insidious insinuation

sometimes satan creeps into your every day life so slowly, you don't notice...

like that story about how to cook frogs alive- put them in cold water on the stove and turn on the burner. the frogs don't jump out because the temperature change is gradual and they don't realize they're being boiled alive...

and so, over the last 4 weeks, satan used these recent trips into the fiery resort town of burning lakes to slowly boil me.

i didn't realize until yesterday that my whole mindset/attitude had been so consumed by negativity and so affected by lack of consistent medication. i've been juggling my two meds, you see, to try and make what i have last long enough to get more on insurance. so, i'll take the two meds on alternating days, instead of both once a day as prescribed. (for those of you who don't know, i take zoloft and wellbutrin, both anti-depressant meds.) any doctor will tell you that taking them this way is not the best way to do things. but i didn't see as how i really had any other choice.

so, as the days passed by and health insurance wasn't forthcoming, i watched the pills in my med bottles dwindle away. and me and my sister both were focused on "getting more meds before i run out". what i forgot was that (even though i was still taking some meds every day) i was already operating on a less than therapeutic level. which means, my body and mind are going to start feeling effects. not as bad as if i had no meds, but still, i was putting my system on a chemical see-saw.

i also didn't fully realize how fixated my mind had become on the whole insurance thing. the needing it, getting it, but not being enrolled when i was told, then being enrolled, but with incorrect info so that i wasn't really enrolled at all, then with being enrolled correctly but with the old info showing up and messing everything up, then getting that sorted out only to hear that my prescriptions weren't in the walgreen's system, and then that my hard-fought insurance wasn't going to cover one, oh, wait it does but only with doctor's pre-authorization... anyway, i'd become rather preoccupied with it.

(just a brief digression: what's up with needing a doctor's pre-authorization before filling a prescription??? what's the actual prescription for then????)

SO- yesterday what could have been a minor conflict at work about taking a late lunch turned into much more than i realized, even at the time. it turned into a much bigger conflict about expectations and appearances and control. and it turned into a release, emotionally and mentally, as i voiced my frustrations and decided to just accept whatever management decided and learn to adjust my expectations of the people i work for and the position i hold. i ended up feeling much better.

and i ended up feeling a great cloud and weight of oppression leaving me the rest of the afternoon as i realized the things that i just now wrote about. i also allowed myself to recognize that i had made mistakes and that was ok. life goes on, and i can't worry about what can't be changed or about what my boss may or may not think of me. i am not here for the president of the firm, i am here for God.

I also felt better to consciously admit to myself, that No, I don't like this job. I don't look forward to coming in every morning. i don't leave with a feeling of satisfaction usually. i don't get to create anything. i would prefer to not be doing this job. i don't really enjoy being an adminstrative assistant. and that's ok. i don't have to like it. i just have to make the decision to do it, do it well, and find ways to make what i do important to me. it pays my bills. it provides my creature comforts. my life does not need to revolve around my job. it should revolve around my God, and so since my job doesn't allow for the creativity, the teaching, the exploration, the joy of discovery, of working with kids, of Christian fellowship and discipling- well, then i'll need to be more purposeful about finding those things in other places in my life.

so, i've officially left the Hades Hilton. thank you very much to the bell boy with little red horns who kept trying to take my baggage for me, but i believe i'll be heading to cooler waters and loftier horizons.

I lift my eyes up to the mountains, and that's where my help comes from.
Pouring down the mighty slopes in the cool refreshing waters of Life.
Plunge in. Guaranteed by the blood of Jesus not to boil you alive.