Do you ever have those days? The ones where you want to run away? Either work, or family, or that weird friend was just a little too much, and after looking around wildly for an EXIT sign, you start tapping around for loose bricks.
I had one of those days recently.
Things are busy right now, and now just the kind of busy where literally every hour is booked, but the emotional kind of busy, where the heart gets exhausted and disorientation sets in. I got behind on grading papers and planning lessons for class somewhere in late September and have yet to catch up. Writing, well, paid writing, has taken both an urgent front seat while simultaneously the personal kind is getting stuck in the car seat. The Hubby's work is full. Our families are full. And frankly, I'm tired.
.
I canceled a class this morning because of an urgent concern that came up with the writing.
I couldn't catch my breath until after the event was over because I was so worried.
.Then the guilt started.
I'm a terrible, disorganized teacher.
I'm a horrible writer.
I'm a distracted wife and semi-present daughter, sister, and friend.
Mentally I started tapping around for loose bricks, seeing if one of them could give and I could find an escape.
The closest thing I found was this blog. It's time to write about it.
The thing is, I imagined telling my woes to my husband over dinner and what it might sound like.I imagined that he'd empathize with my concern and emotions, he'd hate it that I had to cancel class, but he'd also shrug a bit. "Sounds like a rough day," I imagine him saying. "French fry?"
I thought about that while I was shadowing another teacher today. The teacher had three children under 13, her dog just died, and another family member is having emergency surgery. And she recently divorced.
And just like that the words "Get over yourself" was tattooed in the shape of an "L" on my proverbial forehead.
My worries, along with my developing exit strategies, suddenly seemed very small and insignificant in comparison. And I figured I could possibly woman up and move on.
I do realize I need to say "no" to some extracurriculars right now (cough, Facebook, what?!) I do realize that priorities--taking care of the most important things needs to be my first responsibility. I also realize my heart is full and taking time to step back, breathe, and wind down is necessary to keeping myself focused. That and talking to others who can provide perspective, aka, asking for help.
And also realize that very very few things in my life are an emergency right now.
So here's me looking at my escape options, then turning around and checking out what I'm running from--which apparently isn't as scary as the shadows make them out to be. Here's me not running away, but turning slowly towards it and beginning the walk again.
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Real. Simple.
I love Real Simple magazine. I really don't think that much of Martha Stewart, but credit's due where it's due. She knows how to hire some amazing editors, designers, writers, and photographers. Boom. Fantastic magazine.
As I was agog and flipping through the beautiful and friendly articles in the October issue last night, it occurred to me that one of the things that made the magazine attractive was its emphasis on, well, simplicity. They sell the idea that life isn't as complicated as we make it, that you can have more fun if you try to not be perfect all the time.
A great message, if a little far-fetched when they're selling alongside the "real simple" message, the $50 lip gloss, the $300 dress, and the couch that most of us couldn't afford even if we gave up our paychecks for the next year.
But perhaps I digress. Their main message is a good one and bears hearing by many of us, most of us, I'd say. Keep life simple. It's more fun that way.
The message of real simplicity came up in a different way while I was at school yesterday, talking with a student who has come back to school after some 30-40 years of other life experience.We got to talking about her church, or rather the overgrown Bible study that makes her church. She said it's full of hobos and homeless people, famous names and middle-aged has-beens. But they all come to hear about grace.
"I think sometimes we complicate church so much, " she said earnestly, sighing in her former-smoker husky voice. "And I got so tired of being busy. So I go there and think about Christ; that's all it's about anyway."
She told me about her mother who weeps over the soul-weary, worldly-exhausted members who come, looking for rest. "I wish I was as tender as my mother," she smiled, "But yeah, we go, and she reminds us it's all about Him. She prays that anything she says or does will just fall away."
As we continued talking, my cheeks flushed slightly, knowing how guilty that I am, as a sometimes-academic and writer, how I love to complicate things in order to sound smart, to sound superior. To give myself an identity.
God is complex, Christ is deep, to be sure, but He is also so simple. "Come," He says. That's all.
After I thought about our conversation, after I flipped through my suspiciously named Real Simple magazine, it led me to pray a little differently this morning. I talked to God about my ability, and even sometimes my desire, to complicate Him., thereby making myself the point of reference, rather than Him. I tried to pray as Flannery O'Connor would pray, that I could get out of the way so that He would work through me more. And I remembered it's so much simpler that way.
As I was agog and flipping through the beautiful and friendly articles in the October issue last night, it occurred to me that one of the things that made the magazine attractive was its emphasis on, well, simplicity. They sell the idea that life isn't as complicated as we make it, that you can have more fun if you try to not be perfect all the time.
A great message, if a little far-fetched when they're selling alongside the "real simple" message, the $50 lip gloss, the $300 dress, and the couch that most of us couldn't afford even if we gave up our paychecks for the next year.
But perhaps I digress. Their main message is a good one and bears hearing by many of us, most of us, I'd say. Keep life simple. It's more fun that way.
The message of real simplicity came up in a different way while I was at school yesterday, talking with a student who has come back to school after some 30-40 years of other life experience.We got to talking about her church, or rather the overgrown Bible study that makes her church. She said it's full of hobos and homeless people, famous names and middle-aged has-beens. But they all come to hear about grace.
"I think sometimes we complicate church so much, " she said earnestly, sighing in her former-smoker husky voice. "And I got so tired of being busy. So I go there and think about Christ; that's all it's about anyway."
She told me about her mother who weeps over the soul-weary, worldly-exhausted members who come, looking for rest. "I wish I was as tender as my mother," she smiled, "But yeah, we go, and she reminds us it's all about Him. She prays that anything she says or does will just fall away."
As we continued talking, my cheeks flushed slightly, knowing how guilty that I am, as a sometimes-academic and writer, how I love to complicate things in order to sound smart, to sound superior. To give myself an identity.
God is complex, Christ is deep, to be sure, but He is also so simple. "Come," He says. That's all.
After I thought about our conversation, after I flipped through my suspiciously named Real Simple magazine, it led me to pray a little differently this morning. I talked to God about my ability, and even sometimes my desire, to complicate Him., thereby making myself the point of reference, rather than Him. I tried to pray as Flannery O'Connor would pray, that I could get out of the way so that He would work through me more. And I remembered it's so much simpler that way.
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Long Time Gone
When I planned an image for this blog, my Google search came up with everything from the erstwhile Dixie Chicks, to Meg Ryan, to the guy who plays Ben in J.J.Abram's "Revolution" television series. They all fit.
Oh, and the Civil Wars. But I hear they're back now.
I guess that's about right. They're all people who've been long time gone in one capacity or another. And well, come to think of it, most of us go through long time gones.
This blog for instance.
You'll notice that I bravely wrote during the first and second weeks of this school semester, only to tragically drop off ('tragically" is relative, I suppose) the interface of the ethernet, only to sheepishly reappear like a chronic Lazarus who is always smelling of grave clothes.
I decided to briefly blog this morning because I was on Donald Miller's Storyline Blog, which led me to a guest blog by a girl, which led me to her blog, and I got itchy and convicted about her writing story, so I tapped over to my own link in order to plunk away for a few minutes.
The girl was inspiring, talking about all the excuses she had created to NOT write, only to bravely begin again. It was simple, sweet, and humble, but unapologetic.
I've noticed that people who blog spend at least 10 percent of time apologizing for not blogging. Odd. As if we have an avid populace who is weeping and wailing and gnashing their teeth when we fail to live up to our social network responsibilities, real or assumed. This is beginning to strike me as fairly arrogant or even narcissistic, maybe even hypocritical. To my mind, if you don't want to write, don't, if you do want to write and haven't/can't/don't make the time, well then that's between you and your Maker. The rest of us have been too busy watching YouTubes to notice your absence.
Fer realz.
So I don't write to apologize, because it seems really silly to apologize to anyone other than God on this intensely personal matter. But whenever I do pick up writing after a delayed-flight period, I do want to write about the delay. Perhaps it'll encourage someone else that redemption is never far away, new beginnings may well, begin, whenever you want them, and if you ever believed that you're an absolutely, positively consistent person, go read the book of Leviticus and be reminded that no human is. Inconsistencies, hypocrisies, and failings are normal. Thankfully, so is grace and redemption.
Like writing. Like art. Like a good editor, old things are made new everyday. And even when you've been a long time gone, homecomings begin merely with the turning around.
Oh, and the Civil Wars. But I hear they're back now.
I guess that's about right. They're all people who've been long time gone in one capacity or another. And well, come to think of it, most of us go through long time gones.
This blog for instance.
You'll notice that I bravely wrote during the first and second weeks of this school semester, only to tragically drop off ('tragically" is relative, I suppose) the interface of the ethernet, only to sheepishly reappear like a chronic Lazarus who is always smelling of grave clothes.
I decided to briefly blog this morning because I was on Donald Miller's Storyline Blog, which led me to a guest blog by a girl, which led me to her blog, and I got itchy and convicted about her writing story, so I tapped over to my own link in order to plunk away for a few minutes.
The girl was inspiring, talking about all the excuses she had created to NOT write, only to bravely begin again. It was simple, sweet, and humble, but unapologetic.
I've noticed that people who blog spend at least 10 percent of time apologizing for not blogging. Odd. As if we have an avid populace who is weeping and wailing and gnashing their teeth when we fail to live up to our social network responsibilities, real or assumed. This is beginning to strike me as fairly arrogant or even narcissistic, maybe even hypocritical. To my mind, if you don't want to write, don't, if you do want to write and haven't/can't/don't make the time, well then that's between you and your Maker. The rest of us have been too busy watching YouTubes to notice your absence.
Fer realz.
So I don't write to apologize, because it seems really silly to apologize to anyone other than God on this intensely personal matter. But whenever I do pick up writing after a delayed-flight period, I do want to write about the delay. Perhaps it'll encourage someone else that redemption is never far away, new beginnings may well, begin, whenever you want them, and if you ever believed that you're an absolutely, positively consistent person, go read the book of Leviticus and be reminded that no human is. Inconsistencies, hypocrisies, and failings are normal. Thankfully, so is grace and redemption.
Like writing. Like art. Like a good editor, old things are made new everyday. And even when you've been a long time gone, homecomings begin merely with the turning around.
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