Today is a “swimming date” for me and Ivan. Yes, I do actually schedule swimming dates. My first reason for a schedule is I’m semi-albino (okay not really but it feels like it!). Selecting warm yet cloudy-ish times of day is a must. My second reason is sunscreen. Lots and lots of sunscreen. Ivan’s newest gig is sunscreen assistant to an (extremely white) white girl since my left hand needs some back up. Sunscreening any type of girl is not a skill he perfected as a bachelor. My third reason is SWIMMING! Yay!!! I’ve loved swimming ever since I was a kid, and now it does triple duty by engaging my left hand, helping me with cardio, and working out my legs without irritating the hardware.

But there’s a fourth reason I swim with Ivan. Why? I’m strong enough and smart enough and recovered enough to handle the whole swimming thing. Exercising solo is cathartic. for a lot of people. But now I need seizure as well as sunscreen back up, so Ivan’s more than a want. He’s a need. (Still super cool since he’s my husband! ❤ ) You can keep reading…I won’t beat the seizure “dead horse” again in case you’re nervous about that! 🙂

Ivan and I are in the middle of discussing what our newest life operating system should look like. (If we were Apple this would be iLife 3.0 – at least!) . I say “middle” because we’re young and inexperienced, and who knows? This could be a life-long conversation. On the bright side, conversing is great since you get to know the other person better!

Up to this point we’ve worked under the assumption I’d arrive at independence someday. Now, we understand that some of my formerly “temporary” dependence is here to stay. I don’t have a driver’s license. I shouldn’t go anywhere by myself. Naps will always be a thing. What’s more, we need some permanent social smarts to navigate events that might have triggers tucked away somewhere  (we’d thought that level of social vigilance would go away after a bit.) Ivan will stay shopping master because he can drive and handle store lights!

None of this dependence has to be bad if we decide to call it something more positive. It’s challenging, it’s different…and it definitely requires extra brain power for Ivan to help me navigate each day wisely. We’re deep into the “extra brain power” phase now, but I’m confident God will give us (and Ivan in particular) the requested smarts to make iLife 3.0 a good operating system. He doesn’t bring any update without a way to work through it eventually.

It’s a little weird to write a dependence post just before Independence Day. But how do you define independence? For me, true independence is deciding what to call something, on your own, no matter what surrounds you. That’s what our founding fathers did. They decided to think on their own even though British Imperialism surrounded them. Who knows where we’d be today if they hadn’t done some independent thinking? The best part is that God’s given every single one of us the chance to think independently, whether or not you have an iLife update on its way. Here’s to taking Him up on His offer!