in the hospital this summer. Last spring, I would have been lost. Furthermore, it has been actually fun to go to work, get my busywork done and then go home and enjoy life. Sure, some days I have school to do - but it's nothing like juggling 18 some-odd credit hours while, staying at school all day and then studying and practicing skills and doing assignments the remainder of my free time. For the first time in a long time during my career as a student - I have the joy of being able to learn in school, but to freely enjoy my life. Enjoy life with my new husband. Exercise after work. Make plans with friends. Go out for a drink. It's such a new, novel concept to me - to be able to have a little free time to throw around as I please. And I am looking forward to spending my life like this.

I am excited to see these changes in me that have taken place. I went into my first clinic struggling for communication skills and confidence. I still have work to go, but I feel so much more comfortable with my ability to interact with people and I am starting to feel like I know what I am doing in this huge, wide world of physical therapy. I grew to love the patient interactions I experienced - hearing their stories, feeling empathy for them, troubleshooting problems.

I am excited to see how these semesters are changing me out of a student mindset that I've built from starting college at age 15 - to the mindset of someone who is going to enter the workforce in less than a year now. The long, stretching road before me that seemed as though it would last forever in undergraduate - the counting down, but having so many semesters to go - they are drawing to a close soon. And I feel like I am a runner who has hit their runners' high at this point, because I can't express to you how long I've fought and how hard I've sought to get here. Ever since I was a girl, I have dreamed of the day I can support myself. I have dreamed of it as I have gone through school, struggling to obtain medications for diabetes, not being able to afford a Doctor, struggling for a better life for myself. Sacrificing my weekends to work to save up money instead of partying or sleeping in. Striving for the day when I could finally finish this race and be successful. For the day that I could be Doctor Mason: PT, DPT.

I know that the next two semesters - and the boards - and, of course, post-graduate life - will be tough, and have their own challenges. But this semester, at least right now, it's nice to revel in the fact that my school years are starting to wind down to a close.

91.

There was a time in my life in high school when I thought I weighed too much. That's so silly, really - I weighed less than than I do now. But summer of my Junior year of high school, I decided enough was enough. I became obsessed with the thought of losing weight: getting back to my gymnastics weight, fitting in all my old size 00's. I think a lot of ex-gymnasts struggle with this - one day, you wake up and realize you aren't all muscle anymore, and on top of that, you don't burn food like you used to. It started off harmlessly enough: living at my friend's house that spring. I started shrinking my food portions. I'd go biking every morning and follow it with a swim. Go for a walk in the afternoon. Physically, I was healthy enough. Mentally, maybe not so much - I wrote in my journal every day. Sad, angry entries, expressing frustration over my life. Angst over a boy. Hurt over family and divorce, my belongings in a storage unit with my mom's. Some was teenage angsty stuff, normal enough - but a lot of it expressed a heap of sorrow and hurt that I didn't realize had such a great impact on me. I lost some weight.  5 pounds. I felt like people didnt take me seriously when I told them that - just a high schooler on a fad. I'd show them. I moved into my mom and I's new home. It was quiet there; a little secluded from a lot of my friends. I lived my life in that little room in that house. And I decided I still weighed too much, even though my size 2's and a lot of my size 0's finally fit comfortably. I, depressed ex-gymnast living in near isolation, was a prime candidate for an eating disorder.

My diet shrank, still harmlessly enough, perhaps. 1500 calories. I found a track behind the local middle school I could walk or bike to. I began to visit it 5 days a week. I'd run 10 laps, setting up an interval schedule. I was still self conscious about my body. I'd wear one piece swimsuits. I reduced my diet even more - 1200 calories. There was no one around to tell me otherwise, so I kept on. My mom was out of the house working majority of the time, and I couldn't drive. Isolation was easy... and key to eating healthy and running regularly. When I ate out, I chose salads. Snacks were fresh fruit. I felt guilty if I ate pizza or ice cream. I bought two bikinis. "You'll look great in them, with a body like that," the sales rep told me. I didn't believe her, but I smiled politely.

It wasn't enough. Eventually, my diet shrank to 600-800 calories a day. It was easy to do that, being homeschooled with a two day a week college schedule. Oatmeal in the morning. A 40 calorie ice cream bar in between breakfast and lunch. A sandwich and apple for lunch. Chicken and some green vegetables for dinner. If I wanted something sweet, I'd have another ice cream bar... or a single M&M. I didn't recognize that I had a problem, not really. People commented on my weight loss. Some told me.not to lose any more weight. I'd covet those statements. I didn't want to go out and hang with my friends because then I'd mess up my diet because they'd want to go out to eat. I didn't want to do that. It morphed into the need for control of my life - control I felt I didn't have elsewhere. It morphed into a way to take my frustration and depression out on me in what I could skew as a "healthy" outlet, even though I knew deep down it was hurting me. And me, being depressed, kind of liked that it hurt me. Even though I still told myself it was "healthy". "Lacy will never be fat," one of my friends told me one day. I smiled with inner satisfaction. My size 0's were getting loose. I lost 10 pounds during summer camp; hiking 10 miles in the woods, swimming all day, cutting down on carbs in the meantime; I relished it simply for the weight loss aspect.

By the end of the summer, I'd lost 25 pounds. At 16, I fit the same clothes I had worn at 12. People couldn't believe I'd had 25 pounds to lose in the first place. My size 0's were big on me. I wore a belt and put them in the dryer after washing them so that they'd fit on me. Finally, I was stick thin. 100 pounds. Finally, I was happy. School started, and my diet remained the same. I'd still run. Fall came around. One month, I didn't have my period. Couldn't that happen if you lost too much weight? I checked the scale at Publix. 91 pounds. I got a little scared. I guess I can't really lose any more weight. I thought. I never let myself lose any more weight than that. But the impact of that summer has followed me. A love-hate relationship with food; being picky about eating out. Not choosing the unhealthy options. I've calorie counted every day since I was 15, just like I carb count now. I pick at food, just move it around, subtly throw it away if I think it's too unhealthy.

Eating disorders come in all different shapes and sizes. For post-athletes, they can hit hard; it's hard to have once had a great body, and been able to eat anything you wanted, and then gradually realize that you can't eat whatever you want anymore when you aren't working out 4 hours a day 6 days a week. It can cause you to feel like you've lost part of your identity. It can lead you to desperation to maintain who you once were. That's certainly a component of this story.

Why else am I telling this story? I guess because diabetes has been an interesting experience for me because of my past history with food. I grew used to denying myself the food I wanted. Skipping the dessert, hard as it was. Eating low carb on my self-inflicted Atkin's diet that I'd basically began 2 years before I was ever even diagnosed with Diabetes. Watching my food like a hawk. Unfortunately - once you get used to doing those things - old habits die hard. I'm still dealing with a lot of residual issues when it comes to food and weight. Yes, being diagnosed with Diabetes was hard. It's hard to follow a diet by choice, but then have to follow a diet not by choice - the loss is still real, and I was bitter towards my disease because of that for a long time. I'd never had to physically count carbs before, just kind of "guesstimate". With Diabetes, if you're on a food to insulin ratio like me, it affords you a lot more freedom that giving insulin for a specific amount of carbs and specifically planning your meals to have that amount of carbs at specific times of the day doesn't, as you can imagine. I basically eat what I want - within reason, because it's easier to manage diabetes on a low carb diet and uses less insulin - and then I give insulin in a ratio that is 1 unit of insulin per every 5 grams of carbs. As you can imagine, this makes being precise very important. So, I've had to learn that. In hindsight, I wish I'd treasured my freedom more leading up to my illness. Wish I'd treasured food more than hating it. The reason I didn't notice I'd shrunk from 110 to 89 at the same of my.diagnosis was because I was on another dirt - granted, a more controlled one- and I assumed the diet was working. Not that I was losing weight from illness.

But frankly... some days, I'm thankful for diabetes, and that's old high school me coming out. Because sometimes I like an excuse to have to eat healthy. To not feel like I have to justify myself for getting the diet soda or the salad, like I had to do in high school. There are plenty of more reasons to hate diabetes - insulin makes you gain weight, and losing weight can be hard and more complicated with insulin and diabetes. Needles suck. On top of that, as a diabetic privy to the world of social media, I've spent a lot of time researching a condition called Diabulimia - a condition where people will purposefully not take insulin in order to run their blood sugar high to lose weight. Because, you see, Diabetes untreated, in addition to wrecking your organs, ruining your eyesight and sensation, destroying your kidneys and other unpleasant side effects, essentially starves your body of nutrition until it wastes away. Cue photo of me in high school just prior to my diagnosis. I thought I looked nice - but I was also 89 pounds and didn't know it, because I'd stopped weighing myself on a scale long ago because of my unhealthy predisposition to obsess over those numbers.

It's been a hard road, learning to enjoy food again and still manage my Diabetes, and then learn to change my diet around Diabetes again and again, trying to fine tune it. I need some carbs - otherwise my insulin will make my blood sugars too low. I can't eat to many - my blood sugar will get too high. It's been hard to learn how to be healthy and not hate food at the same time. It's been hard to not let myself learn to re-hate food because of how diabetes impacts my diet. I have dreams about my used to being able to eat and not give insulin. And frankly, those dreams make me sad. It's even been hard to occasionally ignore the temptation to not give myself insulin - almost like letting a meal not count.

But I've made a lot of progress, leading up to my wedding this past May and onwards. Working out using Insanity with my then-fiance now husband. Biking instead of driving to the grocery store and restaurants, or even just for an evening outing. Choosing healthy options to eat, but still treating myself out. Exercising portion control. I've dropped a few pant sizes - but I also know I'm never going to be that 89 pound girl again right there, and I'm not going to fit into my 00's anymore. I finally bagged those up and got rid of them this year. Because, eating 600 calories a day while working out isn't healthy, and neither is having your blood sugars run so high that your body starves itself. I'm also not going to be a level 9 competitive gymnast working out 24+ hours per week ever again. These days, I work out - I hydrate - and I'm a healthy, comfortable size 2. High school me would have scoffed at that and considered size 2 next to fat - but high school me was also extremely unhealthy, and I have to remember that. Whether it's biking, hiking, insanity, or simply walking to play Pokemon Go - and eating well without starving myself. I'm good at choosing healthy food options and eating well (I've had years of practice, I've just had to learn to incorporate it into my life in a healthy and balanced way). My blood sugars aren't always perfect, but they are well controlled. Learning to be healthy, mentally and physically, has been an ongoing road since ending my time as a competitive gymnast - and a reinvented one since being diagnosed with Diabetes. Taking care of yourself is work, and it always will be - it's all about making your health a lifestyle. Looking at where high school me was, I'm a lot healthier, mentally and physically, than I once was - and grateful.