Note to Self:
Next time you are feeling even remotely unloved* or neglected, especially if you are also procrastinating schoolwork at the time, it doesn’t hurt to go through several months of e-mail clutter, skimming the messages for personal notes. Delete most of the e-mails and you will get some satisfaction from freeing up so much space in your inbox. While you’re at it, make a new folder and hang on to some of those thoughtful, encouraging words that various someones bothered to send you. You are a silly person and sometimes you forget. Peek in that folder when you need reminders. Also try to remember not to be the reason that someone else feels unloved or neglected today.
*Actually I am not feeling unloved right now. Closer to the opposite. What with a visit from some dear Swedish friends, a wedding where I enjoyed seeing people from camp and college days, many marathon congratulations, and a couple of spontaneous moments of hospitality from neighbors, it has been a great week. Tonight I’m just procrastinating, as usual. But I certainly have those days when the phone is not ringing and the existential inbox feels much more than half empty. I want to get better at remembering (and trusting) what I have been given, to be grateful and joyful without so much help. In the meantime, I’m stuck being human and I’ve got some digital love tucked away for those moments when I’m finding it hard to believe that it matters to God and maybe a few other people that I’m here.
On second thought, maybe not-needing-help is the wrong goal. Maybe I need to learn that it’s OK to need help. That limitations are in a strange way a blessing, because emptiness and shortcomings are just space for God (often through other people) to enter my life. Over-independence is just as unhealthy as over-dependence. Maybe I need to be more hospitable to my own humanity and the finitude it entails.
Wow. Didn’t see that revelation coming when I sat down at my computer a little while ago. I had only the first paragraph in mind. Hurrah for fall break and the schedule space in which to let life be more important than school for a few days. I didn’t catch up on any reading tonight, and that’s OK. Now if I can just remember to follow my own advice . . .
Hurrah for blogs being harder to misplace than the pieces of scrap paper I usually rely on to supplement (/replace) the overtaxed and cluttered short- and long-term memory functions of my poor tired brain.
*Actually I am not feeling unloved right now. Closer to the opposite. What with a visit from some dear Swedish friends, a wedding where I enjoyed seeing people from camp and college days, many marathon congratulations, and a couple of spontaneous moments of hospitality from neighbors, it has been a great week. Tonight I’m just procrastinating, as usual. But I certainly have those days when the phone is not ringing and the existential inbox feels much more than half empty. I want to get better at remembering (and trusting) what I have been given, to be grateful and joyful without so much help. In the meantime, I’m stuck being human and I’ve got some digital love tucked away for those moments when I’m finding it hard to believe that it matters to God and maybe a few other people that I’m here.
On second thought, maybe not-needing-help is the wrong goal. Maybe I need to learn that it’s OK to need help. That limitations are in a strange way a blessing, because emptiness and shortcomings are just space for God (often through other people) to enter my life. Over-independence is just as unhealthy as over-dependence. Maybe I need to be more hospitable to my own humanity and the finitude it entails.
Wow. Didn’t see that revelation coming when I sat down at my computer a little while ago. I had only the first paragraph in mind. Hurrah for fall break and the schedule space in which to let life be more important than school for a few days. I didn’t catch up on any reading tonight, and that’s OK. Now if I can just remember to follow my own advice . . .
Hurrah for blogs being harder to misplace than the pieces of scrap paper I usually rely on to supplement (/replace) the overtaxed and cluttered short- and long-term memory functions of my poor tired brain.
posted by Ingrid at 10:15 PM
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