This past week has been incredibly hard. I have been stuck in a bit of a
haze afraid of tomorrow. What caused the haze? Well if my math is
correct, Sunday was my last day to register for unemployment. There
is still no job on the horizon and the bills will keep rolling in. Many
of my loving friends and family inquire about my job search second to
the standard, "how are you's". But this week answering this simple
question has not been so easy. I've been trying not to think about it and
yet here they come along reminding me of the three rejection letters I
received this week or the fact that there is no more money on the
horizon...The plus is there are a few out there who really appreciate
the fragile state I've been in.
On Saturday night I made the mistake of reaching out (for support) to someone who
constantly professes his love for me even though the feeling is not
mutual. We have this pattern. After months of silence he reaches out. We
talk as friends until he can no longer hold his feelings back and
commences to share. Somehow or another this leads to a guilt trip, which
leads to a fight, which leads to another prolonged silence. This has been
our story for years.
As I was reaching my boiling point, I saw my other friend's FB light on.
She and I went to college together and somehow we
managed to stay in touch post college (trust me this is relatively rare
for me). She and I started talking and I just told her all about my
stresses. She's admittedly one of the few I divulge a lot to. I
explained to her how I spent the night prior on the brink of tears as I
tried to figure out how to survive. I also told her about the person
that tried to give me a pick me up speech that inadvertently made me
feel worse earlier in the day.
And she replied the best way possible. She simply said she could only imagine
how I felt. She understood what it was like to work up the energy to put a smile on your face to
survive then have someone say the one wrong thing that put a chink in the
armor and crumbling the facade. She was absolutely on point. She
then gave me suggestions about listening to the signs and encouraged me
to try something different. I left that conversation reaching out to
past connects to see if there were any leads I hadn't thought about.
Everything she said was absolutely on point and it helped to know that
someone understood the daily struggle I had been in all week.
The next day I returned to church. Summer traveling and volunteer
opportunities took me away from attending regularly. As service ended a
lady from a past bible study walked up to me, asked how I was, and then
asked the question I feared most. "How's the job search?" I told her don't
ask because she was going to make me cry. And seconds later the tears streamed
down my face. Moments later my bible study leader walked up to us and I sobbed some more. Here I
was, the person that used to pride myself for my stoic nature, crying
uncontrollably in front of newer friends.
The leader gave me two huge hugs then told me his wife's meatloaf
antidote. It's essentially a newer interpretation
of the straw that broke the camel's back. Imagine just having that kind of day where a lot of little things go wrong. You keep your
composure and keep trucking along until that moment where you realized that you burned the
meatloaf. At this you just lose it. Of course the meatloaf isn't really the problem, it
was just that last issue that piled on top of the rest.
For the next five or so minutes my church family stayed with me. Encouraged me. Promised to pray on my
behalf. The leader even offered to speak to the church pastors on my
behalf to get aid from them. I told him no need but promised that if it gets bad enough that I would reach out myself. I then pulled it together enough to attend the church party after the service, but there was something so wonderful about
having these two people just offer an ear and a prayer to little ole me
at a time where I just couldn't fake the funk.
So in a matter of two days I had two conversations with three people
that if nothing else just reminded me that we aren't alone out here. It
reminded me that this burden doesn't have to be solely mine. Granted
there is not much that any of them could do for me short of hiring me
but it's great to just be able to talk. A good conversation where one
isn't afraid to share their truer rawer emotions can really be a larger
help than a donation could ever be. I'm so glad they were there to
listen this weekend.
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