Home Alone


I used to think I was an introvert. I tended to bottle up emotions, was a bit of a loner at school, never had big parties or got asked out. (I still never get asked out, although I am pretty sure this guy was hitting on me last night at Century Ballroom.) Anyway, I have found the last few years as God has worked some healing in my heart that I am actually an extrovert. In my natural state, I wear my emotions on my shirtsleeve, love to talk with people, and have fun at parties (as long as I don't have an anxiety attack!).

That being said, I am finding solitude is not my favorite situation. Perhaps this is why I live at home with my grandma, parents, four brothers, and the dog. While this can lead to a lot of craziness, it's actually a ton of fun. There is always someone to talk to, and when I come home, there are people to welcome me. But this week my entire family has taken off to visit relatives in Iowa, leaving me here with the dog. The dog is insane, but she doesn't yet talk to me, so I'm pretty much alone.

This same trip happened a few years ago, but that was under very different circumstances. I was in college, working nights, taking summer classes, and generally overworked and underslept. I was also in a rather depressed time of life, so coming home to an empty house every day and immediately curling up in a bed seemed perfectly natural. Nowadays, the empty house is still depressing, but I no longer wish to live in that permanent fetal position.

So I'm happy that my dad is flying back on Tuesday, and that I have plans with friends the next few days until then. And I will be ecstatic when the family comes home. Yes, it will bother me when I can't find a quiet place to have a conversation on the phone because my brothers are running around killing each other with lightsabers. And I will still roll my eyes when my mom talks about how I am never home enough and need to come help in the garden. But I will be ever so grateful for my family, for a house full of love and excitement.

The mental energy required to even consider all of these things...


Well, I haven't blogged in a while. I had a good thing going there, blogging every two to three weeks, which in my crazy schedule is pretty consistent. I was blogging on life, community groups, sermons. I even got a couple of comments (so I know that at least two or more people read my blog). Yeah, good stuff.

But I have been absent from the blogging world these past few weeks. And looking at my life over the past month, one can understand why I haven't taken the time to sit at the computer and type:

~Right before my vacation, I was actually helping run four branches at LUBI. Yeah, four. Because apparently my branch is the only one in the area that can hire, train, and retain staff. Okay, I shouldn't be so hard on them, they've been through some hard times, I know. But come on.
~Then I went on vacation, which was glorious. Laid by the pool, took walks on the beach with my best friend, stayed up late drinking wine and watching Wonderfalls (Tenae is always getting me hooked on these great shows that only ran for a season or two). I was way too relaxed to even think about jumping on a computer and typing away.
~Came back from vacation and found out that I still had to help run those other branches, sending staff away and training new staff at my branch. I love the training part of my job, but it is a lot of work, and I was coming home kind of exhausted. That, and I am getting ready for an audit, which anyone who knows me knows is a cause of major stress and worry and panic.
~Got ROBBED at LUBI. Can't share any details, cuz the FBI is on the case, but understandably a traumatizing experience. This was only my second robbery, and the last one happened while I was in the bathroom. Not this one. This was right in front of me. Experienced the longest split-second of my life. Kind of an emotional basketcase for the rest of the week.
~Same day as the "incident" (that's official LUBI jargon for traumatizing robbery) we received the diagnosis for my grandma's anemia and weakness. She has something called MDS, myo-dysplastic something or other. Basically, it leads to leukemia. So, she has to have chemo-like drugs and blood transfusions and who knows what else to try to keep her cells from developing cancer. Cancer is not a word I have ever had to deal with in my family. Alzheimer's, heart disease, diabetes, stroke, all that good stuff. But never cancer.

So my emotional and mental energy has been a little low lately. And now my family is off to Iowa for three weeks to visit the relatives, which leaves me here with the dog (my dad didn't leave right away with the rest because of work, so I have had a few good days of father-daughter time, which has been a huge blessing, but he leaves this week). I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing-I'm kind of an external processor, and it is beneficial for me to come home and have people to talk to, especially my mom, who lets me blabber on about my work stress and then always has a rational-yet-comforting comment. At the same time, maybe I need some quiet, some time with just me and God, a space where I can't hide behind words but have to be real about how I am feeling. Because God knows, knows better than anyone how I am really feeling. Lately I haven't even had the mental energy to figure that out.

Most of my blogs have some good closing paragraph, some well-crafted concluding sentence that makes a point or makes you think (I hope). That's me trying to be a good writer, I suppose. But today, I have no conclusions, no perspective, no deep, profound pontification. Just me, laid open at God's feet.