Honestly

This post was written in March. It's still brutally relevant. I can feel myself starting to fall into that desperate, frustrated place again, so I thought it was about time to share.

For the last two weeks, how have I been holding it together? With a lot of stress and inadvertent crying.

Yesterday, we had a church council meeting. It was heated with discussions about where we want our church to go, where we want to be in five years, what our faith needs to look like if we expect those things to happen, and I was already exhausted before we even started digging for the answers.

After the meeting, a woman that I respect but am not super close with, asked me how Matt's job search was going, and I immediately burst into tears.

I apologized for it too. "I'm sorry. This keeps happening. I can't make it stop."

She gave me a hug, and reminded me that, in nicer words than I'm going to say here, we women really can handle a heck of a lot of shit happening to us, as long as we feel secure. And when we don't feel that security, it makes dealing with all the shit that much harder.

Matt received a job offer from a university really, really far away. It was a really, really good offer. We discussed it non-stop for over a week, before determining that, at this point in our lives, maybe it wasn't the best decision for us to commit to living that far away from our families for that long (minimum six years for tenure, maximum FOREVER). He felt good about this decision. I agreed that, long term, it was the right move to turn it down, but in the short-term, I couldn't believe he was willing to turn down a sure thing, some kind of security when we've been flailing to stay afloat for months.

Or maybe it's just me, feeling like I'm sinking? He feels confident that something else, something better will come along. And I … it's not that I don't believe he's telling the truth. It's just that you can't KNOW. KNOWING you'll eventually have a job does not make it easier today, when uncertainty is all you have.

I couldn't turn off the faucet. My face leaked and leaked, all the way home, sitting in the carport with the radio blasting, Matt coming out to find me sobbing against the car window. And it continued to drip as he brought my things inside and wrapped me in a blanket and held me.

It's nice to know that even when I can't hold myself together, that I've got someone else to help keep me intact.