just to throw it away in 2013-2014

These are not my proudest moments, but they will be recorded for the sake of an honest record.

Saturday was spent lethargic on the couch. I ate food. It gurgled. My tonsil ached. I Benadryl'd overnight and whimpered at God because change.

Sunday was spent deliberately resting and realizing that my stomach hated everything but Mountain Dew and waffles and toast. Not even water was safe. I whimpered more about change and not having a job lined up.

Monday was spent at home, afraid of spreading anything even remotely stomach-virusy, eating toast and inadvertently relapsing at the consumption of dairy. I talked to leasing office, got the mail, and replaced the gas cap on my car. I tried to make potatoes. Turns out the rancid smell in the laundry room wasn't a rodent behind the washing machine, it was the potatoes. I tried to sautee some squash, did well on the first round, then fucked up the second when I accidentally turned the heat off mid-cook. (Sad squash, Aaron called it.) I asked Aaron to save me from myself. I whimpered a lot about change and stared forlornly at my email and its lack of interview offers.

Tuesday, today, I sucked it up and went to work.

At work I got the office hours of all the potential leasing offices. So that was a plus. And my old student worker, who is all depressed post-breakup (she took the cat!) has eagerly agreed to come over and cuddle my cat in exchange for occasional walking of the dog. So that's taken care of. He is in cat-withdrawal. I have an insatiable cuddlewhore of a cat. I'm a helper.

(This is where it goes downhill.)

Due to previous stomach delicacies, I was resigned to a Sad Lunch of peanut butter and jelly. So the others went out for Cuban and I sat in the office, got a plastic fork for lack of knife (when going sad-lunch, go all the way) and prepared the PBJ. The little bit of peanut butter left had been inadvertently refrigerated because I'm not always smart and was hard to spread and the jelly was at the bottom its jar and equally congealing, so my plastic fork was nearly breaking in two as I labored.

I buy all wheat bread of some sort, varying brands by what's on sale. I'm used to flour on the crusts, seeds or whatever, stuff. So I did not notice that the load of bread that I had been eating all weekend was heavily molded on the bottom until just then.

Aaron made his usual lunch phone call. I was whiny. He finally made me say it.

"You think if I stop eating moldy bread, my stomach will feel better?"

I CANNOT EVEN CAPABLY FEED MYSELF. MY GOD. HOW DO I ADULT.

I threw out the rest of the bread (not much), and the peanut butter (empty) and jelly (almost empty). I had another jar of PB in my desk, because I knew the PB was so close to empty, and I had another jar of jelly at home. So I just needed more bread, right? I got down my jar of PB. Only a third remains. Pretty sure I would remember eating 2/3 a jar of peanut butter. I always savor breaking the seal and the pretty scalloped, clean top of any butter.

So I had to buy lunch, which I didn't want to do, but fuck it, so off to Chick Fil A I went to eat some non-dairy feelings. Surprise! My gas cap loosened and my car stalled on the way back. Which makes every single lunch trip a stall-out since I came back from vacation, across two gas caps. I'm getting suspicious. It only happens on my lunch break. Never any time else.

Boss gave me the draft of the position vacancy announcement for my job. He asked me to fill in the percentage of time I spent on each tenant of the description. I did. I also noticed that in the draft, the position has been reclassified up a whole fucking paygrade. The replacement will make at least $1000 more a year than I ever did, right off the bat. I heard a rumor about this, that they were concerned that my measly title wouldn't be enough to attract strong candidates. The rumor was true. When you are barely making enough to not qualify for food stamps, $1000 is a lot of money. But that's okay. It's not like I have outstanding student loans or medical bills.

I went to Walmart. I got air freshener and cat litter. I carried 38 pounds of it around the store and to my apartment and was proud of myself. I switched out the entire box without a mess and was even prouder. I took out the nasty cat litter and nastier potatoes and installed new air freshener. Lena probably needs a new box, but that can be dealt with later.

I then sat down on the couch with leftover spaghetti, a new bottle of wine, and badtaxidermy.com to salvage the remainder of my night. Half a bottle of wine later, I have determined that Lena really fucking loves spaghetti (noodles and meat), taxidermy is creepy, and wine is my friend. When Lena and I shared Cool Whip out of the container, I briefly considered reevaluating my life, but later, because Cool Whip is fucking tasty.

But I also found two pennies, and the CD in my car I realized is an unmarked "don't jump man you have so much to live for you can do the thing" mix I made a few years ago when I really hated Athens. So that's been handy. And I understood that when one is whiny and inconvenienced with discomfort, one might not receive an awful lot of reassurance, because suck it up, princess. But when one is legitimately discouraged and demoralized from "income verification required for leasing" and replacements getting insta-raises and failing at self-feeding, there are gratuitous spiritual hugs and that is when God is felt to be the closest.

On the drive to Walmart, I also had a few thoughts about faith and fear. There's a saying or motivational poster thing that says that faith and fear are mutually exclusive. That's a nice thought. I think it's a lot more related to the To Kill A Mockingbird quote about courage that everyone loves to quote.

“Courage is not a man with a gun in his hand. It's knowing you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.”

Just stomping forward without thought to consequences or failure isn't courage, it's bravery. And if you just flit over the stormy seas to Jesus, that's not faith. That's probably insanity. Yeah, Peter got scared and sank. But I don't think it was that he was scared. I think it was that he put more stock in his fear. His believed in his fear more than he believed in Jesus, and his fear won. If you're not scared, if it's not hard, if you're not squeezing your eyes closed and gulping before you step off the boat, where is the faith? Where is the challenge? How is it a big deal at all?

So maybe it's okay to be scared even while acting on faith. I can be scared and nervous about change and timid and not sure how things will shake out, but none of those feelings are preventing me from acting. I'm still jumping out of the boat. I can acknowledge them as natural human feelings and still know that Jesus will catch me. The catch is not letting them own me and going back on it all and staying in Georgia because it's "comfortable" and familiar, even if it's increasingly not for me. Life is all about getting out of comfort zones and getting comfortable with being uncomfortable.

27 But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”

28 “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”

29 “Come,” he said.

Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.

30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”

31 Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”

Matt 14:22-33

Really, the lesson here is not to dare Jesus, because He will call you out.

I have yet to learn this lesson.