Sunday, September 04, 2005

absentee living

What is there to say? I've been very absent and felt very absent lately. I don't know what else to say about it other than just own up to it.

Right now there are fire trucks and police across the street. We don't know what the emergency is. They don't seem all that frantic so it's hard to make myself care, despite the fact that these are neighbors (whoever they are) and there is an ambulance and police and firemen (there's one occupation that just can't be PC'd, eh?).

I've been feeling the same way about the hurricane: just uninvolved, absent. It's not that I don't care. It's just that I don't feel like I'm really all there. I can work up some indignation about the obvious racial issues. But it's an abstract indignation and not a whole lot of personal feeling gets stirred up.

Comps are a month away. It's hard to make myself care about that, too. When I think about it I get a little panicky--deeply ingrained performance anxiety reflex. But I find it fairly easy to shove it all away from me. I better snap out of it, because I am woefully underprepared. But I kindof don't care about that, either.

I'm hoping church tonight will wake me up. I have missed like three Sundays in a row, not my fault, just that things interfere. Going to church will be the restoration of normalcy, of involvement, of being present in my own life again. I hope.

6 comments:

TKP said...

Don't forget to run tne GASB t-shirt experiment again. And blog about it.

jch said...

So was it? Church. Did it do what you needed it to do? No pressure. :)

JTB said...

Yeah, there's nothing like another round of "let's solve the problem of evil" to wake up the ol' gray matter.

But really, it was the therapeutic company and the pizza. :)

Anonymous said...

absentee living...no kidding

Join the club. Perhaps it is because we are in grief. I know that's part of it for me. I don't care about anything right now. I don't care that I don't have furniture. I don't care that I'm halfway moved in. I don't care that half the house is still unpainted. I just don't care.

It's a little scary really. I mean, like any good scientist, I've read up on the depression thing and the anxiety thing...and yes, at the moment, that's me.

I miss my dad. I miss my mom. I feel like an orphan.

I think that's it. So, Jen...looks like we have to wait it out. Me, as I prepare lesson plans that I have no enthusiasm to teach, and you, as you learn things you have no enthusiasm to learn.

I pray everyday for God to rescue me...and you. And I believe He will. I just wish He'd hurry up.

JTB said...

You know, I finally realized how much sense it makes to pray to saints. Maybe that sounds random, but I've found myself talking to Grandpa as I pray recently. Just a little. Just an acknowledgment, a hey-how-ya-doin', a little bit of hope-you're-looking-down-here-and-feeling-good-about-us-as-we-go-about-our-business type thing, a bit of an apology for being so far away all the time. Maybe it's silly, but I just realized for the first time how much sense it makes, when you really take seriously that God does sustain life after death, and people don't just disappear. Maybe Grandpa's up there getting a kick out of me calling him a saint. But then again, maybe saints don't monitor the internet all that closely.

Just let Daddy take care of you (and don't forget to eat). Everything else will take of itself. Love you,

your "strong-willed child"

TKP said...

To Jen's mom:

I think it's sweeeeeet that you like Napolean Dynamite. You must be a good mom.