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.