No news is good news. . .

So it’s been a while since I’ve felt like blogging. Alot of it is that I just have so much going on, it’s hard to justify the time right now. We’ve been trying to get me a full-time job to alleviate some of the debt. It’s a hard time coming in this economically depressed area. It doesn’t help that I’m looking in education and academia which is infamous for taking decades to hire anyone. Hopefully by late spring I’ll have a secure position. Cross your fingers for me.

Doodlebug is just over 9 months now. She’s got 6 teeth (4 on top, 2 on the bottom) and she’s so not afraid to use them. Yep, fun fun. I love the stage she’s at though right now. She’s scooting around but unable to walk without support yet. Her smile lights up my world, and she truly brings me joy and happiness.

Day care has gotten better for her. It used to kill me to drop her off because she’d scream and scream as I left. Now she’s getting more used to it, and I think she enjoys playing with the other kids. I watched her play peek-a-boo with another baby through this kitchenette window and it was adorable. It’s so fun to see her growing up.

The meds are working. I’ve definitely mellowed out. No more scary thoughts or demons all over the place. The hardest thing is that I get carsick when Dear Husband drives. I’m either hot or cold in the car and I can’t handle not being in control of the car around the curves and at high speeds. The doctor says this is normal, and it’s getting a little better slowly over time. I haven’t felt like retching lately while he drives which is definitely an improvement.

My calling is heating up. I tell you there’s no lack of drama out here. It’s so hard because as a teacher in the ghetto, I dealt with crap all of the time. I saw horrid parents who let TV or the streets raise their children for them. It pains me to see the same thing here. Yet I can’t really fault them, as their childhood was no better. The thing that I try to remember is that you just have to teach the doctrine and let people govern themselves. Hopefully they’ll choose the right, but they have to make the choices and consequently they have to face the results of their actions. It’s hard to watch, but it’s giving me a greater opportunity to get to know my Father in Heaven as I know He deals with this eternally.

And you thought I was insane. . .

But we all know I’m not

So tonight we had the ward’s Night in Bethlehem. We all dressed up, and the cultural hall really looked like the shoppes of Bethlehem. Each person received a baggie of gold coins, and food was abundant. It was gorgeous and so spiritual. We read the Christmas story aloud, and then a few sisters sang Christmas songs. I felt the spirit so strongly. I should’ve left quickly.

But I thought I’d help clean up while my husband changed the baby. That was my detriment.

Two fights break out– one YW smacks the other across the face and shoves her into the wall. Another sister is ready to kill the activities chair, because she believes that her non-member family left early due to offense from the activities chair.  This is the same woman who has borne her testimony proclaiming her indiscretions which are so egregarious that I hesitate to type them, as it would remove any sort of anonymity.

My husband helped calm down the woman, while I helped with the YW situation. I’m good at this. I can mediate teenage conflicts with the best of them. And then the mothers try to jump in. Why?? It’s so insane.

I’ll never understand why people can’t treat others the way they want to be treated. If we all did that, I really think peace would exist on the earth. That’s the reason these two fights started. One of the mother’s that wanted to jump in, is the same woman asking us to believe her incredulous story that is continually contradicted by the local newspaper and police blotters. Yet she’s trying to trash one of the YW.

I’ll never understand.

Hard to love life. . .

I know this blog must seem depressing as hell. It’s my life. It’s my outlet. If you want to read it, so be it, but it’s not written for the audience. It’s written because I need a place to let it all, lest it all stays bottled up inside.

So I just got back from visiting teaching. Had a good time. I love my companion; she’s great. The sisters we teach are sweet, and real people. None of them know my struggles. My companion knows of some of the RS struggles I’ve had. She’s the Stake RS President and I’m the ward RS President.

I’ve grown to love the calling and hate it immensely all at once. I used to be social. I used to love ward activities, where I could have fun with the other members. Now I dread them. The activities committee is weak at best, so everyone is literally picking up the slack at the last minute, and things are not well run. I don’t feel like I have any friends— no one who cares about me, as a person. They only care to come to me to complain about something for RS. People I thought were my friends, truly aren’t. It’s simply a business relationship.

I don’t know what it is. I don’t know what chemical I’m emitting, or what has changed, because it definitely wasn’t this way in NY. In fact, most of the time people couldn’t tell you for the life of them what my calling was. Normally it was so insignificant that it didn’t matter. But now that I’m RS President, it’s the spotlight. I feel more under the magnifying glass than ever.

And I don’t measure up. Truly I don’t care about that. I could care less what the Joneses are doing in their home. I could care less if my clothes measure up with Sister So-and-So’s. I could care less if my daughter has all 10 of the hottest toys of the season. None of that matters.

What matters is my relationship with my Savior, and how I am serving Him. I’ve been asked to serve in this calling, so I do. I’m going all out trying to make nice little Christmas things for 65 sisters. They won’t all get done before Christmas, but I’m trying. I’m trying to visit each sister in her home, and get to know her personally. I’m trying to let her feel the Lord’s love through me.

Yet I’ve never felt more alone in my life. I’ve never felt like there is anyone to comfort me. I have a fabulously wonderful husband, and a gorgeous child. I don’t know what else I am looking for. Even my sister has greatly disappointed me this week. It sucks, but it’s life. I guess I just thought that it should be better. Maybe if I lower my standards, maybe I’ll be happy. Someday.

Sunday should be a day of rest, no?

I wake up to my daughter, Doodlebug, trying to find my nipple. She’s pawing at my shirt, trying to get her early morning meal. My husband awakes, jumps out of bed like a Tigger in motion. He’s on his way to an early Bishopric meeting. I’m left to care for Doodlebug.

Church starts at 9:30, and I barely make it. I only went out of obligation–I told my secretary I would print out the forms she needed today. After stopping two times due to Doodebug’s bloody-murder screaming, I pull into the driveway. Life doesn’t end when she doesn’t have a toy, but she sure thinks it does.

We’re sitting in church, trying to worship. During the first song, Dear Husband leans over and informs me that our friends (a family of 5) will be coming to dinner tonight. We didn’t plan on this. Heck, I didn’t even go grocery shopping this week, since Doodlebug was screaming then too. We’ve got the obligatory LDS food storage, well, at least 2 or 3 months of it, but I couldn’t figure out what to make to appease my husband’s food issues and our friends uber-picky kids.

Stress is building, but I’m trying to feel the Spirit. I’m trying to enjoy the experience of church. The past few months it’s been hard though. I’m a newlywed, new mom, new Relief Society President in a small ward with a whole lot of perfect people. Or at least everyone thinks everyone else is perfect.

Maybe that’s why no one calls or visits– it’s the risk of showing that you’re not perfect, and well, we can’t have that, can we?

I lost it today in church though. After numerous complaints about new visiting teaching assignments, and the destruction of 4 hours of my work on a board I made to help the sisters, I’d had it. What happened to going to church to worship? How can you worship when you have all of this chaos, commotion and crap going on? I know my thoughts were nothing godlike at that moment.

So I retreated to the car to bawl. And bawl I did. For two hours. I left church early, told my sister (my counselor) to excuse me because “I wasn’t feeling well.”

I wonder how many others weren’t feeling well today.