On The Verge…

The last couple of weeks have been short takes on how we influence one another - for good or...not. I am a lucky duck in that I am surrounded by influencers who are lovely supporters. But sometimes - even with the best support in the world - we find ourselves emotionally exhausted, depleted of our capacity to show compassion and with a relentless, nagging feeling that nothing we do will ever make any difference.

This happened to me. In hindsight, it all makes perfect sense. First, my mother died. That would be difficult enough but the circumstances surrounding her death knocked me flat. I responded as I do; I came home from the funeral and tried harder. But, what I could not ignore was that everything I had done to keep our family together as a unit and to avoid the possibility of our dysfunction splitting us apart was futile. As a young girl I made two vows:

1. I would never want my family of origin to be broken apart by dissension and jealousy (as I had seen played out in previous generations.)

2. I wanted to create a family when I grew up that was a few steps removed from pathological.

Is this too much to ask? It turns out, it was. Of course you, dear reader, see the problem. I am but one human in a family system comprised of many humans. I was doomed to fail. To be clear, I think I managed to not birth any serial killers - my kids are awesome! But families are all complicated in their own way.

The second thing that occurred, was this blasted pandemic, right smack in the middle of a cultural revolution. If you don't know this, maybe I could give you some context. It has been extremely difficult to be a pastor during a pandemic and political upheaval. If you are not a pastor, I suspect this won't mean much and I will not bore you with the heart wrenching angst of it all. But it was - and is - pretty unbearable in some ways.

Maybe I could have kept paddling my boat if I faced either one of these events, but two of them? I did not have a chance. Self-care, therapy, super influencers, a family this is loving and not pathological? These things probably kept me out of in-patient treatment, but just barely.

But I learned a ton along the way, and I want to explore that for awhile with you. Stay tuned.

Mostly True

As a general rule, I'm not all that fond of the book of Proverbs. Each verse needs to be broken out and commentated on for it to make sense. For example, consider Proverbs 17:17:

"Friends love through all kinds of weather, and families stick together in all kinds of trouble."

I give this one a true-ish score. Families, ideally, stick together in all kinds of trouble. But I've seen up close and personal how a parent can teach that to a child but not be able to keep that kind of commitment themselves.

It is lovely to think that people can handle the ups and downs of life, and a few can. But many cannot. We need to tell ourselves the truth about this - especially as it applies to our own boundaries. There are things that I have decided I am not willing to stick around for anymore. Am I selfish? Am I a bad person? Maybe. But it is also possible that I am learning more about what it means to take responsibility for my own choices and decide for myself that some things are just too much for me to handle.

Maybe you can handle more. Awesome! Maybe you can handle less. Nothing wrong with that! But in all these things, it is important to tell ourselves the truth about what's going on with us and own our choices. I find it so interesting that people often place expectations on others that they would never require themselves to live up to - pay attention to this! This will help you sort through your options.