I think I need a 12 Step program
Several weeks ago, my friend, Erin, wrote about running away in her blog. She recounted a tale from her childhood about running from home. Anyway, I remembered that today, because that is how I feel. My week has been a blur so far, and it's only 1:00 on Wednesday. That means it's only HALF over. Kind of a depressing thought.
Then I think to myself, "Why is that a depressing thought?" I shouldn't WANT my week to be over, at least in a perfect world. I should be wanting to do my work, to earn money, and to be productive. But in all honesty, I really just look forward to Friday at 5:00, just like the rest of the world. And yes, I have lofty expectations for myself.
So, for today, I want to run away. I want to go shopping, or just home to watch daytime television and rot my brain, or maybe for a nice walk since it's sunny and cool out. I am going to the gym tonight to a Yoga class - it's called Yoga in Motion. I have yet to see what this class is all about. Hopefully I won't kill myself. I was watching the Food Network yesterday morning while I was getting ready for work, and they were having a weight loss challenge between 3 men, and because one of the men sustained an ankle injury, they had the men do yoga, instead of more high impact workouts. Anyway, they flashed a blurb across the screen that yoga burns 450 calories per hour. WHAT?! I just about fell over...now, obviously beginner yoga isn't going to burn that much, but more intense levels might. Who knows.
Speaking of yoga, I was demonstrating a pose to a coworker yesterday (don't ask) and of course, that's when everyone in the office decides it's time to walk by my desk. Yes, that's me, on the floor, doing yoga for you all to see... (It was the pose where you're on your side, and you balance yourself on your hand and your feet, so you look like an isoceles (I can't spell that word) triangle with the floor...NOT easy.
So, I'm wondering something about you, my readers and friends. When I have to get up and go to work each day, I have this pervasive sense of dread that permeates my being. It's a living thing inside of me, I swear. It makes me want to go to Starbucks, and it makes me think about food A LOT...and it makes me eat a lot. I know these are my "coping mechanisms," but I want them to stop, and there's little I have tried that works. I know that my mother has this same problem, and we all know that I DON'T WANT TO BE LIKE MY MOTHER!!! (And I don't want any future daughters to have the problem, as well.) So, here I am, putting my feelers out - does anyone else experience this? I think there's more to it than just having to work, but I want to know what you think.
Well, that said, I'm going to finish off my diet Coke with a couple of M&M's...hee hee...
Then I think to myself, "Why is that a depressing thought?" I shouldn't WANT my week to be over, at least in a perfect world. I should be wanting to do my work, to earn money, and to be productive. But in all honesty, I really just look forward to Friday at 5:00, just like the rest of the world. And yes, I have lofty expectations for myself.
So, for today, I want to run away. I want to go shopping, or just home to watch daytime television and rot my brain, or maybe for a nice walk since it's sunny and cool out. I am going to the gym tonight to a Yoga class - it's called Yoga in Motion. I have yet to see what this class is all about. Hopefully I won't kill myself. I was watching the Food Network yesterday morning while I was getting ready for work, and they were having a weight loss challenge between 3 men, and because one of the men sustained an ankle injury, they had the men do yoga, instead of more high impact workouts. Anyway, they flashed a blurb across the screen that yoga burns 450 calories per hour. WHAT?! I just about fell over...now, obviously beginner yoga isn't going to burn that much, but more intense levels might. Who knows.
Speaking of yoga, I was demonstrating a pose to a coworker yesterday (don't ask) and of course, that's when everyone in the office decides it's time to walk by my desk. Yes, that's me, on the floor, doing yoga for you all to see... (It was the pose where you're on your side, and you balance yourself on your hand and your feet, so you look like an isoceles (I can't spell that word) triangle with the floor...NOT easy.
So, I'm wondering something about you, my readers and friends. When I have to get up and go to work each day, I have this pervasive sense of dread that permeates my being. It's a living thing inside of me, I swear. It makes me want to go to Starbucks, and it makes me think about food A LOT...and it makes me eat a lot. I know these are my "coping mechanisms," but I want them to stop, and there's little I have tried that works. I know that my mother has this same problem, and we all know that I DON'T WANT TO BE LIKE MY MOTHER!!! (And I don't want any future daughters to have the problem, as well.) So, here I am, putting my feelers out - does anyone else experience this? I think there's more to it than just having to work, but I want to know what you think.
Well, that said, I'm going to finish off my diet Coke with a couple of M&M's...hee hee...
posted by Heather | 11:07 AM
11 Comments:
i've got two cents if you want them. but we know how lengthy that can get, so i'll wait for the invite.
You know me, Jon, I'd love to hear what you have to say.
groovy. i'll be back with more later, then. first, here's something that made me think of you that you may want to check out. pretty cool site about a rogue group of female knitters in houston.
www.knittaplease.com
you're welcome.
Maybe we should call you Heather Blur instead.
Ha! I crack myself up.
That horrible feeling of dread every morning--especially when thinking about going to work--and that you have to do this every day, five days a week for the rest of your life? Yeah, I know that. It started the day I started my first "real job" out of college. What I can tell you five years later is that day by day the feeling of dread gets just ever so slightly less potent.
That's what I have to offer you.
i'll do my best to keep from spiraling, but i have many thoughts on this subject. so if you're ready, we'll go on a little journey. ready? let's begin. (bing)
i believe we have been given the power to create worlds. all of us. every single one of us. this is how i believe we were most made in god's image. we are constantly creating the world we live in by the choices we make. or, more succinctly, by the way we use our free will. and we can choose to buy into the world we already see around us, or we can choose to create something else... something the world doesn't currently offer where you live.
and when this is our prayer, usually, the answer comes back, "if that's the world you want to live in, then make it happen. start it yourself."
here's the thing, though. we need to be building with god. and i don't mean by trying to live a "biblical worldview." those men already had their lives and their worlds. though reading about their experiences can certainly teach us and strengthen us and point us in the right direction of the right spirit to listen to, we need to be listening to that spirit right here, right now, and ask him moment to moment what he wants to be a part of our own personal world and what needs to change. and accepting the answer no matter what it is.
having said all of that... where i think this fits your dilemma is that if the spirit of god is in you, then CHURCH IS HAPPENING NO MATTER WHERE YOU ARE.
so the question that remains is "where do you want to be?" because in truth, you keep waking up and going back to the same place every day. why? if you don't like it, and you don't like going back there, why not find someplace you DO like going to every day? IN TRUTH you have the choice to opt out and do something else...
so what's stopping you from believing that god actually has your needs, even material needs, well in hand and trusting him to hold you up while you transition to a place where nothing like drudgery will sully the light and fruit and living water that should be flowing from you always? people are in darkness, people are hungry, people are thirsty for something real everywhere.
turns out i AM a pastor. i just do that better on the street and at work than in a "church." i'm also an excellent counselor. and as it would turn out, most people who need therapy the worst don't go see counselors. you have to be lead to them. and then it all comes natural.
in fact, if you went and started working at a mcdonald's or blockbuster or target or something, you'd find people who need what you have to offer pretty fucking bad. and for some reason, i find that in doing my REAL WORK for free, god pulls off some amazing shit to make sure this thing keeps floating.
don't forget the lesson you learned last time. "i don't have to have an altruistic job to have an altruistic life..."
when was the last time you read the book of acts?
Can't remember the last time I read the book of Acts.
I don't know, Jon. There's so much to consider. I'll list:
1. I have a $40,000 degree in Marriage and Family Therapy that I feel a little bit obligated to.
2. I also feel obligated to the people I work with right now, because they've put money into some advertising stuff that concerns me, and we've been trying to get an adoption agency going for the past 9 months, and they are expecting me to follow thru with that.
3. I like calling myself a therapist (cause that's a GOOD reason to stick to a profession that makes me crazy).
4. I've invested a lot of other money into my profession for supervision and conferences, etc.
5. I don't know what the hell I'd do if I quit.
But, all that said, do you know how defeating it feels to make $650 a month doing what I'm doing with a Master's Degree? Now, that's not me working full time or anything like that, but that said, I also don't get benefits, either.
And, to be very clear, I really don't want to work full time, even without kids, and definitely not full time after kids (and that's another subject of angst, currently).
Another issue: I've changed jobs a lot in the past 2 years, and I'm really looking very fickle from the outside right now.
Everything is just very, very complicated, and I can't see the forest for the trees, or hear from God, for that matter. All I know is that I'm doomed to never make any money, and hate what I do for the rest of my life.
One other thought. I love your idea of creating your world. Well, what do you do when you don't get callbacks from your resumes, and you're in a job that you don't even need a high school diploma for (this is my husband we're talking about here) and you're so depressed about it that you stop looking in the want ads altogether? How do you create your own world when you have to rely on people to GIVE you jobs you apply for, and they don't seem to want to do that?
you put one foot in front of the other and start walking.
i'm sorry to sound so blunt or trite. i know these are difficult matters. thank you for allowing me to open my heart to you and be vulnerable in my answers. i know it's not easy to listen to. it fucks your world all up. it's coming from inside me, so you can imagine what it's like in here.
as a matter of fact, i'm sitting in a hotel room in louisville,ky right now with wet cheeks trying to come to terms with the fact that i'm not sure if my marriage is going to last the day. so i understand the sacrifices. i understand the fears. i understand what it takes to sacrifice everything you thought you wanted or what you thought your life was supposed to be.
because, in many ways, i think god WANTS this. he wants us to get in deep and realize that we can create a world and then ask us to leave it ALL behind and trust him to build a new world with us. a new work with us as the actual laborers, and him as the architect. telling you exactly what needs to go where and what just plain needs to go.
as hard as it is, i think im finally coming to terms with it. because really, if i'm called to be out there on the road fishing for people, i can't be tied to anything here. those things, TEMPORARY things, that consume so much of my mind, time, and resources.
are you willing to leave behind a $40,000 degree for the sake of the call? are you willing to leave behind people who have invested in you? are you willing to trust god and his resources to continue with the adoption center even if you are not there? not that he will even ask any of this from you, but you need to be WILLING. truly, and from your heart, willing to walk away from it all at a moment's notice if she should call.
easy? fuck no! i'm talking about dismantling your entire world! i'm not blind to that. i know. very well do i know. but i also know, now, a year into this process, that as painful as it is to change things and deal with the chaos that ensues, much more painful is wasting your life and time and talents doing something you were never meant to do just so other people won't be disappointed.
because either way, you're going to experience some misery. the question is, would you rather have misery laced with doom and a brooding feeling of imprisonment and hopelessness, or would you rather suffer for doing "other" things. suffering as you take apart your world, but being refreshed as you see god replace and remold and reshape the world you live in. birthing a new world that does not yet exist. and birthing really, REALLY sucks. it's fucking painful and messy. but oh what joy when the child is here.
fuck. thanks for letting me spill. i simply hope i can find the strength to follow my own advice here. every word staring me back in the eye unflinchingly asking me if i have the balls to do what i'm suggesting to you. and i think i'm coming to the yes. fuck............... fuck.
fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.
anyway.
as to the hubby. this is a more elementary lesson i learned in the past year. as he's looking, is he willing to do ANYTHING that comes his way, or is he looking for something specific? the reason i ask is because if god has other plans for him than he has for himself, it's no good asking god to bless hubby's plans. hubby needs to willingly say, "wherever you want me god. i'm your man. place me where i will be of greatest use to your kingdom."
and most of the time, they are places we have never gone for FEAR, or because we never even knew ourselves well enough to know where we are supposed to be. but when we follow god who knows us better than we know ourselves (because he freaking made us and knows who he truly created us to be), he will put us right where we belong at any given moment.
and right now, i'm supposed to be here, feeling this, dealing with it internally, and talking to you about BOTH of our situations.
wasn't my plan, but i allowed myself to be guided here. and now, on the other side, i'm glad i did. i'm glad i was open to it.
please pray for me. today is going to be a long day. and i feel by the end of it that my world will never be the same again.
today, i walk through a door that cannot be undone.
fuck.
Jon, what the hell are you doing in Louisville, KY?? And why is your marriage falling apart? Sorry, you don't have to answer that. I'll pray.
You know, to be honest, I thought that when I went into the counseling field, I WAS letting God do what he wanted with my life.
I don't know. All I do know is that I'm nowhere near ready or even willing to do what you were talking about. I don't know. I don't know anything anymore.
then at the very least, it's nice to have someone who is in the no clue boat with me.
sorry. i didn't mean to be trite. i believe i have been doing what god wants me to do and now he is leading me "further up, further in." and i got the sense he is birthing the same in you. maybe. maybe not.
i wouldn't say that you're training that you paid for was a waste if it prepared you to help people. whether as a job or freelance on the street, they are good skills to have in use for the kingdom.
since i have no idea what your future holds, let alone mine, i'm not going to speculate. i just wanted to give you a snapshot of a heart a little further down the path right at the cliff's edge. and the thoughts that brought me here and how god had lead me here.
overarchingly, what god wants is a willing heart. period. he may ask you to sacrifice your firstborn and NOT tell you he has no intention of you following through until he's sure that you would actually do it if he asked you to.
much love, sister. thanks for letting me pour myself out here. it has done me more good than you know today. sorry if it was a bit much.
For what it's worth, thanks for the conversation, Jon. I do enjoy hearing your journey. I think you're right to some extent about what's happening with me right now, and I think I've figured it out a little bit. Or a lot. With the help of my boss. That said, I'm not quitting, just revamping. And it's a good thing. A very good thing.
Also, I really hope and pray that you and Erin are okay.
Keep preaching the Good Word, brother.
Love in Him,
Heather
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