This was a hard week for me. There was a lot going on and I was worried a lot and I got a lot done but at the expense of sleep and sanity. A few times I found myself thinking that there was just all too much stuff happening, I couldn't do even one more thing. I couldn't think what to make for supper; how could anyone possibly expect supper from me in this crazy season? What sort of insanity was this, that required the feeding of people multiple times per day? What was God thinking when He invented such a time intensive nutrient delivery plan?
The phone would ring and I would think "Ack! I can't get that! I can't help that person! I can't even find the phone! I'm drowning! I'm drowning!" The smallest things were deeply, deeply infuriating to me, as they often are when I'm overwhelmed and stressed to the limit of my endurance. The ice on the step outside wouldn't budge, and it haunted me. I found myself doing other things thinking about that ice. And yet, the getting of the shovel and the going over to angrily chip away at it seemed just completely beyond my capabilities. Yes, much better to sit here and think about it.
This brings me to Wednesday. On Wednesday I woke up early and went with another volunteer to paint the church bathroom. At the same time I had all the children set up at separate tables doing their schoolwork. And I was trying to stir the paint and it wouldn't stir. And I was trying to get the cd player to work and it wouldn't work. And I was trying to get the six year to Just. Write. The. Sentence. Down. in her spelling book. And my husband was off at a doctor's appointment and then he was back to work at the kitchen table and then I was bringing the children back home and washing out paint brushes and trying to find lunch for everyone and then my husband had a video chat meeting which meant I had to take the children to the library for two hours and there was a lot of shushing. And I left the expensive pork roast out after lunch and it was on the counter for a few hours before I remembered and I had to throw it out and I felt terrible and it was cold outside and that felt like a personal affront and I went to my 2:30 meeting forgetting the coffee shop we were meeting at was closed and and and...
When I finally caught up with my Wednesday meeting and we found ourselves another (open) coffee shop and settled in, I was hoping to feel that sense of vacation that sometimes happens when you sit down with a friend. I had a worrisome doctor's appointment the next day, I had many miles to go before I slept, and frankly I wanted this break. I wanted to feel that loosening of all the little knots in my brain that had tightened up over the past few days. And to some extent I did, but I couldn't shake the anxiety and the weight of it all. The too-muchness of a long, long week only halfway over.
Some people thrive on this stuff. I am not one of those people. I like to do things and keep busy but I'm a creature of the shady, quiet places of the world, and not the hustle. This is not my country; these are not my people.
At one point I excused myself to visit the ladies' room and I noticed in passing how new looking the toilet was for such a down country type establishment as the one we were frequenting. And suddenly those little knots let go, and I felt that restful relief I had been seeking for several days. What a nice toilet that was. I'm so fortunate to be here, in this restroom. It's so peaceful and the light is streaming in the window up there. It's quiet - quiet for the first time in days. And no one needs me right this moment and no one expects me to leave this room for at least another few minutes. And frankly if you're going to have a moment of peaceful thankfulness I suppose there's weirder places to have it than in a clean, relatively nice smelling washroom. Maybe.
There's no blissful, fairy-tale ending to this story just like there isn't one in the real world. I went back out and talked to my friend. I finished my coffee and went to the grocery store and then home. I went inside and handled making supper and cleaning up the detritus of the day and then shepherding all the children through showers and a game of Monopoly Deal and bedtime stories and medicine and, and, and. The peace of the diner restroom did not stay with me; it was not a little quiet spot I could peer into when I was anxious in the evening and find rest there. That's sometimes how those little glimpses work; that's sometimes how thankfulness helps form our everydays, but it isn't always, and it wasn't this time.
But that's not really the point, and it's one of the things so often missed by the proponents of 'counting your blessings'. The blessing was that it happened at all, not that it stayed with me and gave me all the wonderful feelings. The wonderful feelings are transient and unpredictable but the reality of that quiet restroom was real, a brief respite from it all, and it changed me whether I get to keep the emotional lift or not.
No comments:
Post a Comment