This morning I put on the color red and my new favorite scarf that I've worn three days straight now. The morning brought about many encounters with the snooze function on my phone, and a strange memory of a dream about a bewitched PVC pipe. Sunday nights never cease to offer entertaining sleep.
Yesterday I taught the adult sunday school class at church. The lesson was about self sufficiency and work and the feeling of worth that comes from such things. So when I (finally) awoke today, I said a prayer, determined to enjoy this Monday, this week. Determined to feel all the good things about work. You see, I've been in a funk about my job. This funkiness is not for me. I did go to all that trouble, after all, the anxiety and expense of getting an education in something I loved. I did experience the hassle of searching for a career I knew I'd care for equally so as to avoid such funks. But there is a difference between my ideals and my realities--another post altogether.
I can't put my finger on the source of the funk, either. It is a sense of melancholy diluted into me. Maybe it is the boy at church that flirts and little else. Maybe it is the teenagers and their adolescent stint of irrationality. Perhaps it is the weather or the light.
So here I sit, still in red and my new favorite scarf I wear too much in a cold humming office and a darkening classroom. I'm taking a short break from the grading stacks. In my hours here the sun has risen in a window somewhere away from my own western view; and now it has set behind hills across the basin, its last light filtering into a hazy dusk of approaching winter.
I still feel slumped in my own personal job funk. Adolescents do not cheerful companions make.
But I tell myself this: I did something good today for someone who will never tell me so.
If I didn't tell myself this truth each and every day, even in endless Mondays of slumping such as this, I don't know that I could carry on when I only see the sun through my windows and never feel it on my face. If I didn't believe that the students have a secret all their own, that I wasn't giving someone only the best parts of myself, I don't know why else I could stand to be here.
Yesterday I taught the adult sunday school class at church. The lesson was about self sufficiency and work and the feeling of worth that comes from such things. So when I (finally) awoke today, I said a prayer, determined to enjoy this Monday, this week. Determined to feel all the good things about work. You see, I've been in a funk about my job. This funkiness is not for me. I did go to all that trouble, after all, the anxiety and expense of getting an education in something I loved. I did experience the hassle of searching for a career I knew I'd care for equally so as to avoid such funks. But there is a difference between my ideals and my realities--another post altogether.
I can't put my finger on the source of the funk, either. It is a sense of melancholy diluted into me. Maybe it is the boy at church that flirts and little else. Maybe it is the teenagers and their adolescent stint of irrationality. Perhaps it is the weather or the light.
So here I sit, still in red and my new favorite scarf I wear too much in a cold humming office and a darkening classroom. I'm taking a short break from the grading stacks. In my hours here the sun has risen in a window somewhere away from my own western view; and now it has set behind hills across the basin, its last light filtering into a hazy dusk of approaching winter.
I still feel slumped in my own personal job funk. Adolescents do not cheerful companions make.
But I tell myself this: I did something good today for someone who will never tell me so.
If I didn't tell myself this truth each and every day, even in endless Mondays of slumping such as this, I don't know that I could carry on when I only see the sun through my windows and never feel it on my face. If I didn't believe that the students have a secret all their own, that I wasn't giving someone only the best parts of myself, I don't know why else I could stand to be here.
image by sabino
5 comments:
Dear Rookie--
Thanks for your thoughtful posts. I have a relatively short list of blogs that I follow and I always enjoy yours.
We had a similar Sunday school lesson recently. You and I are too young to remember it, but the teacher of our lesson noted the effort by church leaders a number of years ago to have people concentrate on self-reliance, not self-sufficiency. It's a little bit of a semantic game, but the fundamental idea is important. In essentials, we can never be self-sufficient (i.e. enough by ourselves) because we all need the Savior. In temporal matters, we should do what we can to provide for ourselves and then feel no shame about asking for necessary assistance from our families or the church.
I had a pretty big funk of my own a couple of years ago because I was trying to do too much by myself and not allowing myself to do enough of what I enjoy--the things that make life worth living. A job can only be part of that, not the whole thing.
This may not be helpful to you, but I thought I would share it anyway. I quite like you, as far as I know you. I hope the funk is short-lived. I'll be okay if my thoughts are worth what you paid for them.
I think we often joke about how chocolate whisks those doldrums away, but sometimes it takes more than just caffiene and cocoa induced euphoria for me, too.
May the universe grant you one of those shining moments soon.
You have a way with words, you are a terrific writer. I think funks like these are unavoidable - especially in careers where due thanks is rarely given. Thank goodness for little joys that get us out of bed, like favorite scarves or the promise of more than flirtations.
Oh and the week after thanksgiving looks good - as of now anyway!
Such a pretty post.
Hoping your funk dissipates soon
This last paragraph is honest, thoughtful.
Funks can be crappy. There's really no other way about it. I think most of September I schlepped through a hideous funk. Good thing October got to me before the loony bin did!
Here's to brighter, funk-less tomorrows!!
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