Accomplished

Besides the quiet, and the waiting that I already talked about, I feel like this has been a relatively productive day.

I've:

• had a massage
• cleaned my closet and dresser
• pared two garbage bags of clothes out of my wardrobe and gotten them ready to take to a consignment store that will give anything they don't sell to charity
• gone through several stacks of paper on my desk
• arranged to have my cable service, my phone, and my internet moved to my new house when I move to my new house
• been to the library
• bought a tin of loose tea
• folded a bit of laundry
• read part of a novel
• listened to one chapter of scripture on cd
• called to get information regarding hooking up utility service (gas, electricity, water) for our new house

And there's still more to come... four or five hours of more until bedtime, though I'm hoping a chunk of that will be filled with either a walk, or a rest, or both.

Waiting for change...

This has been a quiet day.

I left the house before my roommates were awake this morning. Headed out for an appointment for a massage.

After the massage came the library, then home briefly, before heading out to an art/handicraft sale in Kensington with a friend. Bought a tin of tea from a friend who sells quite nice fair-trade, organic teas. After the sale we ate nachos in a Mexican restaurant and caught up. We walked a little, and headed home.

I made a mistake exacerbated by my fair skin today. I didn't wear sunscreen, and since a sunburn often doesn't show up on my skin until hours later, I am just beginning to pay the price, and don't know yet what the full extent of the damage will be. However, I made one even more calculated error. Not only did I fail to apply sunscreen, but I went out with the remnants of massage oil still covering every inch of my skin. So I may have exacerbated the burning a little. Oh well... I suppose that's what God made aloe vera for.

I feel a bit as if a blanket of silence has descended.

As if I'm waiting for the other shoe to fall.

I wrestle still with some big things. And I guess that's going to have to be okay.

I'm praying still for the season to shift. I need some changes to occur.

In the meantime, I'm trying to wait patiently. To pray with the friends that offer. To spend time with the people with whom I am able to be at least partially myself, without masks.

To work on the list of dozens of things that need to be accomplished before we move next weekend.

To find rest in the fleeting moments that it comes.

To pray.

To read.

To listen.

To think.

To wait.

(and hopefully, soon, to cry.)

I'm tired. And I need change to come. I'm longing with an inner groaning that I don't know how to express.

It will come.

It has to.

Sigh

I melted down, just a little when I got home from work tonight. More tears than in a long time, but still not the sobbing release that I'm longing for.

Then, I went back to avoidance. I'm very good at avoidance. I'm not very good at lying to myself.

I went to the mall. I got starbucks. I came home and ate dinner. Watched an episode or two of the West Wing on dvd. Took a long, hot bath with the novel I'm currently reading. And all I could think through all of these things I love was that I was avoiding talking with Jesus.

Because, you see, I really didn't want to meet with Jesus at the end of a long day. I wondered if he'd show up. I wondered what kind of pain might come with meeting him.

So the night wore on, and I began to realize something. I complain all the time about the nights on end where I sleep poorly. When I'm avoiding, I'm guaranteed to sleep even more poorly than usual.

So, I spent time on the floor. Waiting, and listening.

Did He show up? I'm not sure, but at least, for 30 minutes or so, I wasn't avoiding. And hopefully that means I'll catch at least a little bit of sleep tonight.

Not Sure What to Say

I'm not actually sure what I want to say to you all right now.

I'm tired.

This has been another one of the hard days. (Though thankfully not quite so hard as others this week.)

I'm tired of the hard days.

My neck and spine ache.

I have a headache. A bad one.

I'm going to see if I can buy an audio Bible tonight. For two reasons. The first is that I've realized I cling to scripture, but I've been too exhausted to read and absorb lately, and I'm hoping that listening will do the trick. The other is that I fall asleep with a book or a sermon on cd playing nearly every night, and I like the idea of scripture playing over me as I try to sleep.

I'm not sure I'll actually buy one. I'm a bit ambivalent about spending the money right now.

I should really attack any number of projects once I get home tonight, but I think I'm going to take a night off. Light some candles, maybe some incense, and curl up in a chair and do something mindless for a while. Maybe lay on my floor and talk with Jesus. Maybe do a bit of reading. Maybe just a bubble bath and then attack the project of beginning to pack for our move. Either way, I need a bit of down time.

To Do

These are the things I need to get done today or at least this weekend (personally and professionally both):

• phone Christian Publications (the downtown location)
• go to Christian Publications after work (assuming the phone call produces the needed results)
• check the status of my bank account
• make a credit card payment
• talk to J. and L. about being reimbursed for a portion of the deposit I put on our new house last weekend
• begin packing for our upcoming move (only really a week away)
• go to the library to return some books and pick up some I've ordered in
• go through my clothes and pare down
• take the pared down ones to a consignment shop that will donate anything they don't sell to charity
• look up "spiritual temperments" which my brother mentioned to me and managed to intrigue me with
• do some research on Archbishop Oscar Romero
• Email T., who is in England at the moment
• make sure I have the phone numbers for both our current and our new landlord stored in my cell phone
• Call my aunt to wish her "happy birthday" and to see if we can borrow her truck to move next weekend
• visit some stores to see if we can get boxes for moving (liquor stores work great for this)
• check on my cable bill
• spend some time laying on my floor again, waiting
• create a labelling method for our commercial department's new files
• design a layout for the company's spring newsletter, to be mailed to 5000 policyholders soon
• create a new set of receipt numbers for our personal policies department
• order a printer cartridge

That's it. For the moment anyway. Groceries were on that list yesterday, but M. and I went grocery shopping after we were at the bookstore last night. (I love that my best friend indulges my need to do errands and lets me take advantage of her wheels!)