Fun-sucker

I can't remember who says it, or to whom it's said, but I'm pretty sure it's the daughter saying it to her mother. In the movie Freaky Friday with Lyndsay Lohan and Jamie Curtis, after they've switched bodies with one another, one purposefully and pointedly calls the other a "fun-sucker", meaning they suck the fun out of everything.

I am officially the new "fun-sucker" around these parts.

I can say this openly and honestly, because I know it's true. I have come to a point in all of this where I no longer have the energy to care whether it makes people uncomfortable to be around me if I don't have a smile on my face. Now, I have always been a staunch supporter of being yourself. I would never pretend to be something I'm not...been there done that as a teenager, and will never do it again. However, I have been known to worry about those around me and how I have the ability, we all do, to make a difference to those around us. Because of this knowledge, it's been very important to not be the downer in a group, or to not give anyone cause to feel badly when I can in fact be the reason for someone to feel good. If this means smiling at someone when I'm frowning inside, then I smile. If it means laugh at someone's joke because on another day I'd find it funny but just not today, then I laugh. It requires extra energy, but is always worth the effort. And quite often the result is that I feel better for forgetting about my woes and enjoying other people. It's a bit of the "fake it 'till ya make it" idea. And it's almost always worked for me in the past.

I'm reached a difficult point...I no longer have the extra energy to make those extra efforts. I no longer feel capable of pulling the corners of my mouth up when I don't feel like it inside. I observe something that is funny, but can't bring myself to laugh. I feel a hard shell forming around me, and it is extremely unsettling and uncomfortable. I can feel people smiling at me, but just don't think I can smile back anymore. If you come to my door and I say hello and just blank stare at you, know that it is not personal. If you laugh and I just sit there and seem to be glaring, I'm not. You see, I, am a fun-sucker.

I've been feeling the awful realization that I live, separate from my life as a mother, a pleasureless life. There is nothing in this world that brings me pleasure. Isn't that just one of the most awful statements you've ever heard? It sounds even more awful saying it here than it does in my head. Even the joy my kids bring to my life doesn't fall in this category as a pleasure because in addition to being the loves of my life, they are also the work of my life. When I say pleasure, I mean something you do just because, just for you. We all, or I hope we all, have something that does this for us. You may think, as I have, how can having just one person in your entire life change everything? Can't you just feel disappointed, sad, and lonely? Why completely pleasureless? Does it really have such a ripple effect? Yes. Yes it does.

I used to love to read fiction. Can't do it anymore. It either brings up emotions that are too much for me to feel or the fiction seems like such fluff after I've realized what a serious venture life really is. Let me tell you, I'm really ticked about not being able to read for pleasure anymore. It really stinks just reading to learn. It doesn't bring me any of the mental relief that fiction did...

Music. I've blogged about music already and how I am no longer able to enjoy the music that I did before. Either it's message is too heartwrenching (really, you'd be surprised how many songs are about true love or your lover, neither of which I have access to) or it has a memory attached to it, which is also heartwrenching. I am getting a bit tired of the soulful/spiritual music as of late, which brings me to orchestral music. Haven't really started getting into that yet, but it too is not for pleasure like I used to enjoy.

Television. I find myself falling asleep watching the shows that I used to love, whenever I actually sit down to watch them. I just don't care if I miss the next episode. What does it matter? It has nothing to do with reality. It too, seems like fluff in a world where fluff matters not.

Movies. They kinda fall under the same category as television, with a twist. You have romance, which is obvious in it's reasons for being unappealing. You have suspenseful, which surprisingly parallells the other fluff stuff. None of it is real. Then you have action movies, which has a bunch of fake killing and death...who wants to see that replayed when you've already seen the real thing in your own bedroom?

Comedy. Funny? What's funny? Who laughs anymore after something like this? Sometimes I'm surprised by myself and do find some humor out there that actually gets a chuckle from me, but not much.

Shopping, pedicures, manicures, and anything else that falls under this category. How can it truly be enjoyed when I know that every penny I spend is a penny I won't get back? It's a constant reminder that I have sole responsibility for these babies with no job experience and no college degree. Scary.

Intimacy. Don't get freaked out...not going into details. Just by listing it as an area that I don't have access to anymore is 'nuff said.

I realize that there are so many more things out there that bring other people pleasure in their lives that I either haven't tried or haven't been able to try. But would it be any different than the other things I've listed? What is out there that can be just for me? What I truly want, I truly can't have.

I feel like such a petulant child. Today I was in Kinko's working on Ane's 1st Birthday Luau invitation. Her party is this Saturday the 27th at 4, and I will be posting her invite on here for the details tomorrow. We were originally going to do her party at the end of last year, but for obvious reasons, I'm just getting around to it. I was so frustrated while I was there because they told me that it didn't matter what I copy, that all of their machines will automatically put this little white border around it. I didn't want a little white border! I could, they calmly told me, avoid the border if I copied my 8x11 invite onto a 11x17, and then cut each and every one to size. Seriously? I had an out of body experience as I heard myself explain to the poor little Kinko's Manager how ridiculous it was that someone would actually invent a machine that doesn't make an actual copy. It makes copies with borders! How stupid is that! (The border thing, not me complaining about it, of course.) As they went off to make the copies for me, I bent my head down and just cried, right there in Kinkos. What was wrong with me? Is my life so pathetic that I'm one of those people? The kind that are so unhappy with life that it just spills out of them all over and gets onto other unsuspecting people who are just trying to live their life?

This past Sunday I REALLY felt like a petulant child. Now, some of my nearest and dearest friends I find at my church. And ultimately I know that if I want to feel closest to my Elder Brother and Friend, the Savior, I need to get my butt to church every week. But since my experience of becoming a widow and since I have found myself seeking more clarity within the teachings of the Gospel, more often than I expected I've left church feeling frustrated and isolated as I listen to people comment in Sunday School and Relief Society about their lives within the boundaries of the Gospel. I have always believed in the idea that the Gospel is perfect, but obviously the people living it are not. And so nothing that people say or do has or will ever offend me. But I just cannot find what I am looking for lately. I feel like what people say at church they could say with their eyes closed and asleep. It has been said so often that it becomes rote, automatic, and expected. I could say everything they're saying, and as a matter of fact, may have said before. But it no longer satisfies. It doesn't satisfy because I'm trying to do all of it, without the results that others say they have. At some point, it becomes obvious that either they are lying, which I don't believe all of them are, or there is something broken within me. Not permanently broken, thank heavens, but for now not working the way it used to. When a + b used to equal c, but now equals zero, something is obviously amiss. This is a journey I'm on. I recognize that, and so keep going every week to see what the next part reveals to me. I just wish that there was a bit more depth available in our discussions at church, I guess. It would seem a bit more honest if we actually spoke what we actually felt, without glossing over the difficult stuff.

It is difficult for me to sometimes just be there feeling broken. Perhaps because I was making such an attempt to keep trying and attending classes that were unfulfilling despite the teacher's heartfelt and sincere preparation, I was shocked to find myself in a situation that brought on quite a flash of anger in the middle of Relief Society. Ginny and I were comfortably seated, braced for a difficult hour for the both of us. (Because of the afore mentioned frustrations with class discussions...) The teacher asked all of the sisters to stand and move to the seats in the middle of the room so there were no empty chairs. Well, in order to collect and corral all of the 6 kiddos from their various classrooms single handedly, Ginny and I have devised a system, and it works great. She gathers all the church bags and purses, gets to the car to unlock it and wait for whomever I send out. Then I gather one at a time and send them her way, until all are in the car. The hallways are quickly crowded once everyone is out of class, so we usually step out of Relief Society a minute or two before class is over to get a head start on the process. And so, we like to sit in a spot where we can unobtrusively step out. We thought we'd just stay where we were, but imagine our surprise when after everyone else had settled into their seats, she then waited for us to move. When we did not, she shooed us over to some available seats, and when I politely declined, twice, she stood there, waited, and shooed us again until out of my many years of good upbringing, I got up and moved. Now, I have to say, I have never felt like just turning around and walking out of a classroom because I was so angry while at church before. Imagine! Me wanting to do something so awful and rude. The rush of heat that came over me from my head to my toes was intense and I seriously had to restrain myself. "Look, Lady!", I wanted to yell, "You're lucky I'm here at all!" or "You can't make me move if I don't want to!". Talk about being the petulant child...

In her defense, she really did have a great little activity planned where for the first minute of class she wanted us to visit with whomever we were sitting beside that we might not normally visit with. Her lesson was about not feeling isolated at church, and how we should make an effort to not make assumptions about the sisters around us. My purpose in telling you my experience is not to point out any wrong doing on her part. She truly was trying to help all of us understand the value in stepping outside of our boundaries and doing our best to think of others. After I thought it over and over for the past day and a half, I realized that I felt much like Lose has lately. Where is my choice? Where is my control in any given situation? I feel as if I have none at all, and so being in the position of being told something as simple as moving over when I didn't have to, it is obvious it's correlation with my grieving process. All of my choices in life, including the pleasures I used to enjoy, are gone!

I've been reading the book of Job and a correlating address on the book written by Keith H. Meservy. Not because I feel I have anything to complain about compared to him, but I thought that there would be much I could learn from him. I just barely started, and have already learned so much. All along I'd thought mistakenly that Job suffered heroically, and thought no depressed or ill thoughts. Obviously, it's been WAY too long since I'd read this book. How comforting it's been to discover that Job felt grief much the same way I've felt it. I've also learned the way to grieve and mourn with someone else who is in the midst of a difficult time. His friends came to be with him, and when they arrived they didn't even recognize him. Although I am the same physically, spiritually I feel unrecognizable. How touching it is to read that his changes mattered not to his true friends. They stayed with him for seven days and seven nights. "And none spake a word unto him: for they saw that his grief was very great." I'm sure he was a fun-sucker in those moments, too. It didn't matter to them.

I was surprised to see the word grief written here...I guess I attribute it as a modern word for some reason, which makes no sense at all. I cross referenced a verse in the Book of Mormon about grief, and it has given me great cause to reflect. It's a verse I've known for many years which has now taken on a new meaning for me.

Helaman 5:12 "And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall."

I read that verse and two things popped out to me. First, "endless wo", the perfect words to fit how I feel about the rest of my life. (Dramatic to some of you, I'm sure, but that's just the way this all feels.) Second, if I feel such endless wo, what foundation am I built on exactly? I had thought that it was Jesus Christ, but if it truly was, then according to this verse I wouldn't feel the way I do. Hmmm...

Obviously, I'm always thinking about all of this. I no longer am anything but a fun-sucker. So, if you could just know that if I don't seem cheerfully responsive to what you may say, know that I love you just the same. I'm just workin' on some stuff.