The pretty much incredible Becky Hartzog used this Mother Teresa adaptation of Kent Keith’s “The Paradoxical Commandment” as the benediction for Wake Forest’s graduation yesterday…While I had heard it before, I don’t think I could ever hear it often enough.

“People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered.  Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.  Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies.   Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you.  Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight.  Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous.  Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, will often be forgotten.  Do good anyway.

Give the best you have, and it will never be enough.  Give your best anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God.  It was never between you and them anyway.”

Yesterday was an interesting day.  In the middle of an interesting week.  Mostly because it’s been an insanely hectic week, and yesterday was easily the most hectic day.  My co-worker, Lovell, insisted that I blog about the insanity.  But…I’m kind of at a loss as to how to explain things.  I guess I’ll just take you through the course of my day yesterday.  Soooo hold on.

Well I woke up bright & early at 7:45am…which, if you know me, is actually a ridiculously early time.  I swear I felt like I only slept for one hour (even tho, don’t worry, I got seven hours or something close to that).  Anyway, I made some breakfast, read the news (aka effed around on the computer).  And got dressed and packed my bag to be ready to survive the LONGEST DAY EVER.  Also, since yesterday was payday, I engaged in the absurdly depressing task of paying bills.  (I had mailed in my taxes the day before, for those of you concerned, which was a ridiculously depressing task).

Then I went and got gas (more $) and headed in to Job #1: Nursery Assistant at First Presbyterian.  I was, predictably, late (despite waking up wayyyy earlier than normal).  So I got some coffee (2 cups…) and began the incredibly demanding task of coloring.  I had 4 kids, all regulars, and we had a lot of fun.  We colored, played with a whole bunch of toys, ate snack, had our Bible lesson, danced around, cleaned up, went outside, and came back and played some more.  I have discovered that the majority of children’s games are really just elaborate versions of tag…but still involves the basic concepts of running and tagging someone.  I hate tag.  But 4-5yr olds love it.  Which means a lot of tag happens no matter what I do.  But, luckily, it’s Amasa’s forte.  And he so happened to stop by to visit me at the end of job #1…and proceeded to tell me my life is crazy hectic.  Which is true.  He also got my kids to take a quick “nap”, which was a nice break from all the tag.

But, alas, I had to head out pretty quickly.  I only had a half hour between leaving 1st Pres and having to be at my second job.  So, I ran to Jimmy John’s, because it’s unquestionably wonderful AND quite speedy.  I got some more caffeine in the form of sweet tea, and sped off to Texas Land & Cattle, my new workplace, for training.  I ate my sandwich while driving (so dangerous) and changed and put on my make-up in the parking lot before heading in.  This was my second day of training to be a server, and it was just as interesting as the last.  This job will be…entertaining.  At least half of the future co-workers I’ve met so far have absolutely no boundaries.  Plus, as someone who has always worked in predominately female environments, suddenly entering one that is so overrun with the male species is completely overwhelming, esp when combined with the lack of boundaries.  My training as an RC has made me want to keep yelling out “Boundaries!” and “Inappropriate!” as their conversation is not that much different from that of my teenage boys.  Also, I have a loooooottttttttttt of appetizers to remember.  And drinks to learn.  Is it bad if on both days of your training two different trainers have told you the job will be easier for you if you are a raging alcoholic?  Again, this will be entertaining.  Unfortunately, I might gain like 50lbs.  They made me sample all of the appetizers yesterday – most of which are fried beyond belief.  So, having learned from the mistake of eating lunch before training, Saturday I will be sure to “come hungry” as I have to try some steak and side items.  Mmm.

As I was leaving this job (already late for Job #3) I had a call from one of my best friends of all time, Jessica, relaying some absolutely psychotic news about her love life.  Dear God, the drama.  But I told Jess not to worry, if she needed anyone to orchestrate a quick crazy intervention to terrify a certain man, myself & my co-workers could easily help as we are experts in the study crazy.  And we can bring it.

Then I arrived at Job #3, which is the primary job, at TCH.  By this point, I have had 2 coffees, 1 sweet tea, 2 diet pepsis (after not really drinking soda very much at all in the past 7 months), and 1 lemonade.  I’ve also worked 2 jobs already, and heard some absurdly crazy news and conversation.  So it’s not really an exaggeration to say that I was completely jacked-up and off the wall.  Lovell grew concerned and made me promise that even tho I was joining the restaurant industry I would not develop a coke habit, as it kind of seemed like I was already a bit cracked out.  She also made me promise not to get attached to my new co-workers because my TCH ones need to come first in my heart, lol.  And then we all proceeded to have a wonderfully hilarious shift.  It was my first day of the week working with Lauren, easily my favorite person that I currently work on shift with, and my kids have miraculously been borderline angelic alllllll week.  Which means we can have so much more fun with them than we can when they’re acting a fool.

The shift ran really smoothly, and the highlights include: 1) Running into a 5.5ft black snake on the walk to the farm, at which point Lauren and I bravely provided safety for the kids by literally running away and leaving them with the snake…in front of 2 of our supervisors…  2)  Using our rings as walkie-talkies, and since Lauren & Keegan didn’t have rings, creating rings for them out of tape and post-it notes  3) Basking in the glow of our fabulous inter-office mojo  4) The Living Parables performance during Youth Church!!!  I was so nervous, because I was afraid my kids were either going to be absurdly disrespectful or else hate the show and mock LP, which my poor heart would not be able to handle professionally.  However, the performance was WONDERFUL, and I’ve seriously never seen the kids that engaged in youth church.  I really enjoyed the writing and the acting.  Also, my co-workers provide excellent support & feedback and irrationally take my side on absolutely everything and I love them   It was great to see the beautiful faces of those magical people in the troupe, and to catch up with at least a few of them after the show…and potentially scare them by doing ghetto impressions of my job and all my new adventures in life.

After work, Lovell came over for some Cookout & beer, which was tasty.  We researched esophagus bruising (I swear that stupid sinus pill I took on Tuesday without water at team did something horrible to my throat) and talked about some pengjanga (which are penguin pajamas, abbreviated).  And that, exhaustingly, wrapped up my day.  In Jesus’ name.  Bearded Jesus, that is.   Thanks for letting me share.

However, there are a couple other things from the week not included in yesterday that, nevertheless, are of note: Firstly, please pray for a former client of mine…she is 14 and was recently moved to Hospice.  They’ve estimated that she has two weeks to live.  It’s complicated to explain, and I don’t really understand it all as well as I’d like to myself, but essentially her heart is extremely weak and her body cannot fight off any kind of infection.  Secondly, I have had 2 exceptionally tender contacts from my other best friend, Kevin, via email & phone, and consequently miss him desperately.  He is easily the greatest supporter of my writing (specifically my silly little poems) and his encouragement is ceaselessly appreciated.  Oh and one more little tidbit: just bought Laura Marling’s new CD, I Speak Because I Can.  SO excited.

Oh, AND Glee debuted this week.  Enjoyable, but hoping for more in the next episode.

Thanks for reading

I have to make a confession to make.

I love my apartment.  To an irrational degree.  I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been here 2 years, or if it’s because I’ve spent absurd amounts of time & money arranging & decorating it, or because I’ve had a variety of fond (and not so fond) memories and conversations in this space, or because some of the dearest people in my life have stayed here with me, or because I can always be completely alone here, or maybe a combination of all of those things.  But regardless, I adore it.  It’s my apartment.

Annnnndddd all too soon, I’m going to have to leave this apartment.

MAJOR SADNESS.

But, it’ll be ok.  Because it’s part of a bevy of changes that are on the horizon.  So while it’s the one change I’m the least looking forward to (because, dear God, I also really hate moving…) it’ll be ok.  Still, I just wanted to take time to commemorate my dear, wonderful apartment.  Because it is amazing.  And I am so happy to be in it

It’s not really a secret that I have a lot of, shall we say, job dissatisfaction.  There’s a lot about my job that is hard, a lot that is unnecessary, a lot that is an inconvenience, a lot that doesn’t make sense, and even some that is just plain dangerous.  Lately all of these negatives have been weighing heavily on my mind – and by that I mean I have begun making randomly bitter exclamations in a surprisingly vehement tone.

It’s not attractive.

It’s also not fun.

But despite all of the varied complaints I have had recently (and no matter how legitimate they may or may not have been) and despite how desperately I continue to search for, well, any other job, today was just one of those days.  I hate it when I have days like this.  There I am, happily going along in my cynical state, adding pile after pile of bleach/manure stained clothes to my dirty laundry list (hehe literally & figuratively, get it?).  Awful things happen, and it’ s just one more thing to add the pile of why I hate my job.  I begin speaking really angrily about…anything, begin stress eating, the nightmares return, my co-workers and I purchase even more wine and stay up till 3am crying and venting, my face breaks out, and I once again start yelling at God when I’m in the shower or car.

And then I have a day like today.  A day that is really no better than any other day – and definitely not better than any day in the past 2 weeks – and a day that is in the middle of another typical not-so-great week.  My kids, who have been on level or behaving appropriately, get in fights, lie, pass notes, sneak drugs, make ignorant comments, break rules, are disrespectful.  My co-workers and I argue and don’t speak and have med errors and become passive aggressive and miss appointments and lose our cool in front of the clients.  The parents cancel visits with the kids, yell at us on the phone, fight in family therapy, try to get us to discipline their kids when they don’t want to, break their kids’ hearts, and give up because they don’t know what to do.  And my organization requires us to take yet another retraining that is a complete waste of time, opens up more jobs instead of giving any of us raises, doesn’t support us on the shift, won’t assume responsibility for the competency of its employees, lie to the kids, and still haven’t fixed our microwave.  As a bonus, a drugged/crazy man comes on campus, violently looking for an “Isaac” when there is no such person in *any* program.  My friends have relationship drama, friendship spats, quarter-life crises, financial disasters, family horrors, illness, death, break-ups, addictions, breakdowns, weddings to plan, body-image problems, job dissatisfaction, muscle spasms, professional disagreements, etc. etc.

And then somehow…I have a good day.  Nothing in particular is great.  But, at the end of the day, I feel like I have done my job.  I have had some truly wonderful conversations.  I have laughed at a variety of things.  I have been supported and appreciated, even if on small small scales.  My opinion has been heard.  I have figured out some of my own issues.  I miss my friends & family in the satisfying nostalgic kind of way that recognizes their blessing in my life.  I have flirted and day-dreamed.  I have had coffee.  I have looked at old photos.  I have mentally talked to my ex-boyfriends and felt satisfied with the parts they played in my lives.  I’ve taken a walk.  I’ve started a new book.  And, most annoyingly, I’ve just melted over my kids and co-workers.  My heart has actually broken for them.  And it’s so damn frustrating because as much as I hate my job, as awful as it is, and as awful as the kids can be and certain staff members can be, by and large…I love those damn crazy people.  Even when things are as frustrating as they can possibly get, that is still there…no matter how much I may try to kill it.

It’s so annoying.

But the sword cuts both ways. While our heart grows in its capacity for pleasure, it grows in its capacity to know pain. The two go hand in hand. What, then, shall we do with disappointment? We can be our own enemy, depending on how we handle the heartache that comes with desire. To want is to suffer; the word passion means to suffer. That is why many Christians are reluctant to listen to their hearts. They know that their dullness is keeping them from feeling the pain of life. Many of us have chosen simply not to want so much; it’s safer that way…Sanctification is an awakening, the rousing of our souls from the dead sleep of sin into the fullness of their capacity for life… – John Eldredge & Brent Curtis