Ridiculous

I’ve been in a bit of a funk this week.

And I do not like to be down around Thanksgiving. It’s my most favorite holiday.  All that food, giving thanks, jigsaw puzzles and family, family, family.

But we don’t really get to choose when the uglies come calling for us, or at least I don’t, but in the spirit of a season of gratefulness, I’ve been attempting to fight them off.

And feeling futile in the effort.

Wednesday evening the lies had got the better part of me.  You know the lies.

We all have our own version of

You are not good enough,

The warning sign for me is that all of sudden everyone else is not good enough.

When I have stopped extending grace to myself, I generally withhold it from others.

Or maybe it’s that I don’t have any to give since I am refusing to take it for myself.

When I start down that road, I know I need to turn around quickly or I’m headed for a crash.

Sometimes it takes the crash to get turned around.

But the way back is so much longer from there.

So, after a week of small collisions with the universe, I decided late Wednesday night that I just needed to get outside on Thursday.

Because that always helps.

I got up ready to cross something off my list.  Ready to put rainboots on Simon and myself and head out into the cold, dark world.

The universe fought back.  I couldn’t find any of my garden trowels.  At some point, I have owned at least four of these at one time.

All. gone.

I got a camping shovel of Taido’s instead.  It broke on the first dig.

So we used Simon’s itty bitty garden shovel to plant about 100 bulbs.

Ridiculous.

Equally ridiculous was that later, when I was walking, again in an effort to just get outside.

Get some air.

Breathe.

I tripped over the front of my shoe and fell flat on the sidewalk.  Splat.  Jeans torn.  A concrete burn on my knee like you get when you are seven and you fall off your bike.

Absolutely ridiculous.

Later I went to see a high school play with a friend because her son was one of the star roles.

When we sat down, I was kind of warm from rushing to get there.  I took off my sweater for the first time all day, revealing that when I had picked up my shirt off the floor to wear that day, apparently, I had put it on inside out.

Beyond ridiculous.

Then the play started, and I laughed.  I love, love, love A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  It is a total gluttony of love and silliness.  Cole and Mary Polly came along with me and they laughed almost as much as me.  They got it, which makes me eternally grateful for their performing arts teacher at eStem, who has helped them understand Shakespeare this fall.  She could not possibly know what a gift that is to me.

And our friend’s son was beyond wonderful as the ridiculous Nick Bottom.  Precious.

We talked all the way home about what was probably Shakespeare’s most ridiculous play.  Mary Polly begged to see it again on Saturday.

When I went to sleep last night, the sadness was definitely still there lurking beneath the surface, but it was somehow subdued.

By hope.

Simon and I planted hope in the ground yesterday, but God planted hope in my heart.

I can still feel how I will have to fight to enter the holiday season with joy, but I don’t feel like it’s not a fight worth the effort.

It’s a fine line, but today I am ridiculously grateful for it.