an early celebration

i've been accused before of not putting enough emotion into my postings - that i give a good blow by blow of the day, but never really delve any deeper into the events. so let me show you why that's a bad idea for me....

today started with a hangover from the night before. not from alcohol, but from a wave of melancholy that hit me last night. the most likely culprit? bowling. no, i'm not kidding. i know i'm not a great bowler. i'm probably below average. yet every time i go bowling, i go expecting to do well. sometimes it works. not last night. i was bad. only broke 100 once and that in the final game. i couldn't seem to find a groove. my first ball was too heavy, my second had holes that were too small, blah blah blah. now intellectually i knew it wasn't a big deal - even though it's a league, the teams involved were in it to have fun more than to practice for the PBA. but the longer the night went on, the worse i felt because i sucked. a lot. and i started to feel bad, even though no one else really thought anything about it. it's my own perfectionism. i tried to put on a good face but was completely unsuccessful. which made everyone else uncomfortable because they could see i wasn't having the best of times. which made me feel worse because not only was i sucking at bowling, i was sucking all the joy out of the evening.

usually when i'm feeling like this, it's best if i just get away from people until it passes. but it wasn't a possibility last night. and then - and here's where my need for deep psychological analysis comes in - i began to generalize and believe since i couldn't bowl and couldn't have a good time then obviously i couldn't do anything right. i was a horrible human being, i was a horrible christian, i was a horrible friend and a horrible teacher and ... you name it, i couldn't do it. i got home after the evening ended drunk on my low self-esteem. which led to the hangover this morning.

when the alarm went off, announcing it was time to go to the national board orientation, i felt even worse than i did when i went to bed. i took a lukewarm shower (did i mention my hot water heater is giving me fits?), threw on some clothes and went to meet kristin at the starbucks parking lot, where i discovered the jeans i had thrown on looked like i had been gardening in them. great. then i sat through the orientation and the more the leader talked, the more i became convinced not only was i not good enough to become board certified, i wasn't even good enough to continue teaching. everyone else was there for the right reason - to become a better teacher, to challenge themselves, to help their students. me, i was there for the money. the state of ohio gives a stipend to board certified teachers which mason city school matches, which means more money in my pocket at the end of the day. by the end i had stopped paying attention, assuming i obviously been fooling myself to think i could or should be board certified. kristin and rachel were excited, but i barely could look at myself and think about facing my students on monday, much less going through the process to get certified.

i scribbled this on my paper: lamest. teacher. ever.

can you see the problem? something as small as having a bad night bowling had spiraled into me believing i should abandon my profession and find something i was more suited for, like asking people if they would like fries with that. completely illogical and unreasonable and it doesn't matter because it's how i felt and it wouldn't matter what people said, i would only see everything through the negative lens. it was so bad, i toyed with calling brent and telling him sorry, i couldn't join him to visit bethany up in columbus today because i knew i would be poor, poor company in my current state.

boy am i glad i didn't do that.

after getting a late start because the meeting ran the whole 2 1/2 hours (kurt had led us to believe it would only take an hour or so), and because i had to run home and change jeans, i finally made it to the grove city steak and shake and met brent. since his car was full of stuff, we took mine and drove to bethany's house which is literally out in the middle of nowhere. with all the urban sprawl around grove city, i guess you have to go that far to feel like you're living in the country. anyway, after a brief bout of doubt that we were actually going the right way, we found ourselves at the house. so we walked to the door and bethany and andy met us at the door. we said our hellos and then walked into the kitchen, where my friends steve and angela were standing. and my first thought was, "wow, i didn't know steve and angela knew bethany and andy." and my second thought was, "i guess brent must have invited them down to join us for the afternoon." and then everyone stopped and looked at me and said....

surprise!

boy was it. turns out the whole visiting bethany thing was a cover for a surprise party in honor of my birthday. worked really, really well since even after they said surprise, i had no idea what was going on. but it sank in eventually, especially when they pulled out the gift bags and the sherbet punch. there were only a handful of us - brent and me, andy and bethany and their three kids, steve and angela and nikki from school and her boyfriend jay - but it quickly made me forget the negativity of the past 20 hours and reminded me i am incredibly blessed. after an afternoon of punch and cookies and appetizers and soup and salad and sandwiches (sorry, no lent today!) and cranium and laughter and cake and ice cream and wii and scene it, the worst was over. i felt human again.

i wish i knew what caused these bouts of extreme melancholy, where i can't see beyond the darkness of my own inner navel gazing. i wish i knew how to break out of them without having to rely on surprise birthday parties and unexpected emails from friends. like i said, it's not a brain thing - it's a feeling thing. and those are so much harder to deal with sometimes.

ok, way past my bedtime. via crucis starts tomorrow and i need to be well rested. here's to a truly holy holy week.
Æ

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Now playing: Stryper - Passion (one of my birthday presents, thanks to the balls)
via FoxyTunes