It's friday night in Canal Winchester, OH. And, I ain't got no money. That shouldn't surprise anyone who knows me. i realized (with sad shock) today that it's been two full years since I had anything that resembled grown-up employment. That is, two years since I had a job that 1) paid me a salary with benefits, and 2) I was not desperately looking for a way out. Prior to the temprary relocation to this village just south of Columbus (which follows a month of unemployment) I was a part-time temporary office worker at the university which gave me a tuition-paid master's degree. Since I never intend to actually use this degree, I suppose I was a pretty poor investment on their part, and embarrassing for all parties when I passed my old professors on the way to the copy machine.
Prior to my foray into sending faxes and making labels for file folders (on Avery 5181 standards) I was, for a solid six months, an outpatient therapist. Not a great one, sadly. I dreaded therapy appointments. I always hoped my clients would no-show. I feel guilty about these feelings, truly. It's not that I didn't like my clients. I really did like most of them, and they were people who'd had bumpy roads, were very impoverished, usually single moms with multiple kids. It's more that I didn't have a clue how to help them. When they talked to me, I would feel as overwhelmed as they did. The organization I worked for was corrupt and they had higher turnover than Ben and Jerry's on free cone day. I flat-out, downright hated this job. When my department was dissolved and we were all laid off, I was (openly) relieved.
Before that was Haiti, and before that-- the real job at the church. Which I quit.
So here I am, two years later, waiting to start what feels like a real, grown-up job in my real grown up life--which, at 29, feels like a long time coming. I'll train for 3 weeks in Columbus, OH then take a space in the Scottsdale, AZ office. I can't wait for this transition. I'll be making real money for the first time and be able to indulge my hobbies of hiking, kayaking, and wine, and will be back home in the state where I was born.
It's not to say I'm not scared. In the last year and a half, I've lost most of the use of one of my eyes, an ovary, my work to help open a bakery in Haiti, a dull-but-decent life in Winston Salem, the only man I've ever met that I thought I would marry, and what I thought was my path to becoming a priest (I chose to leave that, no regrets, but still...) It leaves a woman feeling raw, unsettled, cut off, blank. It just feels like a LOT.
I say "blank" because at times that's what I see when I look forward. The things I thought would be there are not. I am being asked to be MYSELF. To get through all the things I'm afraid of and just do the things that CATHERINE wants to do. I wonder if I know what those things are. Sometimes I get overwhelmed with the "shoulds": I should have more money than I do by now. I should have a husband and be thinking about babies. I should have, by age 29, held a real job for more than a year and a half.
But what does one do? I can't go back to Winston Salem and, despite what I might say and all the people I miss, I don't want to. Sometimes I long for an evening on Todd's couch, cuddling, watching movies, trusting and being safe. But that's in the past now, and clearly not what God had in mind for me.
Is that the real issue here? Trusting that God will keep me safe? That I will always be found? I've talked such a big spiritual game for a long time now. It was tested before, when I had eye surgery. But this, this feels deeper than that. This feels more like that WTF??? feeling where I really DON'T believe I'll be okay, don't like what God is putting me through, all the things that were in my life that are now stripped away. It's a constant refining. Some people call them "growing pains" or "birthing pains"-- I just call it a giant pain in the ass. Secretly, though, somewhere in the back of my mind I know, when things are settled and I'm in love again and have "enough" money in the bank, I'll apologize to God for copping an attitude.
But believe me, right now He and I are having issues. I'm giving him the silent treatment. I'm not even going to church.
Instead I'm blogging. Hoping that chronicling this journey--which inevitably will bring out the journey through Haiti, through surgeries, through relationships, through growth--will help. Help me and others make some sense of the silliness that is the joy of life.
And, to reference the title to my blog, I'm too lazy to write a novel but too witty to keep this all to myself. Enjoy!
Many blessings,
Catherine
