It’s the very end of September, yet the forecast calls for temperatures to soar well into the eighties for at least the next week.

This exceptionally brutal summer just refuses to end! On top of that, I’ve been swamped these past few weeks; doctor’s appointments, exam after exam after exam, labs and lab reports, and piles upon piles of busywork.

Miraculously, I’ve kept my head above water, but last week my health started to take a turn; I’m gonna have to add a light laxative to my daily pill diet for awhile. 

Mentally, I’ve been much grouchier than usual. Every noise has been too loud, the sun and lights have become too bright, it’s taken a lot more willpower and courage for me to leave the house, I’ve grown sick and tired of my lazy, whiny peers I’ve been paired up for group projects. Overall, I’ve truly been a miserable bastard, which is far from good. 

Physically, I’ve been fine but noticeably worn down. I’ve maintained my healthy diet, my daily exercise routine, and my sleep schedule. Yet, my stomach’s been bothering me again, and my appetite’s gone to zero. I’m not sick (yet), but the writing’s on the wall. Something’s gotta change before I actually get sick; just a daily dose of laxatives ain’t gonna cut it.

Instead of taking my morning slowly on Sunday, I woke up before dawn so I could make it to the Valley just as the sun was breaching the horizon. While it has been hot in the afternoons, my side of the earth’s finally leaning further and further away from the sun, making the mornings cooler for longer. Unfortunately, school’s taken up the majority of my mornings this semester, and summer refuses to loosen its grip on Colorado  (yay, climate change!). 

But this Sunday, after not paying the Valley a visit for over two weeks, I knew I had to go, for the sake of my health and sanity. 

Dressed in my typical jeans, hat, camo hoodie, and worn-out hiking boots, I gathered up my camera gear and sped west in my Xterra towards the foothills, which were stained pink by the sunrise. Five minutes later, I found myself driving in the shadow of the hogback on Ken Caryl Avenue, as grey-brown mule deer flanked the road on both sides. Hardly anyone was out-and-about. I saw nobody except for mule deer from the hogback to the huge red rocks I call God’s Ass, where I parked my Xterra and jumped out with my camera gear slung across my shoulders. 

The calls of magpies, blue jays, starlings, and chickadees echoed from the still-green cottonwood trees as a doe and her fawn plodded down the nearby sidewalk. Both of them had mostly shed their red summer coats, and were now a dark grey-brown. The fawn was much more unsure of me than the doe as I approached them from behind. While mama continued to calmly walk into the field adjacent to the sidewalk, which was shaded by huge red rock monoliths, her fawn trotted around us, stopping at times to stare at me with his huge ears aimed towards me. 

I almost forgot to take any pictures of the deer, as I’d grown so used to seeing them. They’re resident deer, after all. The same deer I regularly encounter in Ken Caryl Valley will also come down to Ken Caryl Ranch and eat my roses, though they prefer my neighbor’s fruit trees across the street. However, when the little Muley fawn continued to circle me and shoot me funny side-eyes as he did so, I just had to take a couple pictures before I moved on to the red rocks to the west. 

I followed the paved trail past the field, towards the Bradford house and a grove of ancient cottonwoods. I could hear birds of all kinds singing and fluttering around those cottonwoods, but the trees’ huge, green leaves hid them from my camera. So, I moved on, following the trail as it turned to dark soil in the grass, then rocky, sandy, and crimson as it wound around more red rock formations. 

Instead of climbing up onto the red rocks, I decided to follow the trail beneath them, where I knew of a spot I could sit in the shade and meditate in the silence. The wind was still and no dogs or people were around to pierce the silence when I got there. I found a stool-sized sandstone boulder to sit on under a grove of still-green gamble oaks, took off my camera gear, and pulled out a Zevia Cola from my camera pack. 

Honestly, I really wasn’t up for a huge hiking adventure that morning. I was tired, grumpy, and just in need of a break. I was perfectly content with cracking open a soda, leaning my back against the rough, skinny trunk of one of the gambel oaks, and just staring out at the red sand and rocks around me. 

Soon, my meditation turned to prayer. I was (and still am) worried about how the rest of this semester was gonna go, given the group projects, busy work, calculus, and the fact that my doctor called me to tell me that my X-ray wasn’t as clear as she was hoping it would be. 

“It’s not a blockage or a tumor, or anything like that, so don’t freak out… but I do need you to take some Miralax every day to see if we can get it cleared out.” was what my doctor told me, a couple days before. 

Yeah… that wasn’t very comforting. 

Plus, I was simply frustrated by college for a myriad of reasons. I felt like I just needed a break. But, I couldn’t just take a break. I had to keep pressing forward, no matter what, and avoid dwelling on the things I had no control over. 

While I sat in the shade of the red rocks and gambel oaks, I began to silently lament to the Lord about all that I was struggling with. College was one thing; worst case scenario, if I failed one or both of my classes, I’d just retake them in the spring. I didn’t (and don’t) want to have to retake any classes, but I was worried that I’d bitten off a little more than I could chew this semester around, especially when it came to group project shit in Biology. 

My health, however, was a different story; it’s the most important one, too. For the record, I haven’t noticed anything new going on with my health. It’s been business as usual. But, that doesn’t mean my health has been butterflies and unicorns. Far from it, actually. I’m healthier than I’ve ever been before, but I’m still not exactly “normal”. And, I’ve made the mistake of investigating what’s still not-so-normal about me, leading to that concerning phone call from my doctor. 

Aside from take my doctor’s advice and continue to monitor my symptoms, there’s not much that I can do about my “funny looking” X-rays.

To be continued...