What do you do for a living?

 

 I get asked this question a lot, and until recently I didn't know how to answer. Sometimes I'll say, "I used to be a... (home-maker, homeschool mom, yoga instructor, travel agent)." Sometimes I'll say, "I'm just trying to take care of myself." None of it really feels satisfying though, and I typically walk away feeling like I did myself an injustice. 

 There's so much more to me than what I "do." It certainly doesn't define who I am, especially in this season of my life. In our culture, we seem to be defined by our jobs. My daughter is a flight attendant. My son is a mechanic. It's not who they are, but it's how I talk about them even. I guess it's easier to put people into a box to communicate about them.

 

 So what do I do for a living? I am blessed to have a husband with a job that abundantly provides for us financially. I would have liked to work a side-hustle as a travel agent to facilitate more travel for myself, but that didn't work out since brain surgery seems to have crossed a few wires in my skull. I can't bill myself as a home-maker anymore because apart from a few basic chores, primarily making the bed, writing a meal plan and grocery list, folding laundry (sometimes when I'm up to it) and making dinner (again, when I'm up to it) I don't do much around the house. I feel like my husband and son do more than I do, so I can't really claim that title anymore.

 I guess I need to step back and analyze the "for a living" part of that question. For most people this involves making money to pay bills. I don't need to do that (thank You, Jesus!). There are a great number of things I do need to do to support my living, though. I have to keep track of my energy or "spoons." This involves wearing a Visible arm band and following along throughout the day to see where I'm at. For example, as I'm writing this post, this is what my app tells me:

 I can go a little deeper and see why I've gotten the PacePoints, "Spoons," that I have:

 It looks like today, since I woke up, I haven't really dipped back into the "rest zone." The light blue you see on the left represents a resting heartrate of less than 85 beats per minute (bpm). The mid blue on the rest of the graph shows the "activity zone" of 85-102 bpm, and the pink spikes are times when my bpm reached 103 or higher. Why are my heart rates where they're at? I'm still trying to figure that out. You see, a great deal of this time was just spent sitting. Sitting in church. Sitting in the airport. Sitting in a car. I wasn't particularly stressed in any of these places. 

 My Morning Stability score today was a 3/5 though. I've noticed on days when I receive a 3 or lower, my heart rate is higher with less activity, therefore I spend points faster doing less. So, I need to make choices and budget my energy accordingly. I use my wheelchair more when I'm out. I would take a nap if I was home (I'm on an airplane so that won't likely happen). I'll plan to relax in the evening instead of folding laundry or something. And we'll probably eat out for dinner. Even with all that, because I'm on a trip today I will probably go over my budget of 20 PacePoints. That means tomorrow is more likely to have a low Morning Stability score and I'm more likely to wake up with extra pain and/or a migraine. So I budget for that accordingly. For instance, I'm letting my friends know I won't be making it to yoga class tomorrow morning. I'll plan to sleep in as late as my body will let me, probably 7am. I'll probably stay in my pajamas all morning and take a shower after my afternoon nap. It'll be a "recovery day." 

 In addition to budgeting my energy, I am also needing to keep track of my food. I was diagnosed a while back with Pre-Diabetes and after finding that I'm either allergic or ineligible for all of the blood sugar balancing meds, I've been working on learning how to balance my blood sugar with diet and excercise. Part of this means tracking EVERY BITE OF FOOD OR SIP OF DRINK THAT GOES INTO MY BODY! Yeah, I had to capitalize that because it's major. It even drives my husband nuts and he isn't the one having to do it! 

 The point of this is using the data to identify how my body reacts to different foods and how excercise influences it as well. I'm doing really well with it and learning a lot. But it does take significant time and effort! Not only amy I tracking everything in the app, I'm also downloading that data and doing "science" with it:

 As you can see, that takes a lot of time and effort and brain power as well! Then you factor in actually fixing and eating the food and doing the exercise. Oh, and don't forget, I spend my first couple of hours each day doing my Bible study. I don't have a whole lot left for much else, but I get my joy from my calling of writing this blog, and that's what usually gets the balance of my energy, though sometimes it's done with my feet up on the couch laying on a heating pad.

Here's the Thing: So how do you summarize all that when someone asks, "What do you do for a living?" The whole, "Take care of myself," sounds pretty lame, but it's a serious reality. I've given it much thought and prayer and here's what I've landed on: