We kept the house calendar on the refrigerator… the colors meant something. It was what or who or where; red meant that everyone was to attend.
Some days there were two or three things listed. We would coordinate how it would happen that day. We would try to set up times to meet up with friends, or times that our kids could spend time with their friends. It was a constant “I have to check my calendar.”
Then it would happen, the blank day. Nothing listed, nothing obligated for that day. We would look at each other in a panic. “What are we going to do?” We would contact our friends to see if they were available just so we had something to fill in on that date. We didn’t want to be that couple that has nothing to do for just one night. The anxiety it created….
I was coaching my sons baseball team. I had all the families over for a meet and great before the season started. This was select baseball and I was going to be with these families for a few years. My daughter who became interested in gymnastics decided she was going to take a session off. I was talking with one of the mothers who gushed about how busy their family was. Like it was a race and they were winning. She said her daughter was busy with gymnastics, and dance and soccer. She then asked what my daughter participated in. I looked at her and said, “nothing.” The look, the crooked smile I got. Inside her head she was thinking they had won. We were another family that was losing to them. But what was the game? I had to stumble with my words and explanation, that she had been doing it for years and wanted to take a break this session.
Stripping away….
The truth is the process had already started. I didn’t feel grounded, I lost something. I would pray at night that I would find “it”, but I didn’t know what it was. The moral compass was pointed in the wrong direction. Things that I thought were important were not, and things that should have been were removed from my life.
Site Title 