Missing myself

I'm sitting in a stiff twin-sized bed in a modest third-floor room.  A simple wooden cross adorns the white wall in front of me.  I've returned to the monastery in New York, a reprise of my first foray last fall.  Somehow this year I feel less frantic, less like I'm drowning.  The tension in my shoulders that comes from clergy life is still present, but I don't feel tragic and for that, I am so very grateful. 

I am still struggling with my ability to find my voice.  Over the past four years, there have been intermittent moments where I felt fully connected to my spirit and able to say what I mean in a passionate and meaningful way, but more often than not, I feel stuck.  I've wrestled with the desire to meet people where they are, to inspire them to do something more, and to honor my own truth.  Many weeks those things never quite meet and I walk away from the pulpit with a sense of deep defeat.  

Some weeks I feel a sense of power and purpose and I'm so hopeful that it will stick this time, but that usually isn't the case.

Instead, I carry a deep sense of sadness that I am letting everyone around me down.  I work too much, agonize too much, and I feel like I come to the cash register of work, home, and marriage a few cents short of what everyone needs to make ends meet.  

This is not meant to be a self-deprecating rant, but instead, to help me begin to articulate how I feel about this lost-ness.  It's like I have all of the things I need inside of me and I can't put them together until the moment has passed.  

It's a huge burden I put on my own shoulders.  I feel as though I should be able to keep the house clean, bake cookies, spend quality time with my kids and husband, walk the dog, decorate perfectly, and cook gourmet meals (that everyone loves) in conjunction with caring for 300 people at church, reaching the community and growing a church so that it is able to meet the needs of the community.  

It's cathartic to write it all out because quite frankly it's ridiculous to assume anyone could do all of these things.  And even more candidly, it's arrogant to think this is my doing and not God's action.  The protestant work ethic runs deep. 

I hope that if I write, I will remember myself.  Like an Alzheimer's patient who has moments of clarity and suddenly rouses to see her children in front of her, I hold on to this hope that I will once again feel as though the lines between my deepest thoughts, my greatest struggles, and my seemingly unshakeable faith in God will come together and I will have clarity.  I long to be able to sit down and write and know, this is what I wanted to say!

The days when I would snuggle into my bed and pour myself into my words in a way that was intimate and captivating and challenging and raw... oh how I miss those days.  Oh, how I miss myself. 

It is a terrible feeling, a daunting fear, to think I will never quite feel that way again.  This looming thought haunts me more often than I'd like to admit.