tired.

J wrote to ask me if everything was ok since I've not blogged for a week.
(Thanks, J!)
Yes, everything is fine. DH was up frolicking in South Dakota again last week at the same time that both kids started baseball season with the requisite need for a chauffeur pulling from only one parent. I doubt that needs any more elaboration, right? (time sink+time sink+time sink = not much time to blog much less finish the baby blanket for baby S who was born nearly a year ago. You know?)

I'm good. Mostly. More than mostly.

But with respect to the "less than mostly" portion of my life that is not so good, I had a bitch session with good friend J.B. on Saturday night, where I lit into my UUs over a glass of wine in her loverly home, and I feel the need to continue in that vein here. I don't know exactly what it is (I know generally), but I am in need of much distance from my previously beloved UU congregation at this point in my life. I think the word is "burnout." I want to make it clear - the teens I'm working with are fabulous. They are inconsistent, unreliable, and unsure, and everything I expect teens to be, but in a good way. That's not what's alienating me. We meet on Sunday mornings and even when I feel like the curriculum guidance is ridiculous, I'm able to pull off some interesting discussion with them, mainly because they are interesting thinkers. They will never tell me something because they think it's what I want to hear. They are brutally honest. That I will not be there next year to watch so many of them in their senior years, making decisions that will start them off of the next phase of life, this is killing me.

It's the rest of the UU organization that's irritating me. The guidance from above that should be there but is not, the tendency to place the teens and other youth in the afterthought position, the negativity from many of those in "higher" (and often paid) positions, the generally selfish attitude of so many in the congregation (i.e., "what do *I* get out of this" rather than "what can I give?")?? Bleah. Besides, my children are increasingly negative about what is offered to them there. My daughter refuses to attend if she has to go to "spirit play", which is the current version of Sunday school for her age group which she views as ridiculously childish, and I have to agree. My son only goes to see his friends. I'm thinking the return on my investment there has become WAY beyond unreasonable. Enough of feeling the judgement. Enough of the expectations placed on myself. Next year, I'm going to use my Sundays to drive up to the mountains with my children and husband with fabulous picnic lunches, and we'll explore our spirituality in a positive, happy way as a family. We're going to feel free and unemcumbered and open to the world. Unscheduled.

Disillusioned. That's what I am.

I wonder...is is possible to have a spiritual community that is not based on fear (fear of hell, for example), where the responsibility really is equitably distributed? What is the imeptus to encourage giving, when that "fear," that alliance to a given set of moral rules, is not there? In a community like UU, where we thrive on "we're all ok as we are", at what point do the givers tell the takers to put up or shut up?

You think I'm a bit irritable? You think?

My cherished daughter convinced me to buy her a new hamster today during a spur of the moment visit to the petstore. We got her, the hamster (Ruby), a wonderful new cage with the best lining and food and colorful tubes and shelves to play on. Daughter E was walking on air and charmed every person in the pet store with her estactic smile. I felt like I was the best mommy on earth. She was beaming more than I'd ever seen. She was in heaven.
Then we got home and while we were putting the cage together, Ruby bit her.
Hard.
Lots of blood.
That hamster doesn't know how lucky it is that I didn't fling it across the universe. Daugher E pleaded with me that she (the hamster) was scared and didn't know any better. With tears in her eyes, she asked me to give her time to learn how to behave. I washed the rather large bit e wound and applied antibiotic ointment and dried the tears from E's eyes and imagined all the horrible deaths I could for that stinky little rodent. But E has faith. She thinks if we give the little beast time to relax, time to get used to things, she will be OK and will learn to love E. She has enduring faith that if she stays positive, that positive things will ensue.

I think, maybe, in times like these when I am ready to throw in the towel, that I might need to step back and take a break but not give it up with finality. Maybe I need to remember that faith is something that all of us use to pull us through. All of us. Faith needn't be limited to a "god" or supernatural being. Faith is necessary for anything that doesn't have a proof. I have faith in my marriage, in science, in nature.

There's no reason not to have faith in a community of reasonable, well-meaning UUs. I think there really are good intentions there, I just think that my version of good intentions and the rest of the communities' versions are not quite aligned at this point.

Distance is good, is necessary.

But overall, it's all good. It really is. And I have a whole 3 weeks with DH before he goes back to South Dakota for another week. (!) (Military moms/wives, single moms reading this, disregard my complaints.) But #()&@!.

Sigh.

For wonderful seester L, here is a youtube for you. :-)
(It is so easy to put these in, I'm embarrassed to tell you the "secret". Look for the "embed" part when you find a youtube you video you like. Copy it and paste it in.)