90/365 It's not about me

If one more person--especially Lynn--cracked a stale joke about stripping the altar, I was going to have to do something. I guess write about it here. But that's not the point.

I spent this evening again at church, this time practicing for Triduum. I had a vague sense that I wasn't living up to expectations. This has happened to me a lot over the years. I'm not the student Mr. Sweeney wants me to be. I don't have the magnanimous heart Fr. Bell is looking for. I'm not the obedient RA that Housing wants me to be. I fail to meet Taylor's expectations of friendship. Or Lillian's. Hilda gives me that tight-lipped disappointed smile when I tell the board I'm resigning. "Not living up to potential" is the phrase most likely to be seen on any review of my behavior or work.

I have a nagging sense this is also becoming true at church. And while I was happy to say goodbye to being a dormitory police officer or the unappreciated role as secretary of my neighborhood board, I don't want it to be true at church.

Part of it is having a 3rd child. When I got back involved at church, Maeve was already 2 and sleeping through the night. Leo, as happy as he is, is not like getting a 3rd cat. It takes time and energy to have another person living in the house. Part of it is having older children--back then, Sophia didn't go to Irish dance twice a week. She was barely going to kindergarten. Mike travels now--a lot. I'm not good at single parenting. Life is different now that it is different. Duh.

But I think part of it, the largest part, is that I have again failed to understand and live up to expectations. And the most frustrating part is that (besides the Leo Factor) I didn't know I was failing. But tonight gave me this vague sense that, yeah, I am. I can't even put my finger on it. No one said anything to me about it. Nothing was implied. It was just this feeling in the air. This sense of...heaviness. I can't describe it well.

Or maybe, now that I've written this down, I can take Astrid's advice. She and I often find ourselves in moments when it seems like we've done something wrong. Something is screwed up and it's our fault. And it's taken each of us some time and reflection to realize that most of the time, if we're bewildered by someone else's reaction to us or behavior, it's not about us. Who knows? Maybe it was just Holy Week. Maybe it's not about me.

Or if it is, maybe it will be clear later.