The last year has been very eventful and not in what I would call a positive way. It has been hard and tiring, wearing me down at times to a point where I don't think I can recover, but somehow I manage with God's grace. It has not been a particularly happy year, more of a year of resignation to whatever comes along and remain moving forward almost automatically. Time has been drawn out but the days have sped by, blurring from one to the other.
At this time, right now, everything that should be a positive thing, isn't, and it presses down hard on the soul and grinds the body and mind, seemingly crushing any will that might be left to keep going. Admittedly I am in a very difficult part of my life. Work is oppressive and my only bit of joy is in the patients themselves. I still don't have a car or truck to call my own. I am in the debt of people I once felt close to because they are allowing me to borrow a family member's car, but the pressure is on to return it and I feel that acutely. Physical pain is daily, sometimes better, sometimes worse, but physical therapy continues every week. My personal life is in reverse...being friends after being something more is difficult but I will stay the course because we can't seem to not be an integral part of each other's lives now. That's ok...it will somehow be ok, though at times it is hard to see forward, this person is a good person; it's just the way life goes. Mentally and emotionally I am drained and very, very tired. Sleep does not come easily but it eventually comes for a little while.
Walking apart from my parish church is necessary but devastating in many ways. I don't have that fellowship of spirit or community, and will embark on visiting for the next several months the UCC in Ashland and also the First Methodist Church there, alternating between them and visiting Trinity at least once a month to reconnect with people there. The dissolution of what I used to know as a ministry that brought joy and purpose is painful. The way decisions are being made there now is not how it used to be, fair and involved all concerned. Instead arbitrary decisions are made by a few and applied to all in the ministry I was involved in, that of the Lay Eucharistic Ministers, those who served the altar and carried the Gospel...that's gone now. I cannot abide such covert, destructive change. It is so very unnecessary and has driven me to seek new community and solace elsewhere.
So that is the state of this blogger...I find little to inspire me these days with all the unrest and natural devastation...yes there are those who have it worse off, or so it seems but this is my reality, and my pain is no less than anyone else's who is in a difficult place. No pity party here, just the facts as they are, and this explains why I have not written or posted. I don't know the future of this blog...I'm still thinking about whether it is time to be over, having served it's purpose of a kind of outreach to my larger community. And since I am no longer really active in that community, perhaps it is time to leave this endeavor and begin a different one. Time will tell...thank you all for your past and current support and care.
Catherine
