I spent several hours this morning cleaning the house. Upstairs and downstairs. I was pleased with my accomplishments.
I performed my morning routine (shower, brush teeth, change of clothes, breakfast, medications and so on) without issues. (I know, this is simple stuff, but for some reason, doing my morning routine feels like pulling my teeth out – ask me to fix your computer or discuss a theological topic – I’m there…but brushing my teeth? The AGONY! Okay, it isn’t quite that bad, but you get the idea)
I’ve been eating my healthy breakfast of Shakeology – which takes me probably 15 minutes to setup, consume, and cleanup each day. This is over my usual allowance for food preparation, but I am really trying to be healthier…so I’m making the sacrifice.
I spent several hours cleaning the house. Sometimes I hate cats. I feel like I’d only need to clean the house once a year if they weren’t here. They shed hair, break off their nails, barf, track litter, move things around, and so on every moment of every day. When I was finished I was satisfied with what I had accomplished.
I went for a reading walk (that is where I take a book and walk up and down my dead-end street, hopefully hearing cars that want to go around me before they get annoyed by this oblivious wanderer). That is good.
Tonight I will go to Nomads for Operation Christmas Child. I’m excited about that.
But right now I feel overwhelmed. I have some emails I should respond to – quick and fairly easy ones…I have some consulting work I could do…and I have some finances to organize – but each of these tasks feels like death, feels overwhelming. I don’t know why. Some days I can do them without a second thought, other days I feel like I’m walking through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
This is one of my biggest “regular life” (not going through anything) challenges. I do some things b/c I have to. People wouldn’t want to be around me if I didn’t shower and brush my teeth and change my clothes – so I do. But there are other things which drop through the cracks.
Emails. Facebook Messages. Phone Calls. Paperwork.
I remember a missionary friend talking to me one time about how he sat down with a counselor to organize his desk and work through all the papers that were on it and how it literally drove him to tears trying to decide what action to take on each item. I feel like that sometimes. And once he got it cleaned off it immediately began piling back up – he couldn’t sustain it. I feel like that.