Staying Afloat

Right now, I feel like I'm having a hard time staying afloat. I've been trying lately to live in a place that embraces both the hard things and the good things-- not being overwhelmed with the hard, but not trying to push them out of the way and pretend they aren't there, either. I have been meditating on Jesus' words (in The Message translation) "Make your home in me as I make my home in you." As things get stressful, or start to feel overwhelming, I try to center myself and find a home in Christ, and just feel at peace with where I am.
It feels different from just "pushing through", and dealing with my emotions when I have time. I have an image in my mind of holding sadness and joy and peace all together, and embracing them all as the stuff life is made of.

Yesterday, I was really struggling in this department. I was rushing out the door to get to Cal State East Bay-- one of my main campuses about 45 minutes away that was having their big club fair. My plan was to make a 5 minute stop at Kinkos, run a few photo copies, then get to campus & the club fair by 11am-- a half hour earlier than I needed to be there. I won't go into details (they just make me angry!), but it took 2 hours and 15 minutes for me to actually walk onto the campus. Let's just say that although it's listed as a Kinkos, a FedEx-Kinkos Shipping Center is not quite a Kinkos. It took me over 1/2 hour to make 40 copies on a self-serve copy machine. It also took me 45 minutes to find a parking spot on campus. Yuck.

The brilliant ending to my club fair was when I was talking to a thug-looking kid with gold chains galore, and my shirt broke. Yes, my shirt broke. I was wearing a stretchy tunic shirt with thick tank top straps, and one of the straps just broke while I was telling this guy about when we meet for prayer. I was so stunned, I just kept talking & pretended that everything was fine until he walked away. Luckily, we carry some cute little button pins (pictured right) in our tabling box, and my friend was able to fix my shirt, but it was one of the more awkward campus experiences (and I've had a few!)

I have to admit, I am living in fear that more great things will happen on campus (lots of great things have already been happening-- and no, my shirt breaking was not one of them, whatever thug-guy might tell you!), because I won't be able to handle the work it will create!

I am definitely looking forward to the weekend (although not with quite as much desperation as I was last week), and taking lots of deep centering breaths. But as I go to sleep tonight, I feel much more at peace than I did earlier. I think I'm going to make it...