I’ve never enjoyed being bored. I have had times in my life where I would prefer boredom to the overwhelming tasks, duties, and responsibilities that face me. This is one of those times. There is not any one thing that has been sucking the life out of me, but many little things have either consumed my time, my energy, or my my emotions. Years ago I worked with a pastor who described certain modes of life (both for people and for the local church); I am in Survival Mode, not because the things around me are too terribly to face, but because I am stretched thin to my limit. It could be worse, I could be in Maintenance Mode, but I’m sure that will follow in a couple of weeks (or months).
I am partly to blame for this whole thing. I have a list of projects I want to do, or see done, and every day I don’t work on them I add a pebble’s weight to the burden I carry. I am beginning to unload some of the weight, but it seems more gets added in the form of Things I Must Do, which steal attention from the Things I Want to Do. This is life, this is what happens, and I can happily say I have learned to cope with this. It all boils down to time management, and while I dislike putting off the projects I have a natural desire to see done, I rejoice in knowing I often make the right decision and meet the expectations of the duties that are more important. Sadly, this does mean I lose time to be introspective and compose my thoughts to share with the world, though I have many thoughts I wished I could have shared, and might yet still.
During my hiatus my brother came home from college and left again. It was a whirlwind visit, filled with its own little dramas as he tried to secure his student visa so he may study in France this summer. With good fortune, he succeeded. After France my brother will spend a year in Sweden going to school, so the few short weeks he was home were probably all the chance I’m likely going to get to see him.
My wife finished her last year of teaching, and it was an emotional good-bye. Suffering some twisted fate of all commuters I was stuck in traffic an extra half hour the day of her school’s graduation, and missed it. It’s hard enough to say good-bye to the graduating class you spent a year with, but to also say good-bye to the students who were looking forward to the next year with my wife as their teacher broke my wife’s heart. I’ve never understood Christians who seem to think life after being “born again” is a bed of roses. It hurt to watch my wife suffer in grief I could not share with her.
Allergy season is in full swing, which now makes doing yard-work an excruciating exercise in modern torture techniques. This was only made worse by me injuring my back. The good news is I only pulled some muscles, and the backyard looks better than ever. The strange news is the muscles I pulled were in my legs, not my back, but caused my back to be sore, a fact that took a little while to discover. The bad news … I didn’t really enjoy the free-time I had, then when it was starting to feel better I overworked the injured muscles and suffered another week of diminished joy.
I won’t go into the surprise expenses that seemed to relish the idea of ruining our carefully planed budget. There is no greater mood-killer or creativity-squelcher than a budget that runs amok despite your best efforts. Happily some freelance work fell into my lap and not only will the budget recover but I was able to finally upgrade my iBook to Tiger, and I love it. I could not be happier with my current iBook. The terrible downside to all of this financial wibble-wobble is our tentative anniversary plans have been canceled, which was another blow dealt to my wife (amidst the pain of separating from her job).
I still have two grandmothers, one celebrating her 80th birthday this very day, and the other counting the days she has left before her cancer steals her away from this earth. She has been ill for some time, and fought cancer once, but this time around it is only treatable/manageable but not curable. She will be on chemotherapy the rest of her life, which sounds dire but is not really so long given the doctor’s prediction of her life-span. I don’t recall how old she is now, but I’m fairly certain she will not live to see 80, and there is a good chance she will not see my children.
I am stretched thin. I am exhausted. I have nothing left. The energy it takes to compose my thoughts in words to share is often more than I have in my reserves. A vacation is looming, and I can only hope that it will do me good. Life goes on and I still have many blessings I am thankful for. In less than a month I will celebrate the passing of my third year of marriage, and with hope in our hearts we will look forward to the future. For now we keep looking ahead, squinting for that light at the end of the tunnel, and hope the next tunnel is far, far away.