I felt this one coming on BIG TIME. However, I ignored it and rather than turning to God in prayer, I did a deliberate dance with the devil. Here's the story. I believe the seeds were planted yesterday. Boy, did they germinate quickly. I know the school is having financial difficulties and I heard something yesterday morning about one of the founders of the school who is struggling financially and this planted a little seed of thought in my mind. It was: "You really aren't that valuable to the school. Why don't you resign so they can have some more money? You can find another job, easily. And, if you work your new work schedule right, you could always come back and just volunteer your time, doing the same things that you do now." I let those thoughts stay.
Last night, we got home around 8:30 at night. It had been a long, cold, and tiring day for me. I chose to settle into the corner of the couch with my warmest blanket wrapped around me and watch Animal Planet. John was exhausted and had much more right to falling asleep on the couch than I did because he had really worked hard that day, and he fell asleep on the other couch. The only thing wrong with this picture of me is that I deliberately chose to do this rather than take a shower to prepare for today and read my scriptures. So I fell asleep on the couch. John woke up around midnight and pulled me up and we went groggily to our bedroom. I took off my clothes and knelt on my pillow to pray and did, however, I was so tired that I don't remember what I even prayed about.
So this morning, since we still only have the truck, John woke me up when it was time to go take him to work. He works just a little earlier than I do and so I have to go with him and drop him off, then come back home and get ready for work then go to work myself. Now if that is what I actually did every morning, then I would always be beautifully groomed and to work on time. However, because of having to take John earlier, it takes about 30 minutes out of my sleeping time that I never seem very willing to give up. So the usual way it happens is that I take him to work and then come home and sleep with my head on the truck's steering wheel for that 30 minutes, then quickly run in the house and throw some clothes on, fix my hair so it looks at least decent and run back out the door to work, usually leaving my house about 5 minutes after I'm supposed to be there. There has been ONE time that this was not the case, and the only reason it was any different was because I had spent the entire time on the drive back from John's work, praying my guts out loud for the strength to be able to walk into the house right when I got home and go straight into the shower. The motivating factor that time was that I was really in need of a shower! (That brings up another bad habit of mine... I only shower about once every 2-3 days. Oakcrest and China never wore off of me... haha! I know, that's really gross huh. But there's my deep, dark secret bad habit. So when I say that I really needed a shower, I think it had been 4 days since I'd taken one. Gross!)
Anyway, back to this morning's unresolved conflicts. I was really conflicted this morning. I could almost feel the little feet of the devil and angel on my shoulders as they were both doing their thing to get me to chose their side! Sorry little angel... I kept choosing the devil. His handoff? "Just don't think about it. It takes too much mental effort anyway to pray that hard for the strength to get you in the shower." (For this morning was another one of those days when I was really in need of a shower.) And I took his hand-off. I really didn't want to put in all that mental effort into prayer because I really didn't want to get ready! I wanted to just sleep! So in return? For taking his hand-off? Well, immediately I didn't have to worry about putting all that focus into prayer and I could instead just rest a little longer. So when I pulled up to the house, I turned off the truck and put my head on the steering wheel with the thought of just resting there for a few minutes. Well, "resting there" turned out to be closing my eyes and thinking a million thoughts all at once and then being stricken with a pressing need to release my bowels!
So I got out of the truck, but I was still deliberately pushing away my little angel who was telling me to "pray for the strength you need to get in that shower!" When I went into the house, I took a big disgusted sigh because of the complete mess my house is in. I quickly thought to myself when I would have a day to really clean up the mess and realized (because this week is jam packed full) that it wouldn't be until Monday! That was a depressing thought and I really wished that it could be cleaned before then. (I just wrote that I wished that I could clean it up before then... but then realized that was not my wish so erased that. It isn't very common for me to wish that I could clean things up, but rather that they would somehow get cleaned up on their own. hmmm... no wonder things are messy! haha!)
So I walked into my bedroom and again observed the mess and walked into my bathroom and again, observed the mess with a frustrated sigh. After using the toilet and then flushing it, I was absolutely disgusted by the moldy ring that is developing around the inside because it hasn't been cleaned in months. (okay, this is really revealing about all my really deep, dark, dirty secrets! yuck!) I've realized before that although the toilet has been cleaned a few times, it has never been cleaned once by myself since we've lived here. (and that's been for a year. wow.) So as I stood there observing my dirty toilet, this time I really did think, "I wish I could stay home and just clean this toilet today!"
After observing all of this mess and allowing myself to become thoroughly depressed by it, I flopped myself onto my bed and curled up in the blankets, deliberately choosing to ignore it all away. (news flash... it's not even possible to ignore things away! It will be fruitless to try.) um, I just posted this post on accident when I was trying to italicize the word "possible," I hit "ctrl" "p" which, evidently, is the keyboard way to post your blog. So now I'm "editing" it... and since I hadn't decided if I was really going to post this entry in the first place, now half of it is sitting there on my blog and I'm still deciding on whether or not I'll keep this post there when I'm finished. Really, I'm writing for therapeutic reasons, which, if I decide to keep the post on here, you will read about further on down. The only reason I'm hesitant to post this is because of how utterly revealing it is of myself and my bad habits. It puts me in a particularly vulnerable position which I usually avoid like the plague. However, I've learned that it's those super vulnerable positions that I always seem to learn from the most. Okay, here, it seems to be coming together... as much as this is horrifyingly embarrassing to myself, I'm deciding to allow this post to remain on my blog for personal educational reasons only. wow. I am so weird. And if anyone can relate to me, PLEASE let me know!!! haha!
All right, back on to my story. I'm curled up in my blankets ignoring all my problems away. And, of course, the little devil on my shoulder hands me a tantalizing offer. "Here, just call your school and tell them you've been having some 'conflicts' that you're trying to resolve and you're going to try to make it in by nine. That will give you a little more time to rest and take a shower and go to school! Besides, you don't really need to be there until nine anyway." Man, he's good. That was very enticing. I decided to "sleep" on it for a few minutes. After a bit, I woke up and picked up my phone to see that it was 7:53. I'm supposed to be at work by 8. Um, it was immediately evident to myself that that wasn't going to happen. I was still lying, in my pajamas, with a body and hair that hasn't been cleaned for three days, curled up in a ball in my blankets! So, I took the offer. I made the phone call and repeated his words just right and it worked like a charm. And, I wasn't lying, right? I was having conflicts with that devil and angel on my shoulders! Picture Kronk. Yeah, that was totally me this morning.
Well, that phone call me gave me another hour. Things were good. So I closed my eyes and allowed myself to fall back asleep. This time, it wasn't just resting though. I fell into a deep, dream-filled sleep. Too bad those problems weren't popping away like bubbles while I slept! Rather, they were just multiplying like bunny rabbits. I suddenly woke up for whatever reason and grabbed my phone to see what time it was. 9:07. "Okay, um, devil? Your plan didn't work so well. Now what!?" I laid back on my back and looked up at the ceiling. "What am I going to do!?" I thought. I knew the first thing would be to call my school and tell them... tell them... WHAT!? Not surprisingly, the little devil didn't supply another "perfect" line. I can just picture him now, knowing that I saw his hand-off for what it really is... a whole package of more problems that was prettily wrapped as a "perfect" answer... "oops. My cover's blown..." Well, since when I had called before, it was because of "some conflicts" that I was going to be late, I decided that it was because those same conflicts were unresolved that I wasn't going to make it in today. That's what I told the secretary who is going to pass my message along.
When I got off the phone, the little devil was going at it again with as much energy as he could muster, trying a different tactic to get me down by aiming for my soft spot: "You blew it! You suck! You're so irresponsible! You're never going to break your bad habits! You let everyone down! You might as well just go back to sleep now. You're not going to be able to get anything productive done today anyway because now look at how DEPRESSED you are because of what happened! Ha! You're back in depression! And you thought you were done with depre........." flick. Guess what devil. That ain't my soft spot no more.
I got up out of bed immediately and knew I had to write my story. Now it's 10:51 and I've got a lot of options in front of me. I feel GREAT. I feel victorious. I know I've gotta clean up my mess I made from opening that package of problems and I'm going to do it. I'm going to go in to the school and tell the truth to those that I work with whom I let down today because of my foolish choice. I'm going to ask God to forgive me and I know He will. I'm going to take a shower. And I'm going to clean my toilet!
