cobweb life
i couldn't get out of bed this morning. i was awake in time to shower and go to ward council but i couldn't bring myself to get up. i knew full well that the thing to make me feel the best would be to go to church but i just let the time slip by. i had all sorts of arguments with myself but self stayed slug, unmoved, unless you count oozing as moving.
i don't quite know why i had a slug morning. maybe it's because i spent literally the whole day on saturday, from waking to sleeping, editing photos with timed 10 minute cleaning and eating breaks. i've been spending a lot of saturdays thusly. i enjoy the sunshine through my window as it travels throughout the day. but by the end of the day i feel so stagnant. my hips hurt from laying and sitting in the same positions for too long. my mind is numb. the enjoyment of the creative editing process is long dwindled away and it's only the drive to finish that keeps pushing me to continue. one more set...one more set... ok, just one more...
or it could be that my mind, on waking, landed for some reason on an experience i had while traveling. an unpleasant interaction where i naively was being taken advantage of. a possibly dangerous situation that i escaped very easily with little harm to myself. but i started thinking about it. and wondering if it happened to other people. and i just kept thinking about it. and i started searching the world wide web to see if there were stories like mine. there were. but that didn't make me feel better. i felt lost and unable to face the day. i didn't get out of bed until after 12.
i feel guilty for not going to church. because i know it's the answer of renewal that i needed. and because i know people at church will worry about me. and because i didn't go to young womens. and because i didn't feed myself spiritually. i wallowed instead. and because it was too easy to not go.
i think the only answer is to be gentle with myself. to say to myself, we all have bad days. your bad days are slug days, and it's been that way for a long time. it's ok. you can just go next week and you will feel the goodness of church waiting for you to take it into your heart again. slug days don't last. slug days have a start and an ending. you may feel like you let yourself down but it isn't realistic to do everything right all the time. i think you know that all too well by now. it's not like God is mad at you. he understands your heart. he understands bad slug days and psychological tail spins. God just wants you to know that when you are ready to take off the proverbial slug suit you can and he'll help you.
the thing about slug suits is that they are safe. they feel safe and insulated. it feels like you are frozen in time and nothing can touch you. but the reality is that time does not freeze while i am suspended in my jello mold. life moves on. sometimes i have that feeling that i'm living a cobweb life. i get a start when i look at a pile of things and realize that they have been there for 3 years. or when i look at a package of quinoa and i know that i've had it since elicia moved away, 11 years ago. the choice to live or not is a battle that keeps coming back to me. i'm grateful for those times i choose to live. i have compassion for that girl that needs to cocoon herself sometimes.
things like going to choir save me. back with people. back in community. worshiping with my voice and perfecting our prayer. i cannot say how valuable it is to me. so now i'm back from choir and i've been watching this show that i've been watching every sunday. it's called this strange rock. narrated by will smith--it's all about earth and all the crazy ways everything is connected. it has blips from 8 astronauts. i like it. while watching it i put all my mission pics in some photo albums. i've been stubbornly refusing to do that for many years...over 20 years i guess. see what i mean about a cobweb life? i bought some photo albums from kohl's sometime i went there with karey, so that must have been at least 11 years ago, maybe more. cobweb life. but then i didn't want to use them. photo albums don't satisfy me. i basically had a desire for real photo books from a long time ago. but seriously. an album is better than nothing. that's what i decided today.
i leave you with some of my favourite photos from my dec 29 photoshoot with sarah and kyle.
sarah doesn't like touching feets. i forgot about that. but i still like this foot perspective pic.
hot tamale
some silliness... where i asked sarah to toss the 'you are my happily every after' sign to kyle as she jumped across the bed...
i don't quite know why i had a slug morning. maybe it's because i spent literally the whole day on saturday, from waking to sleeping, editing photos with timed 10 minute cleaning and eating breaks. i've been spending a lot of saturdays thusly. i enjoy the sunshine through my window as it travels throughout the day. but by the end of the day i feel so stagnant. my hips hurt from laying and sitting in the same positions for too long. my mind is numb. the enjoyment of the creative editing process is long dwindled away and it's only the drive to finish that keeps pushing me to continue. one more set...one more set... ok, just one more...
or it could be that my mind, on waking, landed for some reason on an experience i had while traveling. an unpleasant interaction where i naively was being taken advantage of. a possibly dangerous situation that i escaped very easily with little harm to myself. but i started thinking about it. and wondering if it happened to other people. and i just kept thinking about it. and i started searching the world wide web to see if there were stories like mine. there were. but that didn't make me feel better. i felt lost and unable to face the day. i didn't get out of bed until after 12.
i feel guilty for not going to church. because i know it's the answer of renewal that i needed. and because i know people at church will worry about me. and because i didn't go to young womens. and because i didn't feed myself spiritually. i wallowed instead. and because it was too easy to not go.
i think the only answer is to be gentle with myself. to say to myself, we all have bad days. your bad days are slug days, and it's been that way for a long time. it's ok. you can just go next week and you will feel the goodness of church waiting for you to take it into your heart again. slug days don't last. slug days have a start and an ending. you may feel like you let yourself down but it isn't realistic to do everything right all the time. i think you know that all too well by now. it's not like God is mad at you. he understands your heart. he understands bad slug days and psychological tail spins. God just wants you to know that when you are ready to take off the proverbial slug suit you can and he'll help you.
the thing about slug suits is that they are safe. they feel safe and insulated. it feels like you are frozen in time and nothing can touch you. but the reality is that time does not freeze while i am suspended in my jello mold. life moves on. sometimes i have that feeling that i'm living a cobweb life. i get a start when i look at a pile of things and realize that they have been there for 3 years. or when i look at a package of quinoa and i know that i've had it since elicia moved away, 11 years ago. the choice to live or not is a battle that keeps coming back to me. i'm grateful for those times i choose to live. i have compassion for that girl that needs to cocoon herself sometimes.
things like going to choir save me. back with people. back in community. worshiping with my voice and perfecting our prayer. i cannot say how valuable it is to me. so now i'm back from choir and i've been watching this show that i've been watching every sunday. it's called this strange rock. narrated by will smith--it's all about earth and all the crazy ways everything is connected. it has blips from 8 astronauts. i like it. while watching it i put all my mission pics in some photo albums. i've been stubbornly refusing to do that for many years...over 20 years i guess. see what i mean about a cobweb life? i bought some photo albums from kohl's sometime i went there with karey, so that must have been at least 11 years ago, maybe more. cobweb life. but then i didn't want to use them. photo albums don't satisfy me. i basically had a desire for real photo books from a long time ago. but seriously. an album is better than nothing. that's what i decided today.
i leave you with some of my favourite photos from my dec 29 photoshoot with sarah and kyle.
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