21/365 Coffee is Helpful

I went to Worship Commission last night even though I was going to beg off because it was Leo's birthday. But it starts at 7:00 and we were done with the sour cream chocolate cake and the opening of presents by then.

I steeled myself for crazy. The combination of personalities is not always good. Even people I get along with really well, people I like, get on-edge at this meeting. So I drank a lot of coffee well into the afternoon yesterday. You know, self-medicating. Great. I don't use alcohol that way because I lose too much of myself. And there's a family history to avoid and one day at a time, I will not do that. But I do use caffeine that way. As far as I know, there is no "Coffee Drinkers Anonymous". It makes me more able to ignore certain people and makes me way more talkative, which is what I need. I have opinions. I just usually do not share them in this meeting because it's so punishing. But with coffee, well, I can't help but share sometimes.

I really wanted to go in spite of the atmosphere because we were going to talk about Lent and also review Advent and Christmas. So I wanted to be there. And I went.

It was a small group--who knows why but can I venture to guess--and the first thing that happened when I walked in was get handed a new parish pictorial directory. We spent almost a half hour perusing this and chatting, which was a good ice breaker, frankly.

Lynn, who can be strident and hard to handle, wasn't the worst she's ever been. Or maybe it was the caffeine. Everything she had to say--which of course was almost entirely negative or strangely self-referential with a cackle--just sort of rolled off my back for a change. She didn't like red at Christmas. She didn't like the Christmas proclamation. She thought melting down old candles and making our own for next Advent sounded like a brilliant plan. Hmm. There were other small things.

But I don't think it was as bad as usual. Hildegard didn't cross her arms in front of her and change the subject. Miguel didn't straighten and re-straighten his pen alongside his binder. Sr. Vanda kept talking. And Hazel didn't sit in sleepy depressed judgmental silence--as much as I probably disagree with Hazel's opinions, so often Lynn is so loud that nobody else adds anything anymore. And that's disappointing. We don't have to be all in agreement. We just, well, it would be nice to be able to say something and not be shot down in the rudest manner possible.

After December's disaster of a meeting, I never wanted to go back. But one of those little aphorisms kept coming to mind, like "evil flourishes when good men do nothing" or something like that. Not that she's evil, but it was sort of like that. If I walk away, then eventually it'll only be staff members and Lynn at worship meetings. And then what.

So I'll keep going. And I'll keeping showing up jittery and without filter because it's better that way. At least for me.