Tag Archives: Stress

Fill Me Up

Posted on by under regular

Lose your breath; pant heavy, though you’re not sure why. Reach out into the air and touch something tangible. Listen to dissent and feel it tremble within you. Wrestle and tumble and stand up and be aflame.

You provide the fire–

Cling; cling tight, so tight that your knuckles are Dixie sugar-crystal white. Fear; fear  so hard and long that when you begin to let go, your hands will ache. Run; run not toward but away, away from the prospect of emptiness. And then let go.

I’ll provide the sacrifice.

Stand somewhere, in the middle of milling bodies and punctured conversations, and feel like you’re the only one. Feel what’s surrounding you; close your eyes, then, and let it take you over.

You provide the Spirit–

Receive. For the Love of God–receive.

And I will open up inside.

———————————————————-

For some reason, while I know that 7:15 is the absolute latest time I can get out of bed and make it to work by 8 a.m., I get out of bed almost every morning at 7:20. It’s the five-minute rush, the I’m-almost-gonna-make-it skip in the step, the spilling-drops-of-coffee on my way down the stairs, a splash on my cream tights here, a dark drizzle running down my wrist there. It’s cold outside. I crank my car. I hear it. It calms my soul.

It’s not about spilled coffee, though that’s something I may or may not have been known to cry about. It’s not rushing, though I think my mornings could really improve if I was brushing my teeth by 7:20. It’s not about the fear that goes along with standing in the midst of a whirling wind, and being asked to make your own way. It’s not about grad school applications, or choices that weigh heavy on the heart, or tough conversations, or saying goodbye, or writing this, even though all of those things are some of the threads that have knit my last weeks.

It’s not even about the coffee that’s not spilled, the sunshine that wraps me right up, the look from my mother that says something that doesn’t have words. It’s not about a three-hour conversation with a friend, the kind that breaks you apart until she can see the very insides of you. It’s not about warm chocolate-chip filled brownies, though sometimes it tastes like it is. It’s not about all of these things that rise to the surface, shimmering.

Sometimes I see these things: coffee spilled, coffee in my cup. But I hear.

Love of God, overflow. Permeate all my soul.

Overflow, overflow, overflow. Onto Virginia Woolf novels and drop into cups of coffee and into conversations and throughout my words and on my face and in my hands and alongside my thoughts and overflow, overflow, overflow. This is what it does: It rights wrongs. It nulls failure. It makes dark light. It replaces despair for joy, understanding for trust, brokenness for redemption.

Fill me up, God.

Overflow, overflow, overflow. May your [coffee] cup overflow.

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The Newsroom

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Hola, ye who readeth my words (have I said thank you lately? Thank you.) It’s deadline week at the magazine (this is my day job, in case you’re new here). When you’re in a place that puts out things in words, if you throw around the term deadline, people start to turn the shade of zucchinis and grab wads of their printer paper to sop up the sweat on their necks. Even if you’ve got every single duck named, washed, and in a row singing, it’s a stomach-wrenching idea, throwing all your effort into producing a series of documents on one day in the somewhat distant near future. But if you’re not in this business, it seems less of a big deal, which is OK. I don’t really get it when astronauts are wringing their hands about moon missions either, so what can I say?

All that to say coffee.

Anyway, the week of the deadline looms before us, and this leads to quite a bit of hand wringing in the form of inbox- and telephone-staring in our office. At any given moment, I am waiting for interviews to stream in somehow; I’ve often said the nerves are wracked in this gig because I lose control after I ask someone to talk to me: “So, just get back to me as soon as possible. . .” I write, when what I mean is, “MY ENTIRE CAREER COULD BE SWIRLED DOWN A TOILET IF YOU DON’T CALL ME AND THUS I MISS A DEADLINE, PLEASE, DO YOU HAVE A HEART?” (Melodrama runs high in this field. OK, in me.)

Now, I can be found ragging on journalism like it’s my job. The thing is that I adore the writing (I mean, here I am, writing to you after five straight hours of word processing elsewhere); the thing I don’t adore is running out and finding the next Watergate, which works out pretty well since there aren’t enough Watergates to go around for all the thrill-seeking journalists. (Also, my voice is pretty high and the last word anyone would ever use to describe me is “undercover.”) “I just want to sit around and write love stories all the time,” I whine to Haley, who sits a computer away pounding out feature stories like it’s her job because it is her job and she’s an excellent journalist. She nods sympathetically. “Mmhm. Read me some more Pablo Neruda.” (OK, she doesn’t request Pablo Neruda, but she does get it for free, along with Hemingway quotes and unsolicited advice.)

Today, I spent a lot of time staring at my inbox and willing the infilling of messages. I played Walk Around the Building Because Emails Know When You Leave Your Desk to no avail. I gChatted Norm about emails so much that he finally started sending me emails (which did take the edge off, but did not provide me with any more interviews.) I sighed and watched the trees shimmy in the rain. I decided to try one more time to call an 85-year-old woman who makes quilts (for a story, not for other purposes, many of which I’m sure you can come up with.) I wasn’t expecting her to answer because nobody was answering, and she’s 85, and what 85-year-old sits next to her phone all day? (Ones who make quilts, that’s who. Duh.) She answered. “Hi, Carolyn, I am calling from Alabama Alumni Magazine. . . so, do you have a few minutes to talk to me?” There’s always a moment of silence while the person on the other end unfolds my spiel in his or her head; Carolyn took several moments.

“Oh, darlin’. . . you—you want to write about me?” And I know it’s all about the words for me; but in that moment, I realized these words were hers, too.

“Yes ma’m, I want to write about your quilts.”

“I never thought I would be in a story.”

We all want to be in a story, right? Isn’t that romantic? (Trust me, it is.) And as I listened to Carolyn tell me about her quilts (for quite awhile), it occurred to me that I was giving her a story. Suddenly she was Alice or Hermione or Lizzie Bennett, and actually she was Carolyn, and that’s exactly who she needed to be because the story was hers, and yet—it was still mine, too.

And in that moment, I realized that this wasn’t Watergate or Pride and Prejudice, but it was somebody’s story; it wasn’t Africa or Haiti, but it was my mission field. The Lord asks us to love, and He lets me do that by giving them their stories, by handing them pages that belong to them. In Carolyn’s voice as she handed over her life, trusting me to give her a story, I heard it: this is where the wildflowers grow. I was so sure of it I gChatted it right away: “My heart, it melts!”

And though my heart for journalism grew two sizes, I still know newspapers aren’t me; I still know I’d like to keep a safe distance from reporting, if at all possible (though if you want to hire me, YES, I WILL WRITE ANYTHING); I still know that it’s the writing that gets me. I’m also still aware that it’s deadline week, that I’ve got 37 unanswered emails bumping into one another in cyberspace, that I’ll probably spend the weekend pouring out words to make the Monday due date. That will be stressful, and everyone around me will know what’s happening, and, and, and–it will happen or it won’t, and I’ll go right on writing. There will be more stories, another deadline, another chance to write for them, for me, for Him, because yes. This is where the wildflowers grow.

Days Like This

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Whoa, baby. Let’s all start breathing again.

Oh, it was just me who had stopped? Well, don’t worry. I’m inhaling and exhaling like my life depends on it. But for a few minutes there, I wasn’t sure if that was the case. Has it been stressful for you? Word on the street is that it was midterm week last week. I don’t know if that’s true, but I did have one sinking scary test to contend with and one annoyingly persistent group project to coordinate and one long magazine proof to edit for the second time and one two very sick friends about whom to fret and pray, and so it went. No way could I come here and tell you, “Hey, that was an awesome time! Let me jump back on that roller coaster!” But still, it wasn’t bad (okay, there was that one time that I hid under the covers, but other than that it was of the I-can-handle-this variety.) So, without further ado, I give you a few ways to stop on top of things (things being joy and peace and humor)  if one of these weeks comes and threatens to bend you a little too far.

First, and foremost, you’ve got to have a little perspective. See, tests and papers and words and work and racing to and fro are all fine and good things. But they’re not worth losing your goose over, am I right? I learned a valuable lesson last semester that a test is just a test; don’t mind if I do remember that from time to time. So, study and breathe and take a walk and eat a cookie and call it a night. Do your best, then get some rest and take that test, and let it be OK. Because it’s OK, no matter what.

“Don’t be afraid, I’ve redeemed you.
I’ve called your name. You’re mine.
When you’re in over your head, I’ll be there with you.
When you’re in rough waters, you will not go down.
When you’re between a rock and a hard place,
it won’t be a dead end—
Because I am God, your personal God,
The Holy of Israel, your Savior.” —Isaiah 43:2

After that, things get a lot easier, and you start to bask in the sunshine/smell the flowers/listen to the birds/ whatever it is you do that makes your heart flutter. And of course, those are the things that soothe your soul, are they not? Can you tell me that standing on the Quad under a cornflower blue sky in the midst of a soft breeze doesn’t make you want to sing, dance, and/or play your saxophone? Get real, joker. See, it’s just hard to feel stressed out in the sunshine. It’s hard to think the end of the world is coming tomorrow when you find yourself surrounded by frisbee-players who seem to feel that playing frisbee is the best use of their minutes. It makes you second guess using your own to worry, now doesn’t it? I found myself, this week, caught up in moments—usually on my way to work or to Starbucks or to class—that seems to whisper, “Hey, slow down; see? There. That feels better, doesn’t it?” And then there are the moments I took back, the ones where I realized I had to toss aside the media law textbook for just a moment and have a break (Kit-Kat bar not included with purchase) and a moment with Jesus.

Then, of course, there are the people. You gotta find your people. And people, I know some incredible people. People who find me under the covers, convince me to come out, and calm my frantic heart. People who reach out and hold my hand when I feel all alone. People who send me messages that say, “Who’s awesome? You are!” People who sit with me under a tree as we wade through NYT v. Sullivan again and again. People who check on me and give me hugs and pray for me. People who bake me chocolate chip pound cakes and welcome me with open arms. And it seems like maybe these are nice warm and fuzzies, but each one of these things happened to me this week, and I’m not sure I’d still be breathing if they hadn’t. See, I am the luckiest.

There are other things that need no explanation, the little lovelies that stream sanity right back into you:

(a given)

(a little cross-it-out satisfaction)

(a top-notch snuggle buddy)

(a little breaking it down)

“I took a deep breath and listened to the old bray of my heart: I am, I am, I am.” —Sylvia Plath

And so I am. Restored, for sure, and without a doubt still breathing.

And then, what do you know! Friday comes and the weekend offers this little refuge where you can curl up until you fall back into that steady, rhythmic breathing. And, on Monday, as you go out into this world…