Worn Through and Through

June 27, 2005

It’s 12:30 am and I need to be sleeping. I am so exhausted that my
muscles hurt, my eyes are blurry, and my stomach is protesting
mightily. I need sleep. But I have been fiddling online for the past
hour to take my mind off the day and all the little irritating things
bother me so much when I’m tired.

I preached this morning. In a
church. For the first time. I’m glad it’s done. That alone would
exhaust me. I shook through the whole thing; not so anyone would
notice, just so I would be thoroughly worn out by the time it is over.
It went fine. It made people think. Some people appreciated that and
some very definitely did not. But that’s okay. I knew it was a sermon
not everyone would agree with and that’s okay. I’ll survive, they’ll
survive, the story will survive, God will survive. And I’m done. Tired
but done. And glad for that.

On top of sermon anxiety (which
really you can’t appreciate until you wake up at 7am the morning you
have to preach with your body doing a little cardio workout for you as
you lie in bed because your heart is pounding so fast – good grief), my
boyfriend
is in the Middle East and Saturday morning he called to tell me he was
still alive. Awesome. This is very good news. I had hoped (and perhaps
assumed) as much. This is also very exhausting though: reading the news
of increasing violence in that area, dealing with the frustrations of
calling cards and calling card customer service numbers where they
don’t speak English but read a script, which I could recite for you at
this point, worrying that he’s still alive (all limbs intact), etc.
It’s very cool he’s over there, he’s hearing amazing stories, meeting
amazing people, doing good things, but sometimes it is hard to be the
one left behind to read the news.

And I’m home (home home, in
NY home), which always means adjusting one’s schedule and habits.
Spending time with family and seeing old friends and bowling (because
really who goes home without going bowling??).

So I am tired.
This is a whole post about how I’m tired and can’t seem to find the
energy to deal with the small things gracefully. And I so wanted to be
graceful . . .

Posted in life by Sarah Walker Cleaveland