Stuck on send

After my grandmother's stroke, she was left with impaired language abilities. She could still produce speech, though what came out was either unintended or completely incomprehensible to us (yet made sense to her). Her comprehension of what we said to her was also compromised (and compounded by the fact that she was almost completely deaf). When she tried to tell us something, she was so determined to get it out that it didn't matter that it made no sense to us. As we interjected to attempt to clarify, she spoke louder and more emphatically in the same gibberish that we were still not understanding. She got "stuck on send mode." As a result, conversation was typically frustrating for all parties. Of course, this wasn't her fault; it was a tragic byproduct of a neurological process. Nonetheless, we were all constrained by our limited understanding.


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You may have noticed that I have been uncharacteristically quiet on my blog lately. It's not because nothing has been going on. In fact, quite the opposite.

On Friday, January 28 at 9:48 a.m., I received the call that I had been waiting on for many months. It was the job offer for the neuropsychology position at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, conditioned only upon my background check, security clearance, and determination that some relatively reputable institution actually gave me a Ph.D. Immediately began a maelstrom of preparations - fingerprinting, drug tests, thoughts about coordinating a cross-country move, looking for a pediatrician in Huntsville.

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It's no secret that I've wanted to move "home" since I moved to California. Just before I started my pre-doctoral internship, Ramy agreed with me that I would look for a job in Tennessee or Alabama. After I found one, Rebecca and I would get settled, and then Ramy would start looking for a job and would join us when he could. I started this process in August (2009!), and by November, I was regularly corresponding with the neuropsychologist at Fox Army Health Center who was interested in me.

From that point, I put all my eggs in that basket. I prayed fervently to get this job. When I say "prayed," I'm afraid you might conjure up a very saintly image. Scratch that thought immediately. It looked much more like a petulant toddler throwing a temper tantrum and demanding something she "needed." There was a seemingly unending series of waiting for approvals, delays based on funding, or reviews that the program was going through. While Ramy had tacitly agreed and had supported me throughout this whole process, I didn't really ask or solicit his input on it. For more than a year, I regularly stormed the gates of heaven with my prayers demands. In an occasional attempt at piety, I would throw in an "if it be thy will," simultaneously deeming that it HAD to be God's will. I was "stuck on send mode."

If I had gotten that call when I first anticipated getting it last June, or when it had been assured to me that it would be coming in the next 48 hours in September, or when told that the official offer would come in the next two weeks last October, or that surely I'd hear by Thanksgiving, I would have danced in glee and accepted it without a second thought. I was constrained by my willfully limited understanding.

Instead, when I did finally get that call, I instantly felt terror and nausea. Nonetheless, I charged ahead with preparations to move myself and Rebecca. I didn't want to tell many people, which is quite unlike me. I claimed that until it was official, I didn't want to jinx it. I've led a rather boring life and haven't ever been arrested, grown marijuana, or racketeered, and I knew my Ph.D. was legit, so I'm not sure how I convinced myself that there could be something that would turn up in my background check that would keep me from getting this job.

Even as I was negotiating salary, the feeling that something was amiss grew in the pit of my stomach. There was an almost-deafening scream of "don't do this" clanging in my mind, and I tried to push away thoughts that perhaps this wasn't the best thing for my family.

Toward the end of last week, with the backdrop of 25 calls a day from cross-country move brokers hankering for our business, I had a total meltdown. I was drowning in the feeling that I was embarking on a very big mistake to take a job that had some definite red flags adorned with warning signals. I was crushed under the weight of the realization that I was about to break up my family for an indefinite period of time. I agonized over this decision. I cried in big, loud, shuddering, snivveling sobs. It didn't help that Ramy was in Monterey for four days attending a death penalty seminar. I was torn between my heart pleading with me that this move was wrong and this dream that I'd nursed for so long.

Somewhere in there, it dawned on me that I was not going about this praying business in the way I have been teaching Rebecca to do. Finally, I clicked off the send mode. To be honest, the praying may have still been more like the temper tantrum image, but at least the demanding turned to asking for guidance and actually waiting (tearfully) for some kind of response to tell me what the right thing to do was for everyone involved.

Over the next couple of days, I strongly felt I was being led to stay in California for the time being. I felt the internal fight over the dilemma fade. My heart felt peace for the first time in months (more months than just when the offer was on the table). For good measure (probably because I'm not one that gets it when God is subtle), the homily in mass on Sunday was like it was directed right at me. Then, already convinced of what I was being told to do, I listened to my precious husband, who had been willing to sacrifice to do what I had so desperately wanted.

Although I was devasted knowing that I was going to deeply hurt my mother with this change of heart, I felt that I had not only been told what I should do but had assurance that if I waited, God would bring us to what we truly needed, which would far exceed something I could finagle into existence with my limited understanding. With that, I officially declined the offer. For the time being, we're staying in California. At some point in the future, when God wills it, hopefully we'll still go home to the South. As we continue to make decisions for our family, I'm making a determined effort to not be stuck on send.


For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he may grant you in accord with the riches of his glory to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner self, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to accomplish far more than all we ask or imagine, by the power at work within us, to him be glory. - Ephesians 3:15-21