The Deflated Pollyanna

Sooooo this perpetual Pollyanna hasn't felt very Pollyanna-ish lately. Oh the positive effervescence is still inside of me, but it's been more than a bit flat in my attempts at executing it. Do I still believe that EVERYTHING, without exception works to good? Without question. I just can't help but feel a bit fidgety lately. I don't mind waiting on God, in fact most of the time I actually ENJOY the downtime of the wait, it gives me a chance to focus on what I'm doing now that may become an asset for me in the future. Valuable prep time as it were. So why am I feeling fidgety this time? I guess I'm still trying to figure that out. That's probably why I'm still awake at 2am when I should be sleeping so I can get up in 3 hours and go deal with a herd of germ carrying munchkins. Although at this point since I'm wide awake it may be a viable option to pull an all nighter...lol.
Ironically the crux of my frustration right now stems from my job. Now don't get me wrong, I actually love my job, my employer and my boss. That isn't the problem. The problem is that I feel a bit....well....overlooked. I know the value of what my gifts and talents are, the years of experiences I have and what I can bring to the table if given the opportunity.  When I was 20 I started my own business and quickly became quite successful at it, but due to a glaring lack of capital as well as a barely minimum wage job I had to put an end to it. After that I had a healthy string of successful positions over the years that all included my working my way up from the bottom and into a management position. They went from managing as few as 5 employees to being solely responsible for over 8,000 corporate accounts. My frustration is that I feel like the assets I have are not being tapped into for the greater good. My battle is to appreciate the place I'm in for the downtime it affords me as well as thoughtfully considering the points that perhaps I'm having this extended downtime because I quite simply need to continue to grow to a point of maturity that I will be READY for the next level. Something I am always willing to see as a credible possibility because quite frankly even though I know how far I've come, I also know I have a long way to go.
I could easily sit and go through a list of whining points to validate my frustrations....but realistically, what does that solve? Whining never solves anything and all it accomplishes is irritating it's listeners, trust me, I know....I DESPISE whining! What I can do however, in true Pollyanna form, is make a list of the reasons why I should be glad that things are the way they are right now. So for much more my benefit than yours, here I go.
1) I'm glad that I don't have to take work home.
2) I'm glad that I can let the weight of difficult decisions fall on someone else's shoulders.
3) I'm glad that I don't have more things to try and focus on during 8 short hours than just making sure my students know their colors, shapes, numbers and manners.
4) I'm glad that I have a boss that prays for her workers.
5) I'm glad that I work with Christians, something I longed for, for years.
6) I'm glad that I don't have the daily battle of re-establishing co-worker relationship vs supervisor relationship
7) I'm glad that I no longer have to carry the burden of hiring and firing people...something I never really relished in the first place.
8) I'm glad I can support the boss I do have to help her get to a higher place in her career because I wish I had people who would have done that for me.
I guess in reality I'm glad that things are the way they are for now....I suppose I really do know that God hasn't overlooked me and I know He is aware of what I can and cannot do as well as what my true heart desires are for my present and my future. So the real question is can I continue to wait patiently and trust Him even when it feels like things aren't moving. Yeah.......I can. **sigh** and maybe I need to remember all of these things when I want to rush the process along.

Jeremiah 29:11 (New Living Translation)

For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.

It's My Party and I'll Cry if I Want to!

So today’s question is, Can Pollyanna’s Have Pity Parties.

The answer is a resounding, YES!

Now one thing that those closest to me, my trusted inner circle..(You know who you are, you mighty blessings from God!)…know about me is that I always try to be boldly transparent, because there is a wealth of freedom in unabashed transparency so that will be my promise to you readers on here too. If I’m going to share with you the ups in my life then it’s only fair that I share the downs too…it’s the only way you can get a true view of who I really am…..and WHY I’m that way.

So in true Betty Davis fashion, (I never liked her, actually, I couldn’t stand the woman…but the sound bite is appropriate for this…..lol) “Hang on…it’s going to be a bumpy ride.”

So to clarify….what exactly is the definition of a pity party? Well, contributor “Raspberrymuffin” on the website http://www.urbandictionary.com/ has I believe the funniest definition I have found thus far. She says, and I quote:

2.	pity party
	A way of experiencing grief, in which you spend your time feeling sorry for yourself and whining endlessly about how crappy your life is. Pity parties can be just for one or for many people, such as maybe your friends and close people, who will try to comfort you or just be there for you while you keep asking yourself what did you do to deserve whatever it is that made you so sad in the first place. Pity Parties require the proper outfit, which is usually pajamas cause you don’t get all dressed up during those feeling-sorry-for-myself moments. Also you should have no make up on or just the one from the night before; hair undone as well. It also involves tissues, comfort food such as ice cream; chocolate; potato chips; cookies; cake; and candy. Low fat food is banned Alcohol might or might not be allowed (if alcohol makes you go wild, no alcohol should be brought to the pity party in that case since the point is not exactly to have fun). The purpose of a Pity Party is to dump. The pity music is also very important at pity parties, including songs like "One is the Loneliest Number", "All by Myself" and any other song that makes you feel like throwing yourself from the nearest cliff. Pity parties usually end after you are done whining or if someone breaks it up. This will usually be a cynical loved one who will not let you drown in self pity and will take you either to have the best time ever, drinking and partying or will just make you crawl out of bed by making you see how pathetic you look and how you should cut the whining and just do something to make things better “My boyfriend dumped me and my cat was run over, time to throw a pity party!” “Sorry to break the pity party, but you seriously have to get out of bed and get over it” whining whine depressed pathetic sad by raspberrymuffin Aug 1, 2006

Now, I don’t know about you, but that definition alone was enough to bring me out of my little pity party. LOL. Whether you agree with everything that she said or not, she definitely got the gist of it and nailed a freeze frame moment for all of us.

So what was my pity party about? Well…..to make a long story short…EVERYTHING…..and yet, nothing. I had a classic female meltdown in a most obnoxiously grandiose fashion. Stress from the Deathstar (read my very first blog entry for clarification), stress from hearing, reading, and seeing TOO MUCH bad US politics, stress from the global, national and state economy and how it’s trickling down and affecting our personal finances (insert mental picture of empty wallet with moths flying out). Stress from an over busy schedule, stress from too little rest, stress from living inside the eye of the hurricane, here a stress, there a stress, everywhere a stress, stress…..in a word, STRESS.

It wouldn’t have been so bad, but my Knight in Shining Armor was feeling it too. Now normally he and I blend so perfectly that when one of us is down, the other bolsters the down one with words of encouragement and hope and in no time, we are back on track again. This time however we were both battle weary. (I told a couple of dear friends yesterday it feels like being nibbled to death by a duck! At which point Rae put her head down and tried to hold her laughter in until Allen made a Pac-man hand gesture and referred to Aflac, which sent us all into hysterics….sigh…..thank God for laughter.)

So my dear sweet Ben crawled out of bed at the crack of dawn Saturday morning only to come home hours later from a tedious battle with our local bloodsucking state run DMV…don’t even get me started on that one….and the poor guy was just drained. He opened up and told me what he was feeling and in total and complete empathy, I got teary eyed and hugged him. It’s horrible when your hero feels worn down to nothing and you’re so worn down yourself, that you don’t have the strength to pull yourself back up, let alone helping him back up.

So as he was sharing I was listening and doing my best to give him a safe harbor to vent to, when in the midst of his own transparency he happened to hit upon a raw nerve of my own. It was something I had already been beating myself up over and struggling with the fact that I needed to address it (What is the “it” I’m talking about? Dust bunnies, dirty dishes and laundry…..things that when I’m so mentally and emotionally exhausted I just don’t have the drive to do…one of my worst traits) and the fact that it was bothering him too made me feel worse than worm spit…... So how did I respond? Did I agree and tell him calmly how much I was struggling with it myself? No…..what did I do instead? I turned into a raving witchy Tasmanian she-devil, saying things I shouldn’t say, crying uncontrollably and going on a cleaning tirade powered by shear anger and frustration. Meanwhile poor Ben and Sargie both developed eyeballs the size of dinner plates and backed away from me as quickly as they could to avoid being hit by my verbal shrapnel.

Oh I was a sight to be seen, red eyed and snotty nosed from crying and going on and on like an unbearably whiny broken record stuck on the highest volume setting. Rambling on and on about why on earth did he ever bother marrying me because after all I am SUCH a bad housekeeper and wife and BLAH, BLAH, BLAH… Pull out the world’s tiniest violin and play Moon River for me! I was obnoxious!! Absolutely toxic! Not at all the picture of grace and decorum I TRY to maintain. Finally, out of pure fear for his life Ben decided to go run an errand and leave me and the boy alone for a couple of hours…..I don’t think Sarge appreciated that gesture very much, but he was safe under his living room chair.

So after about a half an hour I calmed down enough to gather my brain cells and rethink my behavior.

Now, it’s at this point that I would normally be able to rally around my faith and be fine. However, I was tired and WANTED to feel sorry for myself. I wanted a good cry, I wanted a moment to be the victim (something I very RARELY do)….so I sat…like a lump….sniffly and quiet and let the mid day sun streaming through the living room windows just bathe me in warm light. Silence….it truly is where I gather my strength from.

I sat there in total peace and quiet for about an hour and then as I was finally feeling receptive to encouragement again, my mother called. Thank God for that woman….we haven’t always had the best relationship, in fact years ago it was downright volatile, but we’ve come a long way since then and in spite of it all, there are so many times that she knows EXACTLY what to say to bring me out of my pity party. This was no different. Her words were the start of hope again. Hope that everything will work out regardless of what it looks like now. Things that I’ve said to her in years past when she felt beaten down and hopeless she now reminded me of and encouraged me with. When I tried to slink back into it, she pulled me right back up…and then….she prayed. Something I have come to value more than life itself. When I got off the phone with her about an hour later I was starting to feel a trickle of life again…..but I was STILL was feeling pretty beaten down…. So I did more cleaning and when it came time to go to the street ministry…..I stayed home to squeak out some more self centered sulking while Ben went by himself.

Needless to say, I didn’t sleep too incredibly well that night and the choice to sleep in and skip church just wasn’t an option. I recently accepted a new leadership role at church that requires my presence every Sunday and until my team gets solidified, there are no days off. So I went and tried to be as perky as possible….even though I still felt crummy. When I finished everything I had to do before service I went upstairs to take my seat next to Ben. I was finished a bit early so I got to sing the last worship song, which was no mere co-incidence….especially considering the song was, “The Healer”…and BOYYYY did I need some emotional healing.

As the pastor got up to speak, (whom I must say I just ADORE because he’s so real and transparent which is something more pastors should be, but are usually too afraid to because it may compromise how they are perceived. Then there are the other type that are too caught up in deep “intellectual” sermons that don’t easily translate to the daily battles of the average person and leave the parishioner feeling like they just wasted an hour or more of their time. Soap box…sorry…ANYWAY) he announced that he felt he needed to deviate off his scheduled sermon and do something a bit different. He shared that he himself had been feeling worn down, weary and a bit hopeless due to the current world events….and knew that there were others of us going through the same thing. Everything he said…all of it….was exactly what we all needed to hear. There were collective sighs of relief that flooded through the room as he hit different topics…and of course tears…I was one of them. I felt like a dry sponge that was having cool water poured all over it…just soaking the life back up. It was then that I decided that it was time to snap out of it. Time to pick up and move forward.

So yes, Pollyanna’s have pity parties and they have hissy fits and other things just like everybody else…..but this particular Pollyanna doesn’t want to STAY there. Going through difficult times is normal, but how I respond to them is my choice. In fact, one of my favorite quotes refers to just that.

“All men and women are born, live, suffer and die; what distinguishes us one from another is our dreams, whether they be dreams about worldly or unworldly things, and what we do to make them come about… We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time and conditions of our death. But within this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we live."

~Joseph Epstein

Enough is Enough...and That's Enough

Soooooo it’s been a loooooong five days. I woke up last Friday with a very distinct prelude to a cold. That hollowed out feeling in your stomach; a slight fever and that “THING” in your sinuses that makes you sound as if you’re talking from the bottom of a well. I did my usual, loaded up on Zycam and Tylenol, and bundled up. Figured it might last a day and then things would be back to normal….other than that though, I wasn’t really too bummed because I knew it meant I would actually get some rest over the weekend.

**sigh** Friday came and went, Saturday came and went, Sunday came and went….STILL felt like a lump of germs….Monday came and went, Tuesday came…..still no relief. I slept until about noon when the dog woke me up. I went to take some Dayquil and had to stop myself. I hadn’t eaten and through trial and error Dayquil and I have come to an agreement. I will never again take it on an empty stomach and it will never again make me lose my cookies in an unflattering way. So upon recollection of this agreement I knew I had to eat something.

I shuffled my way to the kitchen trying not to trip over the fluff boy along the way because he was so joyously jumping up and down that I had finally felt good enough to get out of bed and play with him. All the while I’m feeling like a slug.

So I arrive in the kitchen and open the refrigerator only to realize there is no food that doesn’t require cooking….and last time I checked condiments, though readily available, still don’t make a meal. **SIGH**….not even bread for toast...I really must go grocery shopping. Hmmm…no energy to cook and no appetite to eat anything having to be cooked. Time for plan B, I decide to go look and see what canned goods I have. Maybe a nice soup…. So I trudge downstairs to the where the pantry is and proceed to open the cupboards. Hmmm…the only soup is cream of chicken, cream of celery and cream of mushroom. Not an appetizing choice at the moment. Cranberry sauce….ehhh…no…. Tons of tomato sauce and canned tomatoes for Mr. B’s chilies and salsas….and every hot sauce imaginable to man…..I really do need to write an entry one of these days about the Bear and his pepper fetish. Anyway, just then I hit the no cooking required mother load. Let’s see a whole little section of possibilities….albacore tuna, wax beans, beans and franks, and turkey Spam. After much deliberation,…I settled on the beans and franks. Not at all a favorite, but considering I couldn’t taste anything ANYWAY it seemed the least offensive.

A short time later as Sargie and I sat curled up in bed, me eating my lunch feeling crummy and him gnawing on his bone I had another one of “THOSE” moments. What good is coming out of this….5 days of feeling crummy….where is that, “oh, well that makes it all worth while” moment….it had to be there somewhere and I just hadn’t seen it yet. Yes, if you haven’t figured it out by now I REALLY DO believe this about EVERYTHING and REALLY DO attempt to always practice what I preach. So I asked God, “Where is it? What was the reason behind me being here this long….I don’t feel like I’ve accomplished much or had much impact on anyone or anything. I mean, I trust that you have a reason….I just sure as heck don’t see it…..”

So I finished lunch and decided to turn on the computer and catch up on emails and Facebook and consider my next blog entry as I pondered my question. Just then, the phone rang. I considered not answering it…I felt crummy and the thought of talking to somebody was a bit daunting. I decided to check the caller ID though and see who it was. Lori…hmmm…it was after her lunchtime and she knew I was home sick, so she was probably checking in to see how I was feeling. I picked it up.

What met me next was a sound you hate to hear in general and it’s even worse from the other end of a phone…especially when it’s coming from somebody you care about. Sobs, hysterical and frantic sobs. I immediately jumped up and tried to get her to tell me what was wrong. Amid the sounds of crying, her car keys and door alert in the background and the car engine starting I heard the word “mom” and I instantly remembered her mom had gone to a Dr appointment that morning… My heart sank, Oh Lord, no….not her mom…not now….. Over the next few moments she explained to me as best she could, what was going on….and the outlook was bad…VERY bad. Instantly I began to pray out loud…..to pray for peace, to pray for wisdom, to pray for protection as she tried to drive on one of the busiest highways from her job, 6 towns away all the way to the hospital where her mother was in the ER. Anything that crossed my mind as being important to pray for at that moment I threw in there like a machine gun set on rapid fire.

In an instant, I told her if she wanted me to go with her, I would, and she did. I swear I have never gotten showered and dressed, walked the dog and fixed my hair with time to spare, so quickly in my life. I sent out a quick blurb to some friends who know her and called Ben to let him know what was up and I waited.

In the hours that followed, there was a lot of waiting and hugging and waiting and crying. At one point as we waited for her to be given a room of her own and transported from the ER, I sat in the waiting room thinking and people watching. Then I realized something…..if I hadn’t been sick for the past five days I would have been at work when this happened. If I had been at work I wouldn’t have been able to pray with Lori at that moment, I wouldn’t have been able to jump up and go with her to the hospital at a moments notice and I wouldn’t have been able to stay with them as they waited. So I had my answer….my “Oh, well that makes it all worth while” moment. Was five days of bed-ridden crummy-ness worth it to be able to be there for a friend when she needed it? Absolutely….and I would go through it all again and worse if need be.

Lori and I talked a lot last night…. In person for hours and over IM for a while too. In the end we BOTH concluded that now more than ever, regardless of what happens in life, good and bad….it ALL has a purpose and good will ALWAYS come of it…no matter what. It sounds corny, and the ultimate in Pollyanna thinking, but it’s sure a heck of a lot better than the alternative. I would far rather go through life looking for the good in all the sad, painful, and frustrating things that come my way than to turn bitter and miserable every time things don’t turn out the way I had hoped.

This morning as I was catching up on reading my devotions I was intrigued by yesterday’s entry. The entire thing was very good, but one of my favorite scriptures was highlighted and it was just soooooo fitting.

“Proverbs 31:25 reminds us, "she can laugh at the days to come."

She [The Proverbs 31 woman] was filled with such incredible joy not because life was perfect but simply because she had decided to make laughter, peace, and truth the hallmarks of her life. Proverbs 31:30 goes on to say this was a woman to be praised because she so reverenced God in the shrine of her heart. She knew without a doubt, He was - and still is - enough.”

Now Lori and her family have a long road ahead of them, and it won’t be easy… and it won’t be tearless….but ultimately, good will come of it…every single moment of it. Things in my life won’t always go the way I hoped and sometimes they will just plain suck and look hopeless, BUT good WILL come of every moment of it. Why? Simple…..because God is and always will be….ENOUGH.