DMP Interview

Description

Kim is a friend of mine that is a few years older than me. She is a very intelligent, neurodivergent, hilarious, aware, and sensitive woman. Kim has 3 children, and her oldest daughter just got married. She is a certified master gardner, and will often have a beautiful amount of dirt under her nails. She's got that kind of wisdom and gentleness that comes from chronic illness, but the humor to deal with it and know she's not the only one. When they moved into the ward, we hit it off right away and after a few minutes Kim said, "Oh, you're that Rachel! The Relief Society President told me I'd get along with you because you swear." And thus our irreverent friendship was cemented. I wuv her.

Audio Interview

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dSdrJOfUkYLXPvptuRTRtOdBSxbVer1J/view?usp=sharing

Questions:

Rachel: Okay, so can you tell me about a time that was a limbo experience or a Holy Saturday in your life? 

is there a distinction between limbo and process?

can you think of a story you can tell me in your life, where either someone was with you through a time like that, or think of what tethered you.. I know you said you like to keep busy or have something going on that gets you through it. Any particular instances in your life that come to mind? 

Did you have a place you went to when you were going through that, a holy ground? What did that do for you?

What meaning have you been able to extract from these experiences? 

Transcript:

Rachel: Okay, so can you tell me about a time that was a limbo experience or a Holy Saturday in your life? 

Kim: Oh, so, I was thinking about how that’s kinda all the time. 

Rachel: Right?

Kim: Like when we introduce ourselves or others, we use bullet points of all the big things. For me those bullet points look something like: wife of Geoff, mother to three children, bachelor in Health Science, lactation consultant, master gardener, those kind of things. And often those are the culmination of lots of little things that may feel like limbo, because we’re waiting for you know, the final exam to be over, for test results to come in to get that diploma and then we have a degree in health science. Or you know, we finally dilate! We finally give birth and then we’re a mother! 

I feel like, those bullet points represent something that happened in one day—like yeah, we don’t get to claim them until we are recognized. Like when we get married. The day our child is born. The day we receive a diploma, or start a new job, we get our certificate. 

When we look at it like that, then everyday up to that point can feel like a limbo— so from the moment we start a project until the day we complete it and we do everything that’s necessary to claim the title. They are things we are working toward, hoping for, waiting for. Like waiting to see if you passed the final exam that so you can get the diploma.

In that respect, a great majority of our lives happen in limbo. Those limbo times can feel insignificant because they’re not the bullet points. But the bullet points aren’t often gained in one day. They’re often earned through the everyday living and learning.

So It’s that everyday living, the small incremental growth, that is the rewarding, and maybe exciting, part of our journey. I love learning something new, I like experimenting with it, pushing it to its boundaries and limits to see where that limit is. Like, Gardening is a lot of experiment. The flower bloom is beautiful, um, but watching it grow from a seed to the first leaves, to a bud is literal wonderment for me. I love to watch that seedling. Joseph made fun of me a couple years ago when I was like, “look! A tomato seed, it’s growing, it’s germinating!” and he was like, “Yeah, that’s what it’s supposed to do.” And for me I had been waiting and waiting and waiting and then it happens, and just like, I’m waiting for that to grow into a bud. That can be so rewarding, waiting for that to happen. 

Of course, Limbo can be really rustrating when it’s seen as something happening to you.

Waiting for the cervix to be fully dilated. That’s happening to me, I have to wait, I have no control. (My first labor was 45 hours…it took 35 to get to a 4.) You have to wait until the lab results come in—and are they going to be satisfactory or will it open up a new part of your life you’re not planning for.

So those can be really painful, but while you’re waiting for something to “happen to you,” you’ve got people around you and you have the opportunity to proactively build relationships with them, spending time with them. Or you may have a book to read—and you can learn something today from that book you didn’t know before.

Maybe that’s why I always have at least five projects going on at a time. I don’t want to feel like limbo andI don’t want to feel like life is happening *to* me. Im not in a waiting room, but I’m in a laboratory and I’m in charge of the experiment, when I take that limbo time and either appreciate what’s happening in that moment. LIke the classes you’re taking to get your degree. That limbo time from start to finish, that’s what life is. Yeah. So I think feel like when you can be proactive, when it feels like life is happening to you. You can always be proactive, when you’re with someone waiting for the results you can be talking to them and having these meaningful conversations or learning something. So that’s how I guess I cope with limbo, I try not to think of it that way, I guess I always have something going on. 

I feel like life is really short, my list of wanting to learn things is really long, and it keeps growing…

Rachel: and you’re like HOW?

Kim: How’m I going to get all this in there? 

Rachel: You’re like, “reincarnation is starting to look pretty good!”

Kim: I know, Right? Just living forever? I get that! Right, so I just guess, I fight against that limbo feeling by keeping busy and be in the moment and appreciate all the little things that are leading up to what the goal is?

Rachel: Right. So as you’re talking I’m thinking about: is there a distinction between limbo and process? Because so much of our lives, as you said, is like this process, you can think “I’m waiting for the baby to be born.” But all along that time there’s a lot of development taking place both in you and in the fetus. There’s a lot that’s happening, but it can feel like just waiting. 

Kim: I think that’s the mindset. I think that’s where life is, all the little moments. But I think other people might think of it like, the accomplishment is what makes up their life. 

Rachel: The title. 

Kim: For me that’s not how it is though, for me it’s all the little things. Maybe like, fellow nerds can appreciate, you know… 

Rachel: I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about, but continue. 

Kim: But if you love to learn and you love that aspect of life, then I don’t think limbo is an often, like a, I don’t think you experience limbo as much as someone who wants to get to it, be done with something. I like to just be in the middle of it. 

…. 

Rachel: Sometimes we can think about limbo, or these times of waiting like “I just have to get through this and the quicker the better.” But there are things throughout that we can learn. So can you think of a story you can tell me in your life, where either someone was with you through a time like that, or think of what tethered you.. I know you said you like to keep busy or have something going on that gets you through it. Any particular instances in your life that come to mind? 

Kim: When my dad was in a coma and we didn’t know if he was going to make it. I was 19, and that was when I grew up. I don’t know if other people experience this, but I feel like my life was SO good, and SO easy. And there was a big difference between 18yo me and 19 yo me, and that was my Dad almost dying. It really kinda shook me, it was like “guess what? You don’t get to control things, bad stuff’s happening.” But, he’d been sick throughout since I was ten, I’d worry about him dying, it was always in the back of my head. My mom’s immortal, she’s almost 80 and she’s not gonna die. It’s true, that’s kinda the deal that I made. But my dad, when he went into his coman, I remember. I was in school and then I was working, he was at the U of Wash in the ICU there. And it was really bleak, it was like, everyday we were waiting to hear. See what the kidneys were doing, or making sure that his ph in his body, is that going to get back to normal? I got straight As that semester in school. I kinda put my nose to the grindstone. I really. 

Rachel: So straight A’s were different for you than normal, or? 

Yeah, everything was clearer. So I have ADHD. And maybe that helps me with limbo, because it’s like “Limbo? What? Squirrel - over there!” Because my brains always going fast, and sometimes fragmented. But I think that I just really hit the books, and the stress was stimulating for my brain so I actually learned from my books. I really was intensively learning that semester. SO I’d wake up earlier than usual, and go to the hospital to see him. Because I thought that maybe magically, I’d wake him up. I was his favorite, I was his sunshine. SO I thought, my voice would be like, he’d just open his eyes and be like, “Oh Im’ so glad you cacme, I ‘ve been waiting for YOU to come to wake up.” So I’d go to see him, then I’d go to work for a few hours, then I’d go to school, then back to work, then back to school for a nightclass. Then I’d get home and do my homework, and go to bed and then I’d start it all over again. So I just kinda had this ritual and really packed schedule, it kept me busy. I think that I just keep busy. Busy work, and I focus, I hyperfocus. That’s the superpower of ADHD, is the ability to hyperfocus. Like you either can’t focus, or you can only focus on anything the one thing that’s in front of you. Which maybe, that’s a gift. I learned a lot of faith. I watched people kinda serve us. I learned a lot about that. LIke, if it’s possible when someones’s going through something, you don’t ask them how you can help them, you just figure something out and you do it. 

Maybe they need it, maybe they don’t, but usually, it’s just nice. So I noticed a lot of little things, the way people kinda come together. Like prayer, I physically felt prayer. I felt prayer. I think it’s one of those rare moments in life when you can feel when there’s a big group of people praying for what you want. It’s a tangible feeling. 

Rachel: “holy ground?” 

Kim: I remember my sr year in high school, I grew up in Seattle, in Edmonds actually, just north of Seattle, but it’s on the waterfront still. I would, It was a hard year. My jr year I had this boyfriend, which it was such a waste of time. If you have a steady boyfriend in high school, you’re really not taking advantage of having fun, if you’re just with the same person all the time. But then we broke up, and it was actually a mutual just like… 

Rachel: I think we’re done. 

Kim: Yeah, we’re done. but then he had the audacity to date one of my best friends and it just was painful. I was so mad. I felt alone that sr year, I as busy. I did plays and drama, I loved fun too. But I’d go and watch the sunset every day on the pier. 

Rachel: What did that do for you? 

Kim: It just was quiet, it was safe. I wasn’t being watched to see how I’m doing. So it was my own space. And I think maybe there’s a limbo too in waiting for the sun to set. It was catching a breath from the apin, and even honoring the pain I was going through too. Being like, it’s okay that I’m having these feelings, it was a safe space,because I’m going through pain, I need this spot right here.  I need this time carved out so I can just watch the sun set. 

Rachel: What that makes me think about, watching the sunset. It’s a process. It’s a little bit of a waiting or limbo experience in itself. But It’s reassuring. It happens every day, it happensthis way, it’s beautiful, and like you said a moment of quiet. But I think that yeah, that moment to see this affirmation in this way, that things go on. 

Kim: And you’re creating a ritual out of the earth’s rituals, something that’s always happening. 

Rachel: Sometimes we tried sometimes it's easy to attach like a purpose, or a meaning to one of those experiences right right like I went through this to learn this. 

Rachel:  I don’t, yeah we, humans are meaning-making creatures. 

Kim: Not everything happens for a reason! Actually sometimes you just fall down. 

Rachel: Sometimes things happen. I’m a big believer in that. I think people are going to get sick of me saying that in Relief Society. Like, “Listen, not everything is God's will! Sometimes it is. And we believe in a God that can redeem any experience through the atonement to be for our. But that doesn’t mean that God designed X for you to learn Y right now. 

My daughter has a huge cyst on her ovary right now, and it’s a lot of pain. And she’s like, “Why am I going through this?” and I’m like, “Cuz you’re a human.” 

Rachel: Cuz bodies are mortal and they suck! 

I guarantee you’re not the only person in pain right now! Yeah, this is awful for you. 

Exactly, but from the things we’ve talked about, again given that it doesn’t have to MEAN that. What meaning have you been able to extract from it? 

From my Dad being sick or from any limbo? 

If you want to, or what did you learn from that, how did your perspective change coming out of any experience like that comes to mind. 

Kim: That we’re not in charge. 

Rachel: And is that frustrating, or comforting, or both at different times. 

I don’t know who’s not a control freak. Everyone’s like, “I’m a control freak!” and I”m like. Uh. isn’t evyeron Everyone wants things to go their way. You do as much as you can too… maybe that’s the degree of how much, like how far do you go to make sure things are going to happen the way you want them to happen. What do we learn from it, what meaning do we attach. 

… 

Okay, so we’re not in control of things, but there are things we can do to yeah, make that situation livable. Rituals. Yeah, like going and finding a temple, finding your spot. I do think that’s really important, I’m glad you brought that up. I do think that in any situation, any stressful time,  there is a place that I go, that’s just a common part of that. We have to take a break, a breath. Sometimes that’s just my bedroom with mothering. When that feels too much.