i lie for only you and i lie well

This past weekend has been a smashing of horrible horrible things and amazing wonderful things.  The great things have been amazing, and the bad things have been… well, horrible.  I haven’t done play by play entries like this for a while, but I feel like this needs to be one of them.  

I was supposed to go car shopping on Friday or Saturday.  Except I ended up sleeping or curled up in a ball of pain from my period.  I don’t often get bad cramps, but when they are bad… oh man alive.  It feels like the kindest thing to do would be pull out a shotgun and put me out of my misery.  On top of that, I wasn’t in a great mood.  So what did I do?  Stayed home and slept when I could.  On an air mattress that was going flat every 5 minutes.  Saturday night work was pretty decent.  No craziness, although I was nearly late, it was pouring and the gateway where I usually park my car was full of incoming guests.  Work, thankfully has been pretty decent for the most part.  That has been a huge blessing.  I exchanged a few messages with Nathan on FB during the work hours.  He was at Justin’s wedding and kind of gave me a hard time for not being able to be there.  I got pretty upset because of course I wanted to be there.  He then sent me a really sweet message saying that it was an amazing weekend, but he definitely missed me.  Made me cry a little – pain wrapped in sweetness.

Sunday morning when I got off of work, I went straight to church after picking up a few things from my apartment.  I worked at church for about an hour and then pre-service choir started.  The choir is sounding amazing this year.  We have a decent spread for the voices, and I’m learning better warm-ups and ways to speak to them to help them sing better.  What people sometimes forget is that I am not trained vocally at all.  Okay, I had chorus in high school and I’ve been singing my whole life.  But not really any proper training.  Certainly not enough to make me feel certified to lead a choir.  I do okay, but someone with training would get such a better result.  Anyways, they did really well.  We’ve now had two weeks with the choir sounding amazing.  Which is both a great way and a terrible way to start off the season.  Its a strong start, but I worry that we have no place to go but down!  Ah, well.  They are just sounding so great and that was definitely a lift for my spirits.  But I was pretty upset before the service started.  I didn’t want to be in Michigan.  I wanted to be in DC with my friends.  And no one seemed to care or notice that I was hurting.  Except Laura DH.  She’s a great one for driving right through the bullshit and asking what’s wrong.   She could definitely tell I was upset.  Yet, she was the only one.  No one else asked or seemed to care.

What hurts the most about that is I had told them that John had passed away and that I was not dealing well with the inability to go home and be with friends.  The same thing kind of happened when Gleich died.  I said something.  I didn’t just hide it away or ignore it or put up a brave face.  I said something.  I was looking for comfort or help or even just acknowledgement of my pain.  I got nothing.  Laura DH was the only one who said something.  Outside of choir, I didn’t tell many people.  But I did tell Jacki and I know she told Kevin.  They both checked in with me.  No one else.  Nothing.  People talk about how supportive and wonderful and perfect this church is, and I feel like I’m living in a different church.  Not always, but sometimes.  Times like these.  When I’m really hurting and need distraction or comfort or… just acknowledgement that I’m hurting and they are there for me.

The service… the service was amazing.  The new hymn went amazing and I really want to use it again soon.  In a perfect world, I’d use it again next week, but… that won’t happen.  But the anthem was great and the sermon was fantastic and…  it was just wonderful and exactly what I needed at that moment.  The pastor preached on David and Goliath.  The story about the little boy defeating the big, bad giant.  But his sermon was fresh and a new perspective on it.  It addressed an issue that I struggle with constantly.  If I believe in an all-powerful, almighty God than I believe that he can do anything.  Nothing about this world can stop him.  The "realistic" world view is not a reformed worldview.  Even if realistically, I can’t do something – I believe that through God it can be done.  This is not the same as saying it WILL be done.  But the possibilities for God’s power is endless.  I’m struggling with the concept of making Michigan my home, my sanctuary.  I often feel that "realistically" that will never be possible.  I have old, deep, amazing friends in NY.  I have wonderful memories in NY and love that land and what it all stands for and means.  I think that "realistically" I could never feel something similar for Michigan.  I’m not looking for the same feeling, because I lived for over 25 years in NY.  And that aspect will be different.  But to love this place, and feel safe, secure and comfortable here.  I often don’t think its possible.  But through God, it could be.  In an amazing twist of fate, I had been considering the possibility of returning to school, returning to seminary.  Not tomorrow, and not all-at-once immediately, but maybe someday.  But something in the back of my mind said "Thats not really realistic. What about paying for it?  What about how much you hate the institution and so much of what it stands for and does?"  And thats true.  I have no idea how I would pay for it.  And my struggles with the school and this area are still present and real.  Its incredibly complicated.  And "realistically" I probably shouldn’t be thinking about it.  Except in my reality, God can do anything.  He can provide a way, financially, spiritually and mentally.  I absolutely do believe he could do it.  I don’t know if he will, and I’m not saying that I’m ready to actively pursue the idea.  But I’m no longer writing the whole concept off, because "realistically" its a bad idea.  As I said, the service was amazing and just what I needed that morning.

The town hall after the service went well and I loved meeting the prospective pastor and his wife.  I was talking to Manny, and was easily able to sum up why I am over the wall excited about him possibly coming to our church.  He’s not a Michigander, and he’s not Dutch.  There are other things I like about him too, but its that mindset that I am excited about working with.  I really really hope he gets the call from our church.  I honestly do not know what will happen if he doesn’t.  I liked the other guy fine, and I’m sure I’ll be able to work with him just fine.  But he’s Michigan Dutch.  That there just says so much that I cannot otherwise explain.
<br />
I called my mother… or perhaps she called me, I don’t remember.  We talked much longer than we should have, but I really needed that conversation.  I’m very, very scared about my car breaking down before I can get a new car.  It is stressing me out in a way that I cannot explain.  I need another month of working at the hotel before I’d actually be ready financially to purchase a new car, without asking for assistance from my parents.  And I really do not want to do that.  I know that I can ask, and I know that I have $1000 from my grandmother.  But I just…  I don’t want to ask them for help.  I desperately want to do this on my own, and in a month’s time I absolutely could.  But I also talked to her about missing Justin’s wedding and needing to be around those guys this weekend.  I also kind of mentioned how upset I was that no one at church really understood or even seemed to care.  We should have hung up sooner, but I needed that conversation desperately.  So I ended up only sleeping for about an hour before I had to get up and go to church for the evening service.  The service went fine, but it did not have that…. thing that the morning service did.  The sermon pissed me off because it made me feel that since I am single I am not a whole person yet.  I’m not a real grown-up and could not understand what it means to miss people because I do not have children.  This entire month, I cannot think of a single sermon where he hasn’t mentioned being a parent as a "grown-up" thing.  This entire month, I cannot think of a single sermon where he hasn’t pissed me off, and there are angry remarks in my sermon notes.  I’m trying to remember that part of the "thing" from the morning service was the Spirit moving, and not something you can plan for or push into a service.  That part of the service is out of my control, and I don’t want that kind of control.  But even still.  Those services are flat and annoying and just piss me off.  Especially with the stark contrast of working with two other pastors.

After church, I got a "talking to" from the pastor because he still had not received next week’s service.  Which pisses me off because I’ve promised to have them done by Monday morning.  Sometimes I am fortunate enough to get them done sooner, but sometimes that does not happen.  It was not yet Monday morning, and the service was actually done.  I really, really wanted to tell him to go shove it up his married ass.  I kinda of blew him off instead.  He thinks he doesn’t know when I know he’s upset.  Except he has a dead give-away.  He thrusts his chin up and forward.  I picked up on it after watching a "Lie to Me" episode.  They call it a micro-expression.  I don’t know how much of that science is made-up and how much is real.  But after thinking about it, and now watching for it, I know its true for at least the pastor.  It pisses me off to no end.

I went home and could not get to sleep no matter how hard I tried.  I finally dozed off for about an hour before I had to go back into work.  I needed food so I left the apartment early and stopped at the nearby McDonald’s.  So healthy, I know, but I wanted the sweet tea.  From the time I placed my order to the time I got my drink, twenty minutes passed.  No joke.  It took 20 minutes for that line to move forward.  So that stressed me out like no other, because then I was almost late into work.  I barely made it under the wire.  It wasn’t a big deal, and it worked out okay, but it still annoyed me.  Work, again, was quiet and stress-free.  Stephanie, the other auditor, called and we talked about a couple of things which made me feel a bit better.  We also switched shifts for this week.  So I’m working tonight, and she’ll work Thursday.  Its excellent because it means I’ll have Wednesday, Thursday and Friday off before working overnight on Saturday.  And we talked about how we would both rather work our overnights straight in a row rather than stretched out with a random night off.  So tomorrow at the staff meeting (or after or before) we’re going to bring it up to Rebecca.  Hopefully that will end some of that nonsense.

I went home and tried to crash.  But I was so bone-weary, I could not get to sleep.  I was stressing about having to wake up in time for my church office hours and trying to track down information for next Sunday’s service (long, complicated story) and stressed out about the car and hurting for being awake for so long…  It was really really rough.  I think it was close to 10am when I finally drifted off.  I didn’t wake up until 9:45, nearly 6 hours oversleeping.  I was supposed to have gone into church at 4pm and done work.  I think it was my body’s way of saying "Screw that idea, you need sleep like you cannot imagine."  I do feel physically a lot better tonight, but again I’m stressed because I’m going to get in trouble for not showing up to church.

The pastor is going to use the "if this were any other job, you’d be fired" reasoning.  Last time I didn’t show up, there had been a family emergency and I had to go to Detroit.  I emailed and called, but somehow nothing went through.  Fine.  My issue became that no one called me to see if I was okay.  No one showed up at my door (though I wasn’t home) to see if I was alive.  If this were any other job, I would have gotten a few phone calls at least.  "Where are you?  Are you okay?  Are you still planning on working?  What happened?"  Even if those phone calls had been angry or upset, at least that would have happened.  I was under the assumption last time that everything was okay.  When I did get back to church, everyone was pissed off at me.  Which I understand, but they ignored the fact that I had been dealing with a crisis.  If I had called into the hotel and told someone that there had been an emergency and I couldn’t get into work, I would have expected there to be anger and frustration at needing to cover the hourly work.  But if the message hadn’t gotten through somehow, a phone call could have solved it.  Last time with the church, they seethed for three days without calling me.  And yesterday?  No phone call.  I’m not saying that it is there place to wake me up or run my life, but if they had called or stopped by and knocked on the door, I might have actually woken up and explained that I had 2 hours of sleep over a 48-hour period and had sadly overslept.  Not to mention the mental gymnastics I had been dealing with as well.  What if I had been dead?  What if I had tried to kill myself?  What if I had gotten into an accident and was lying in the hospital?  And this is the church that is supposed to care.  They only care as long as I’m doing my job.  As long as I’m useful.  Otherwise, I’m fucking out of luck.

Don’t get me wrong.  I do feel horrible about oversleeping.  And I am angry at myself for doing so.  And they have the right to be angry that I overslept.  I understand all that.  Another part of my frustration is that who the fuck cares if I go into work Monday or Tuesday!?  This past week it mattered, a little.  But many times it doesn’t make a difference.  There are not things that HAVE to be done during those time periods.  Its a salaried job based on how much I should be working a week.  But I shouldn’t have set office hours.  And when shit happens, there should be wiggle room.  To come in at a different time or to do the work at home.  I’m going to do work here tonight, and tomorrow morning instead of going home and going to bed, I’m going to go straight to church.  I’ll make it up, and it won’t matter.  But they will be pissed and so incredibly angry that I was not in the office at this particular time.  Go the fuck away.  Its micro-managing that doesn’t need to be done.

So all that makes me very stressed and angry.  At my 6-month review at the church, the overall consensus was that everything was going very well.  The end results were great and people were pleased.  They had two major complaints.  The choir wanted warm-ups and more time with the music.  Which I know I need to work on.  I pick up music very, very quickly and I need to remember that not everyone does.  I need to keep better balance of learning new anthems and having enough time to learn them.  And the warm-ups I’m getting much better at.  As I said earlier, I do not have choral conducting training.  So I’m flying by the seat of my pants.  The other complaint has been my office hours.  Not the timing for receiving service layouts.  Not the turnarounds.  Not the services themselves.  But my office hours.  The pastor claimed that over the summer I had been late every day.  That one week with the problem in Detroit I was aware of.  But other other days?  I was late once because I overslept and once because I forgot something at home.  Both times, I called the office to let them know.  As for the other days, I have no idea what he was talking about.  I didn’t argue with him because I have not been keeping track, and I don’t have records.  So I don’t know if he’s docking me for being 5 minutes late or whatever the fuck his problem is.  But seriously?  Its not a shift.  Its not an hourly paying job.  I don’t clock in and out and get paid for every minute of my time.  If I did, I wouldn’t need to work an extra job to be honest.  But I don’t "charge" them for all my extra hours.  Its a salaried job and I get my work done.

Okay – End of ranting about this.  It is what it is and he’s never going to change.  As he nears retirement, he gets more and more controlling.  Although I’m starting to feel like they should just go ahead and fire me if thats what they want to do.  I care for individuals at that church, but as far as a whole – the church breaks my heart and flat-out hurts me more than anything else in my life.  So if they want to fire me, I’m really not sure I’ll be all that upset.

I called Manny on my way into work and we chatted about Drive (which was mind-blowingly amazing) and other things I’ve downloaded and watched recently.  I also told him about the pastors and frustrations about oversleeping.  His response was that since I overslept by nearly 6 hours, my body probably desperately needed the sleep and it was monumentally better that I slept than went into work and didn’t do anything because I was so tired.  He also knows that when I’m tired, I have a harder time hiding my displeasure or just being basically nice.  He knows how frustrated I am with the pastor right now, and surmised that I could have gotten into a huge fight and said many things I didn’t mean.  At one point during our conversation, my mother called.  She usually texts me good night, but it was late and she had just gotten out of a meeting so she called.  I thought something was wrong because it was so late, so I answered.  When I got back with Manny, I explained why she called and he laughed but jokingly said "Night times are my times.  She gets the drive home, I get the drive into work."  He was half-joking and half-right.  And it made me feel happy and then a bit upset.  Not upset, maybe more uncomfortable.  I call him nearly every overnight I work.  When I don’t call him, he usually texts me to make sure I’m okay – as does my mom in the morning.  And I love our short twenty minute conversations each night (and morning for my mom.)  But there’s something extremely wrong with the fact that the people who love and care enough about me to make sure I get to and from work safely are in New York and not here.  Other than if I were to not show up at the hotel, I wouldn’t get a phone call from anyone here.  I’m not blaming the hotel staff.  I’m not particularly close with any of them, and while I like them fine enough… I’m just not wild about them.  Which is fine.  But the contrast of people who love and care for me, as opposed to those who don’t give a flying fuck?  It just upsets me.

On another level, I’m back to desperately wishing that Manny and I could have worked out.  I know there are many reasons why we won’t, at least not now and probably not ever.  (The whole "realistic" point of view vs. the "reformed" point of view).  I don’t even want to go down that path with him.  Its not like that.  But… We are just so good together when things are good.  And lately, even when we’ve had arguments, they’ve been… normal?  They haven’t been knockdown drag-out fights.  They’ve been discussions of the problems in our friendship.  I feel like we’ve reached a whole new level of relationship this past year.  There’s a maturity to the way we deal with each other and respond to each other.  Sadly, I know that level of maturity and those abilities came at a very high cost.  But watching other relationships, even marriages, I realise how lucky I am… or how lucky I could be.  Its a strange feeling.  I don’t want to get back together with Manny.  Its not that we have issues, its that there are reasons we cannot work out right now.  And I’m really, really at peace with that.  But I long for the relationship that we have now to be with someone else, for both of us.  We know each other so well, and we care so deeply for each other.  

I know that our relationship would be different if he were a girl.  Because our connection to each other is based on male-female interactions.  And I’ve tried to find someone to talk to about this.  Because I don’t know what is going to happen if either of us finds someone.  I need to try to explain this out, because I have no one to talk to about it.  Megan is one of my closest friends.  If a boyfriend were to tell me to pick between her and him, he would lose so fast his head would spin.  I know, I know, the right man for me won’t ask that.  But she’s another female.  Manny is, well, a man!  But he is my other closest friend.  Andif a boyfriend told me it was Manny or him, it would be more complicated.  Manny and I have a relationship like nothing else I’ve ever seen in reality or fiction.  I love him very very much.  But I don’t want to be with him.  I don’t want to date him or marry him or have his children.  Except.  There was a time when I did want all that with him.  I did want to marry him and have his children and build a life together with him.  There was a time when we both wanted that!  I never wanted that with Megan.  Yes, I wish we could live in the same town and raise our kids together.  But the love I have for Megan is vastly different from the love I have for Manny.  And a large part of that is because he is male and we were once involved.

If a boyfriend were to tell me he was jealous of Manny, I would understand why.  If a boyfriend were to be jealous of Megan, I’d be concerned about a whole other sort of issues.  But I can understand jealousy towards Manny.  I know that Tim was jealous of Manny.  But that was long before Manny and I went through the hardest, fiercest parts of our relationship.  Mike never said he was jealous of Manny, and he never acted like it.  But the relationship Mike and I had was very different.  We did not want to get married and have kids and build a life together.  That was never part of our dating.  The same with my other loves/boyfriends.  For various reasons, the relationships never progressed to that point for both of us.  I dreamed about marrying Rob, but it was not something we ever talked about or both planned for.  And I’m just concerned for the day when either of us finds someone.  Honestly, more for me than Manny.  Because he’ll be able to deal with it very differently than I will.  Maybe I’m wrong about that.  But I don’t think he worries about it the way I do right now anyways, because he hasn’t found someone else yet.  And thats good that he doesn’t worry.  But I worry that any relationship I try to build with someone else will be negatively impacted because of my relationship with Manny.  And if I’m asked to choose between a boyfriend and Manny…  there is just no quick and easy answer.  I know the answer to Boyfriend vs. Megan, but I know it might not be easy and it could hurt like hell.  But I know the answer to that.  No boyfriend is going to tell me that I cannot have a relationship with Megan.  That will just not fly.  But Boyfriend vs. Manny?  Its so much more incredibly complicated.  Most people are not still friends with their ex’s.  And if they are still friends, they are not best of friends.  They are not like Manny and I.  I just don’t know what I would do.

Although I know right now, I need to get back to work.  And watching Star Wars!

We saw the western coast
I saw the hospital
Nursed the shoreline like a wound
Reports of lover’s tryst
Were neither clear nor descript
We kept it safe and slow
The quiet things that no one ever knows

So keep the blood in your head
And keep your feet on the ground
If today’s the day it gets tired
Today’s the day we drop out
Gave up my body and bed
All for an empty hotel
Wasting words on lower cases and capitals

I contemplate the day we wed
Your friends are boring me to death
Your veil is ruined in the rain
By then it’s you I can do without
There’s nothing new to talk about
And though our kids are blessed
Their parents let them shoulder all the blame

So keep the blood in your head
And keep your feet on the ground
If today’s the day it gets tired
Today’s the day we drop out
Gave up my body and bed
All for an empty hotel
Wasting words on lower cases and capitals

I lie for only you
And I lie well…
Hallelu…

So keep the blood in your head
And keep your feet on the ground
Today’s the day it gets tired
Today’s the day we drop out
Gave up my body and bed
All for an empty hotel
Wasting words on lower cases and capitals 

The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows ~ Brand New