Well, here is the post that I have been putting off writing for a few weeks. I started this blog with the intention of setting things straight, but in my mind they were always things from the distant past, things that would help to explain the way I am today, things that I could use to excuse my behavior.

Once again, it all came up and bit me in the ass. Why - WHY? - do I think that I am immune from the consequences? And so it begins…

I have been a deacon at the church that we go to for a few years now. I stepped up to fill a hole when someone was needed and found a fantastic outlet for my need to make things look good. My ministry was called hospitality, and even though I stood up in front of the church and spoke on the ways that biblical hospitality differs from Martha Stewart hospitality, I knew that if I just did my job well enough we would have both.

Of course, as with any volunteer organization, not everyone that volunteered to help had quite the same level of commitment - read: obsession - that I did so I was constantly disappointed in the people who helped me. Instead of a)taking time to impart my vision to them so that they understood expectations, or b)swallowing a healthy dose of reality and being thankful that I had people who wanted to make our church a hospitable place, I decided that it would be a lot easier if I just did everything myself. It worked great for a few months.

As I neared the end of my pregnancy with Andrew, and subsequently was on bed rest for 6 weeks, I began to think about how this was going to work after I actually had a baby. I decided that the best course of action for the time was to drop Andrew off at his grandparents house on the way to church so that I could continue doing everything that I had done before and no one would know that it was becoming a burden. Unfortunately, I then decided that I really liked my son - shockingly - I liked having him around and I wanted him with me. So I tried to bring him to church with me and do all the jobs that I had done in the past. He screamed and fussed and got ear infections and I became more and more bitter.

I lied and told myself that even when other people stepped up to help they weren’t doing it right and they were undoing all of my hard work.

I lied and told myself that Andrew just needed to deal (which he sometimes does, but not for 5 hours at a stretch when he is less than a year old).

I lied and told myself that my ministry, my work, was vital and that the church, and even God Himself, could not function in the community without it. (Surely she exaggerates, you think to yourself. No. John Baker best describes my general mental state when he calls himself, “an egomanic with an inferiority complex”.)

I lied and told myself - and everyone else who asked - that I was fine, that everything was fine, that I had a plan and that I was happy with the way things were going and that I was getting all the help that I needed.

And two weeks ago, I lied and told myself that the person who offered to show me how to work the appliances in the kitchen was actually telling me that I had to come down to the building RIGHT NOW and deal with them. I reacted to this lie by portraying myself as a victim who was being forced to do things that I didn’t want to do and I blew up. Well, technically I only blew up at my husband. He then, after hearing my version of the situation, blew up at the people involved who really had no idea what was going on, they just thought it would be helpful if I knew how to turn the gas on.

I have since apologized and stepped down from my leadership role with the complete support of the church. And I learned that, contrary to my deeply held belief system, people understand when you say that you can’t do something. It feels good to go to church again. It feels good to bring Andrew to church. It feels good to stay home with him because he isn’t feeling well.

I am learning that I can’t juggle as well as I thought I could. Or maybe that the rules of juggling change when you have a baby. For today though, the process doesn’t seem as overwhelming as it sometimes does.

Well, although Maryam Scoble said it best, I think that I need to write some of the reasons that I have for starting a blog, being excited about a blog, and then not publishing anything. I will not rehash all of Maryam’s reasons, but know that they certainly apply here.

• After reading my first post, I am worried that if I continue on that route my blog will end up being a Sweet Valley High rip off - which is most definitely not my intent.
• Re: above reason - I then spend countless minutes, probably bordering on hours, wondering whether I should delete that post, or write something else to explain it, or just scrap the whole thing and start again, or not start again. And by the time I am done with that bout of obsession, Andrew is awake and I don’t have time to write anymore. Repeat ad nauseum and you might start to get the picture.
• I am lazy. When I have free time I would much prefer to spend it reading a novel that allows me to escape reality, eating until I am numb, watching a movie that I have seen about 100 times, sleeping, or doing any number of pointless organizational projects around my house in order to avoid having to deal with the shit that is floating around in my head.
• I procrastinate. Always have, always will. I love Jen’s “Life Cycle of a Procrastinator” because she so captures the snowball effect that occurs in many areas of my life.
• And then, along with all the worries about whether or not people will read my blog, what they will think, if they will make mean comments and why I should care about the comments that strangers make, I worry that if I get all the shit out of my head and on to paper (so to speak) and I see it all, I might not be able to get out of the hole that I have dug and then everything that I suspected about myself would be true and I would have to deal with that truth.

My mind is so tangled that I am afraid of what it will be like to untangle everything. It seems like the status quo is so much easier to deal with than the unknown, even though the unknown could be so much healthier for everyone.

But then, I see the freedom that comes with honesty and openness and I hear the voices of my friends urging me to write and work through this stuff and I think that this might be the chance that I have to do something. To act instead of react. To put my faith into action and take a step toward the goal that I have been staring at for so long. So I am going to try it.

Plus, my husband gets really excited when I ask him questions about geeky stuff.

On this Thanksgiving day, I thought it would be good to list some of the things that I am thankful for (in no particular order) before I have to get together with family and forget all of them.
1. Sleep
2. The lyrics of Don Chaffer
3. My husband, who loves me and likes to do projects
4. My dell digital jukebox, which has been playing for 3 hours and not repeated a song
5. The fact that Andrew is at his grandmother’s house right now
6. Real friends, the kind that demonstrate the truth of this passage by Anne Lamott