It's been a long semester for the 2011-2012 school year for so many reasons.  I have often questioned my sanity on working on a doctoral degree while working full time and having a child that needs extra care at home.  We have been on a roller coaster ride this semester with our youngest.  So far we have had one western blot test positive for Lyme and one other test negative for the disease.  The problem as I believe it is that we live in an area where Lyme disease is not that common, so no one has seen chronic lyme.  They are still looking for everything else that it could be instead of treating her for what it most likely is.  I know I am not a medical doctor, but my heart tells me that this is what it is.  I have done copious amounts of research over the past couple of years about Lyme, so I am not uninformed.  I just don't know why it has to be so hard to receive the treatment that we need.  It is frustrating; however, I have learned many things throughout these past few years.

I have decided over the past few years that I have no answers for anything.  I just know that every day we have to get up and face what the day brings.  When you think about it, isn't that what we all have to do anyway.  Sometimes, we are blessed with a child that moves amazingly well and speaks clearly and others the opposite of those are true.  Sometimes, the day is full of little wonders and others it feels like all I can do is claw my way through.  Sometimes I am ready to face the world head on and others I just want to put my head back under the pillows and try again the next day.

This semester has been trying in so many ways.  I am knee deep in my dissertation with still another year of conducting research and writing to go.  This degree on top of everything else has pushed me to the limit.  There are points where I have felt like I have done nothing but lived and breathed school--whether it is for the job that pays or for the degree that I am working on.  It makes me laugh as I write that as our oldest daughter has always accused us of doing nothing but talking about school at home.  But right now it feels different.  This year I am facing perhaps the most challenging group of students I have ever faced.  I see so much potential and for the first time ever I do not know how to break through to them.  This group has made me question why I am in the teaching profession.  Maybe it is everything else that is piled on my plate right now.  I feel like sometimes I am not able to give anyone the complete attention they deserve--not my students, not my doctoral work, and not my family.

Maybe this is what I am learning with our trials within our home--everything else is material.  The time that I spend with my family is what makes me who I am.  I was thinking about this tonight as I was reading to the 15-year old.  She loved to read.  She excelled at reading.  Lyme disease has taken away her ability to do so.  It's not that she can't read.  It's that she physically can't hold the book and turn the pages.  For Christmas this year she was given a gift card to Barnes and Nobles.  She wanted to spend it on books.  I took her shopping yesterday and wheeled her around as she squealed at all the book she really wants.  Last night when we got home I began reading one of them out loud to her.  She loves it when I read to her.  She always has, but there hasn't been time--I haven't made time.  I thought about how unfair it was to have her pick out books that she would have a hard time reading but that she so desperately wanted to read.  So I am making time to read.  She reminded me again tonight about the book that we started last night and that it was time to read.  I can remember my own mother reading to us even up until we were secondary school. 

Perhaps I need to learn to let go some and remember to enjoy the little things--like reading out loud, like relishing the moments I get to spend with my family and friends.  If I let myself, I could drown in the frustrations that I have felt this semester.  Maybe I just need to remember to come to the surface and relish in the world around me instead of letting it close in around me.