wedding car cans

When I live in survival mode, I coast on top of my days, unable to really dig my heels in. Unable to stop, to soak, to lift, to stretch out a bit.

I do NOT like to live in survival mode. I think I'd rather eat chalk than chase my day like the cans tied to the back of a wedding getaway car. Those sad cans. Eyes brimming, heart swimming love just a few meters ahead, coasting smooth, and they just bump and jolt and slam along, never quite able to catch up. Then, when the car finally does stop, they're too tired and banged up to be of much use. Oh! That's quite perfect. That stop, that arrival-- that's my friday. My week is the wedding getaway car, and I am the cans, hopelessly chasing it down.

So Friday comes. This Friday, for example, I woke up, and felt it. I knew that the week would stop today. So I got up and went to substitute teach for the first grade. In the first hour a child projectile vomited all over the classroom. (He had told me he felt sick earlier and I told him he was fine and to please sit down). In the second hour a child spit on me (purposefully, while screaming "I HATE THIS SCHOOL.") In the third hour, while reading the bible, I read one phrase at a time, in between telling children to stop coloring, picking, jumping, tickling, poking, etc. You can imagine how conviction and worship welled up in the hearts of the children by the climactic exhortation, "And then God said to David-- SIT UP AND STOP TOUCHING THAT..."

I made it to 3:30pm. Scoreboard read: Kids- 1. Miss Lorenc- 0. And I drove home, slouched in body and heart. I don't remember putting them on, but I found myself in my pajama pants by 7pm. Like the wedding car cans. The car had stopped. And I was worthless.

Thankfully, a friend called and asked me to get root beer. I sensed myself getting to a very bad place, the place where I convince myself of the utter worthlessness of my life and look at prices for one way tickets to developing countries with hammocks and mountains. So I decided to take her up on her offer. I spent the evening half asleep at the Alligator Cafe, content at least to be around jovial people who didn't seem to be convinced that they were eighty-year-olds in twenty-five year old bodies.

AND DO YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE?! Boys should KNOW, they should just KNOW, not to tell girls they look tired. Why?! How is that helpful? I heard it three times in three days. The third time I cried, but in a bathroom stall by myself. Ick. Boys. Please if you can remember, it is nice when you open doors and don't tell girls they look tired. So nice.

Today I filled up on beauty. Spent hours in a coffee shop with lovely friends and books. Cooked. Listened to peaceful music. Drank tea. Curled up in the library. Prayed with a godsend of a friend. And now I'm sitting with thoughts and music and three candles. And I'm thinking about how I know God, and He loves me, and keeps me. And how if I don't point up to Him every time, then what am I really doing?

And I'm thinking that He'll be faithful always, and one day, I WILL be with him in a way that is different than now. And I'm hopeful.