No-sleep November

So I guess I'll follow my October post by saying that this month has been particularly dissatisfying.

The wondrous melancholy; the wondrous now.

First off, the grocery store has had the fabulous idea to open its doors at a squinty-eyed-8am instead of the luxurious, bountiful 9am we once enjoyed. As a customer, I am happy at this change- no more Safeway milk and eggs before church. As an employee, I am scandalized. There is no way to do four hours of work in three hours, especially when this work is accomplished by over ten bodies. And adding more bodies to the equation just does not equal the hour we've lost. The brainstorming committee (did one even ever exist??) forgot to factor in the small spaces and tight corners of our store that- one would imagine they've forgotten this tiny glitch- are growing ever smaller with the coming of Christmas.

There are other small things that have made November terrible: the tight funds, the ever-expanding dark hours (starting at a very wakeful 4:30pm with almost an entire month to go), squabbles amongst loved ones, etc... but perhaps the most terrible of all has been that horrible sensation that everything is wrong when in fact nothing has really happened at all.

There have been no major catastrophes. We managed to navigate an almost entirely pain-free thanksgiving dinner: stellar menu and sweet company. Pat and I got engaged; I am able (somehow!) to pay my rent; Christy, Laura and I saw New Moon north of the city while sipping beers and passing popcorn around, and I've even managed to go a whole week (except for thanksgiving day of course, and one particular pie post-turkey-day) without sugar or missing a day of running. I've even worked in an abs routine.

So this does not explain the nights I can't sleep I feel so generally unfulfilled. I feel as if I have missed a lily pad somewhere along the way. I ignored an open door, and now here I am, floating and I can't tell which way is up. I wake up in the morning, and my heart immediately finds rock bottom. What is the point, I think tiredly, of waking up or of falling back to sleep? I feel out of my own body, sick with anxiety and find horrible, sharp, irritated things coming out of my mouth- when the truth is that the person I am most irritated with is myself.

I don't believe in restlessness; I believe in content, in living within your means, in finding, enabling and pursuing your own routine. I keep picking up The Cloister Walk and swimming in Kathleen Norris' stories of living at the monastery. I am up to my ears with envy, wishing I could be somewhere something already functions whether or not I show up, whether or not I find the energy to shoulder the weight. I miss college and my home growing up, but not for the virtues of these particular institutions, but instead for my place within them. In these places I have taken off the cloak of otherness and basked instead in the giant warmth of familiarity. These places were my refuge from loneliness, anxiety, and frustration. In her book, Norris relinquishes 'otherness' within the walls of the church. I don't know if this will ever be possible for me. But I do hope for hope.

Which is appropriate given the time of year now inhabited on this new 29th day of November, finally on its way out. Advent.