I started writing this at 1:30 in the morning…so if there are errors and it doesn’t make any sense you can just blame that fact…kidding…sort of!  I’m supposed to be sleeping right now and trying to recover from my recent surgery.  If you didn’t catch from my less than clever play on words in the title I had my appendix removed recently.  It didn’t burst, thankfully.  In fact, in the words of my Father-in-love (term coined by my awesome Mother-in-love i.e. Mother-in-law) my appendix was “angry but wasn’t throwing a tantrum.”  I’m very grateful for the doctors and nurses who treated me well and removed the angry organ from inside me…for the nudges and encouragement from my wife, who thought that 2-3 days of sickness and abdominal pain not really getting better were causes for concern…for my supervisors, colleagues and volunteers for being so understanding and supportive, especially during a very busy time…for my family; my mom and dad driving up in the middle of the night to see me before I went in to surgery, my mom and dad-in-love taking care of the kids and providing them with comfort and fun while my wife and I stayed in the hospital, for texts and encouragements from all my siblings, my sister driving up to spend the day with me, my wife continuing to be the most boss wife of all time, and my kids being really good at most of the time not terrifying me that their hugs and loves will bring me pain.  For all of this and more…I’m very grateful!

What I am not so grateful for is the whole recovering from surgery part.  Especially with how I felt just hours after the surgery was finished.  I thought…wow…I’m actually doing Ok!  I’m not going to go jogging for a little while, but the pain wasn’t too bad and I could get to the bathroom and back to bed without too much issue.  However, surgery is surgery…and I’ve been doing my best to not take much medication (just a personal preference, not a macho thing), but I’ve been finding that my ability to even walk around the neighborhood is still rather limited.  So I’ve had to take more medication then I’m used to and do a whole lot more of sitting and nothing than I would like.  It turns out having incisions and a scope inside your body does tend to leave it a little sore afterward!

I wasn’t so grateful for the timing of all this either.  As I said this is a very busy time at work and my long night in the ER was precipitated by a particularly rough day at work that also created more work for me going forward.  Besides work my son has school and my wife has babysitting duties on top of her normal 24/7, 365 job of Full-time Mom.  She is running at full-tilt with me slightly out of commission and while I’m so grateful to her and she continues to be incredibly supportive, it still is difficult seeing her completely worn out each night, knowing that there’s still not a lot I can do.

So here I sit at nearly 2:00 in the morning (definitely should be sleeping) thinking about this, thinking about all the terrible news stories that I scrolled through on my phone earlier and thinking about why…why for a lot of things (including why I’m not sleeping)…but mainly why…what is this for?  Why is this stupid non-essential organ even in my body?  Why am I not recovering as fast as I want?  Why?

Well, it seems that one answer God is giving me is: to write.  I know what you’re thinking…you were blown away by my eloquent words and exquisite organization throughout this post so I’m sure you were thinking the exact same thing.  But, I am serious.  I have felt more and more called to write lately.  I’ve been writing this blog for about three and a half years now and those of you with me since the beginning will have noticed a definite drop-off in the number of posts recently.  My mental difficulties have a lot to do with that.  Feeling like a fraud and not feeling the inspiration to write have a lot to do with that.

But, I’m beginning to think that the answer to my “why” is to get me to stop.  The answer to my “why” is to get me to slow down.  The answer to my “why” is to get me to think, to struggle,  to reach out to God, to push through my anxieties…to recenter and refocus on what is really important and what I have been called to do.  And I believe that one of those callings is to write.  Not necessarily because I’m very good at it…case in point…but because it is good for me, and perhaps just maybe it is good for some of you out there.  And so I am also grateful for you…thank you for reading.  Thank you for supporting me and for giving me another reason to write…and to heal.

This is fatherhood…