The other half of me

You would think this is a post about how my husband completes me.
But it is not, although he does complete me.

You could think this is about a massive weight loss success story--a girl of 300 lbs loses 150 lbs and becomes a new woman.
But I didn't do that, quite thankfully

You perhaps might wonder if this is a post about how grumpy I am at home after putting on a happy face for all to see on Facebook or in public. Not quite. I do wonder if all the Facebook posting we do about our accomplishments and good things in our lives makes us more "virtual" and less "real".  Don't wanna talk about that right now, though.

This IS about me exercising the other half of my brain--the academic part that studied eyes and how the cranial nerves innervate the muscles causing cyclotorsion and how phenylephrine will stimulate the alpha adrenergic receptors on the iris dilator muscle. Now that was just showing off. Shame on me.


Not really, because here is the thing.  I love eyes. I studied them for a reason. We paid to learn about them, so I should know quite a bit about them, and you should want me to know about them so I can help you with them when your eyelid twitches rhythmically and no one else can see it but you. Or, when you sneeze when you walk outside.  Every time.  Yes, I learned about that stuff, including why the sky is blue.




But for a season, I've been more of a cook, a mother, and a friend.  I spent the first 10 years of my educated life being, well... educated!  Studying, practicing optometry, and paying off those loans that helped me learn about blue skies and refraction.  Then, all the security I had built up by having my world organized and know-able went out the door as we stepped onto the airplane to Jordan.

I became someone who knew nothing.

I had to learn from people who didn't even go to high school.  They knew how to cook and where to shop.  They taught me how to make people feel at home in my house.
I had to learn another language that I stunk at speaking for 3 years or so. I sounded very uneducated, on the level of a 7 year old at best. I sometimes cried like a 7 year old, too.

It was the season of my undoing.

But you know what? I found another half of me inside all my external layers of self-worth and all the padding I had added to my life so that no one would ever think I didn't know squat. That other half of me was needing cultivation and had 8 years to grow. I became a softer, more understanding, and hopefully more humble person.  I learned to appreciate watering the garden and seeing the blooms change. I had time to jog and look at the landscape and wonder who had trod here before me. I learned how not to argue with everything I didn't agree with, but to listen and wonder. I lived as that half of me for my years in Jordan, happily.

But then we returned to the USA; the land of opportunity where I have catching up to do. I need to get my brain firing again. I am asking God to merge the loving, listening half of me with the eye doctor half of me.  I need to be fully Leigh Anne--and not only slip back into being the half that is clinical.  No, that would waste the cultivated heart that God pruned through my undoing.  I can't do that to my Loving Father God. He wants for me to be a light unto this world by being fully who He made me to be.

 Fully Me--two halves.

I hope you enjoyed this and are sparked to wonder about your own self. I hope you are challenged to step outside of your comfort areas and see where may have a hidden half somewhere inside. If you choose to cultivate it, you may love who you become. Full, but not 300 lbs.