Hello, friends. You may think to yourselves, "Shouldn't Mary be working right now?" And you'd even be correct. However, I just spent an hour moving tables and chairs in the church gym. They were all moved for Sunday's service, and they needed to be put back before Midweek School today. At least ten people participated in moving them originally; today it was just me and one trustee. So I'm tired and sweaty and need to readjust before I continue working on VBS. Thus, here we are.
My pastor asked me yesterday what I'm dreaming of - what I find myself planning for in my spare time, when it's not necessary. What I told him was Midweek School, which has been both my favorite thing about my job since I started and something that has continually frustrated me. I constantly feel like I can be doing it better, but I can never put my finger on how. I've spent probably days at this point poring over materials and putting together various curriculums that I later scrap.
However, as you can probably guess, that's not what I would have said to someone who was not my supervisor. I'm dreaming of a place where it feels safe to dream. I find myself planning for a different life in my spare time. It feels like it is necessary.
My counselor recently pointed out that I live a lot of my life that way - in dreams, future plans, imaginings. This is a good thing in a lot of ways. When I'm imagining good things, I feel hopeful and excited. But when I'm imagining bad things, this turns into a problem fairly quickly. Even if a bad thing I'm imagining is based in reality, if it's not actually reality, then I shouldn't be living my life by it.
Case in point: after a rather negative meeting last October, I came to the conclusion that I couldn't talk about how I was feeling; that if I talked about how I was feeling, I could get in trouble and cause more problems than I already had. I turned my feelings inward. I hid them. I wore a mask every time I was in the church building, pretending that everything was fine. I was terrified to reveal to anyone, even people I trusted, that the vacancy was overwhelming and I was not okay.
The fact is that no one told me to do this. I came to this conclusion on my own accord. Yes, it was because of that negative meeting, but they never gave me the instruction to hide my depression. I made that decision myself, and it hurt me more, in the end.
My counselor recommended that I live my life based on fact, not suppositions. The fact is that I'm overwhelmed, and it's true that some people don't think I should be overwhelmed, but they don't get to decide who I trust with that information. I do. I've started to reveal bits and pieces to some of my trusted friends at church.
It helps.
