Friday night, Jeremy was lucky enough to be working a cover shift and I had my first volunteer shift with Leveda. I wasn't sure what to expect. I was told that we would be going bowling and I'd be supporting one of the clients. It turned out that the man I was helping was in a wheelchair, so I got to have my first taste of wheelchair bowling! We used this ramp type thing, as pictured below. I got the balls and put them at the top of the ramp for the guy, and then he pushed them down. We totally rocked - he won both games against the other guy! Hehehe. I tried to aim the ramp the best that I could and I think we succeeded. He was mostly nonverbal but I just kind of chatted away and pretended he was answering...It made me kind of sad that he didn't have any method of communication. But he *could* talk...he was really enjoying the music and dancing away and every so often he would yell something about music and records.
Saturday was filled with errands. It felt like we barely accomplished anything, but we were out all day driving around and trying to get stuff done! In the evening, we met up with some friends for dinner and karaoke, which was really fun. It was our first time doing the whole karaoke thing in Adelaide and we definitely went with the right people. Poor Jeremy was once again one of two guys in a group of about 15 girls. These girls were LOVING karaoke and doing all the silly girl songs that I like to sing. We danced and sang and enjoyed the greatness of karaoke.
Today I went and got myself a bicycle!! Really loving Gumtree (used stuff for sale website) particularly since moving here. We basically furnished our whole house with Gumtree stuff! Jeremy found a bike for himself on there a few days ago, and today I found one. I also found a free office chair for Jeremy on it last week. Yay! We're going to break in the bikes with an 18k bike ride into the city and back, so I'm looking forward to that!!
So to finish this post, I just wanted to share a passage from a beautiful book I just finished called "Tiger Hills" by Sarita Mandanna. Every so often I read something and find it to be really meaningful. So here it is (and by the way, I highly recommend this book).
"Hurt accumulates. Unless consciously cast aside, it accumulates, building on itself. Hardening, thickening, gouging our hearts apart. We try at first to pick at the scabs, to render ourselves as untainted an innocent as we once were. Over time, though, it becomes too difficult. This forced unbandaging, this revisiting of painful memory. Easier to lock it away, unseen, unspoken. To haul it about like an invisible stone around our necks. We leave our wounds alone. Layer by layer, our scars thicken, until one day we awaken and find ourselves irrevocably hardened. Rooted in a keloidal past while the world has passed on by. Be the jungle orchid that perfumes the wind. To let go of hurt, to cast bitterness aside. This is the only way forward. To cast aside the pain and hope a chance once more. We drift through time, sometimes in shadow, sometimes blistering under the sun, laying ourselves open to the skies. Until, inevitably, we begin to heal, the lips of our wounds slowly coming together. We fill with light, with grace, capable once more of opening our hearts, of letting someone in. The breeze catching our wings once more."
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