Hazy Shade Of Winter

Apartment View~ Portland, OR~ January 2012

(Because life isn't all sunshine and roses, I am posting something I wrote a few days after the New Year. In a couple of days, I will post the post script to this story.)

When I was in Louisiana over Christmas I walked to my parents’ church as the sun was setting at 6 PM. It was beautiful. Six PM! How novel! The sun sets at 4:40PM in Portland in December. It’s pretty brutal. Needless to say, it’s winter and my hibernation has begun. I find myself not wanting to walk the five or so blocks in the dark to see my friends up the street. I blame the darkness, but part of it is the uncertainty. I don’t have any answers to any of the questions people ask me and it overwhelms me.

When is your lease up on your apartment? January 31.

Do you know where you are going to move to? Nope.

What are you looking for? I don’t know.

How much do you want to spend? I don’t know.

Who is going to support you as you do full time ministry? I don’t know.

What are you going to say to people to encourage them to support you? I don’t know.

I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know!

And what I really want to say is that if you can’t honestly reply with something that is actually helpful and constructive then DON’T ASK!

I don’t want to hear it. I don’t need your added disapproval heaped upon my personal feelings of failure and worthlessness. Trust that I do a pretty marvelous job of judging me. That position has been filled.

So I avoid situations with multiple people. Because what is worse than being asked all those questions; being asked all those questions in front of multiple people.

I feel old today. Old and tired and worn out. Like a toy on the shelf at Goodwill. Goodwill’s better than the alley, right?