Yesterday was one of those days . . . where everything that I normally try to hold in came out in one big snot running blubber in the middle of Relief Society. Let me tell you that was inconvenient! The first time I made a mad dash for the bathroom composed myself, sat on the toilette, blew my nose twice, put a wet cold paper towel over my red nose and pretended that no one would notice. I'm not sure what really triggered the blubbering - I've been feeling a little bit emotional as of late, wanting to do and be everything and feeling like I'm achieving nothing, no real progress on my thesis, a temp job that pays too little and perpetually messy house and thank you cards that still haven't been sent from our wedding four months ago. Not to mention I didn't do my visiting teaching last month!
Maybe that was what set me off, the lesson was on visiting teaching and suddenly a flood of guilt was overwhelming - I usually can shut myself up, at worse sniffle a little and then go have a good private cry later and write in my journal. But this was no such moment.
I had returned from my first trip to the bathroom to sit down when our branch president's wife started talking about how even many active strong women have their own private trials . . . that was when I moved to the hiccuping cry. (There is a reason I try to be a private cryer, it really is literally messy, I need a roll of toilet paper an ice pack and some ib profen to get through). My second mad dash for the bathroom was definitely more noticeable. No hiding the mixture of snot and tears running down my face.
Now really, perfectly rational this morning I can tell you that I am making slow but persistent progress on my thesis, I got a dollar raise for my job a month ago and that my husband is a sweet heart who doesn't mind a messy house, or quickly helps me to clean if I ask. As for the thank you cards and visiting teaching . . . I am simply human.
However, that's the problem, I don't want to be human, I want to be perfect (or at least in public have some semblance of holding it together, or some major reason like a death in the family, for falling apart). I want to be the woman who does her visiting teaching every month, reads her scriptures faithfully every day, exercises at least four times a week, prepares balanced meals, finishes her thesis on time . . . etc.
Instead I'm hiding out in the bathroom blubbering about all the things I'm not; my charade of holding it together was long over. So I sat there and contemplated when Relief Society would get out and if I could slink off quickly and get my scriptures without anyone noticing. Or at least if the red puffiness of my nose would go down enough that my husband wouldn't get too alarmed. He was teaching a lesson on loving your wife in Elders Quorum and the last thing I wanted to do was interupt that lesson sobbing.
I wish there were some reason for feeling so emotionally overwhelmed (being pregnant would be a great excuse). But there I was with no good reason except my own expectations and I wonder why I do this to myself? I'm not sure that other people expect that of me . . . if they do they don't voice it. Instead, Bobby clears the women out of the bathroom, my branch president's wife guards the door, and he pulls me out of the stall like a small sad child and tells me that he loves me. Feeling more than a little folish for my breakdown, and wondering if I'm a basketcase, I wonder why it is I even started crying. But I know really. Some how in all the mix of everything, I just kept feeling like I don't quite measure up, and that's the funny thing. Me with a wonderful life, great husband, great family, job, cute house and enough to meet my needsstill I have a nagging feeling of inadequacy.
So I went home, snuggled with Bobby on the couch, read ensign articles about dealing with guilt - and started again making a mental to-do list of what I needed to get done in the next week and how to do it all . . . or not. But in the back of my mind I keep thinking about the what one of our branch members said in his testimony, that we're all a little broken. I identify with the feeling. Broken as in incapable of doing it all, and especially doing it all myself.
Snuggled up to my husband I realized that being broken doesn't mean being unloved or unuseful (as evidenced by the mass outpooring of love that came through notes, emails, and muffins after my blubbering) but instead simply human. And I, as a human, can live with that.
