7 Slightly Longer Takes – The last couple of months

1. Concert review. The neighborhood concert was last Saturday. I missed the first session in the afternoon because I thought it started at 5 but that’s when it ended, I just caught the last 20 min or so. But they told me they’d be playing again that evening. I didn’t pay to attend, but I did listen from our property and later from the bedroom where we were trying to sleep haha. They played until 12, but I didn’t mind too much. I did buy a cd since I didn’t pay for the show, but I’m actually not a fan of most of the tracks, and the songs I know I do like aren’t on cd yet… go figure. Most music is better live.

2. New Baby Just in the last couple weeks I have finally come to accept this baby I guess. It took a while with the first baby for me to be happy about it because being pregnant again brought up the feelings about the miscarriage I’d had, but this time it has taken even longer, and for a different reason. With the first baby (not the miscarriage) I was depressed for a while, and couldn’t be happy, but with this one, because it wasn’t planned, I have been unable to be happy or excited, because I was too caught up in not wanting this in my life right now, to remember what a blessing a little baby is, and ultimately how happy the first one has made me. It started to sink in around baby’s birthday, when I was thinking back to when he was really little, and now I am looking forward to cuddling and nursing, and when I lay new baby down on the floor, knowing it’s not going to crawl away and get into something!

3. Over the last few months it seems I have really lost sight of God. It used to feel so real and so right, not all the time, but often enough, and I was so happy, and now I feel like I’m alone again. I am still seeing God working in my life, almost on a daily basis, but I’ve lost that sparkle. It feels like God is so far away right now. I know we’re supposed to put our trust in him when things get tough, but part of this is that I trusted that God would come through for me by June 1st, and that didn’t happen. As a result, I’ve gone back to being impatient and quite selfish, and I struggle to even say a simple prayer each day. All I know is my faith seems to be suffering, and there seem to be a few reasons why.

I find I am really missing CCO, faith wise. This was the Catholic outreach program etc that put on events but they are mostly on hiatus over the summer. I’m finding that weekly mass just isn’t enough, not yet at least. I’m still early in my faith journey, and it doesn’t have the meaning for me yet that it does for so many. I finding that I need that more constant reminder and the experiences that touched me more deeply that I was getting from CCO, and feeling a bit lost without them.

4. The other thing here is over the last month or so I’ve been coming to the realization that it is time to go to confession. It has been about 2 months, and I think that is also part of why I’ve lost sight of God. I was going once a month with the Summits, and I went at Christmas and Easter, but Christmas, and even the next Summit are too far away. Of course I’ve been dragging my heels about it, not even really putting it on the table just yet. I don’t want to go alone, it would be nice to have someone else come with me (this is a hint to my lone reader )

5. I’ve also come to realize that the last couple of months have been particularly tough, that I’ve had a lot more to deal with than normal (without a death etc I just didn’t think of it that way). But it has been a time of big life changes, another baby, moving, trying to find someone else to take over our lease, the painters, moving in with my in-laws… I am still struggling with adapting to all the changes, I guess I shouldn’t be quite so surprised to be feeling the way I do.

6. Speaking of a tough few months, that was sort of the message in Father’s homily today. Of course he related it to the reading, (‘Why are you afraid, have you still no faith?’) but he was telling us how the last few months had been rather crazy for him. He then told us why… and I couldn’t help but smile because I’d been going through the same thing (except my moving endeavors would not cross any oceans). He said he spent a lot of time fretting:

“Am I moving? No I’m not moving. No, I am moving… I’m going to Ontario. No I’m going to Italy. No I’m not going anywhere. etc…”

I could identify when he said he really just wanted clear direction.
Wanting a clear direction-should we move? it will save us a lot of money, is this the right choice or should we stay put and pinch pennies? Does God want us to move? Does he want us to move in with DH’s parents, or should we have our own place? Can we afford our own place? It has seemed that with all the trouble getting renters and paint that it isn’t God’s plan… I didn’t exactly feel peace about it (either way), but I do now… for the most part.

7. Painters and apt. This has gotten ridiculous. The painter finally got back and I called him and he said he’d talk with the supers. That he did, but neither one of them called me back to let me know what happened. When I called him later in the week, he said he’s been in and fixed what needed to be fixed, and one of the supers had approved it. The supers told me though, that they haven’t even seen what he did yet, and they didn’t know why he would say that. I went to look at it last night and the painter had hardly done anything. I don’t understand what he could be thinking when he told me originally that he was in to see what his guys did and it looked really good. I just don’t get it!

Actually things have gotten worse. I am just at a complete loss with this guy, It’s become a he said, she said, and when I tried to be firm with the guy and say please come in and let me show you what needs to be done because we’re the ones that paid you (what fern said to say)!!!!, he said don’t worry about it and if the super had a problem she could talk to him. She told me very clearly that she will not play the middle man. If I call the guy again I’m thinking I will demand he come in let me show him what I see and fix it, or I want my money back, probably to use to hire someone else to fix what needs fixing. I think I may be being taken advantage of, because I’m young etc…. He wanted the money upfront because I guess he thought we might not have it otherwise…. I do not want to get into a lawsuit…