I adore Nadia Bolz-Weber and almost always appreciate her outlook and wisdom regarding life, the world, and the realities of the human heart. I love her blunt, yet still somehow gentle, approach to living in the world and trying to maintain sanity during insane times. This is an older one, but a friend sent it to me today and as always, it came exactly when I needed it.
I know that the past years have seen me slipping further and further away from being the friend and the support that people are used to, need, expect, and want me to be. I have missed birthdays, messages, important posts, important life events, and have been absent when people needed me most. The truth is that being sick this past year has taken more out of me than I had to give. I try to make it through my work sessions, but even that wipes me out. I don't do phone calls, I don't do texts, I am lucky to get through half of my private messages and then I am done again. I'm spread thin, I am keenly aware of that, and I apologize to each of you. My stack of unsent Christmas cards is still sitting to my right, along with the letters friends have sent that I read, loved, but still have not yet responded to. Birthday gifts that are still unsent from January 2021 through the unsent Christmas gifts of 2021 are still waiting for me to get them wrapped, packaged, and mailed out. There are now large boxes everywhere that have friends' names written on them--the boxes get fuller and fuller as I collect more gifts that I wish to send, yet somehow I can't get that far.
I'm not trying to make excuses, garner sympathy, or any such--each one of us is struggling hard and has been for far too long. I know that. I'm also not pledging to do better in 2022--while I wish that were the case, it isn't fair if I make such a pledge because I cannot yet live up to the expectations of others--I know that. If anything, I will likely be retreating even further from the world as I try to heal myself. I applaud each of you that is still functioning like a well-oiled machine and that is managing to maintain the same level of energy that you had a decade ago--you need to be bottling that stuff and sharing it! For those of you that are struggling to pick yourself up and move forward--I see you. We are living through a timeline that none of us are enjoying and it is exceedingly challenging no matter which side of this great divide you are on. It's ugly out there from every direction that I can see.
At any rate, this was my first time seeing/reading this one. It was exactly what I needed, today--I suspect a few others could benefit from this one, as well--so I am sharing it here. I had a very similar conversation with one of my clients yesterday and realized how much, as I was saying it, that I needed to hear it, too. We are all fighting unseen battles in addition to living through a timeline that none of us want, like, or is enjoying. Take time to refill your own buckets and go lightly when you discover others are trying to get through their own days with empty buckets. We are all struggling--be kind--not only to others, but to yourself, too. Few of us are equipped for the amounts of stress we are carrying.
"I just do not think our psyches were developed to hold, feel and respond to everything coming at them right now; every tragedy, injustice, sorrow and natural disaster happening to every human across the entire planet, in real time every minute of every day. It’s not an issue of values, it’s an issue of MATH.*" SO. MUCH. YES.
If you can't take in anymore, there's a reason an essay on circuit breakers, empty buckets, and the shame-show of social media
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