Self-Diagnoses

It was an interesting long weekend... I think I regressed majorly in terms of my emotional state. Being at work was a good thing, and I was quite glad to be back today. Sure, my back's a bit sore at the end of the day, and I hate getting up early and trying to rush through getting ready for the day on the crutches, and yes I do leave work at the first possible moment... but I do like having a purpose in life.

This weekend... um... yeah... I went a little bonkers. I did NOTHING. Well, not quite... but I did do an AWFUL lot of internet. Probably too much. I didn't watch much TV, I didn't read, I didn't write. In fact, I did more writing in the leftover ten minutes of my lunchbreak today than I did in m three day weekend.

All of which is very depressing to look back on. Basically, I was in a very glum state this weekend. It's been interesting to self-diagnose, not the least because I'm nowhere near objective. In particular, it's interesting to watch me, as I'm laying in bed, too lazy to get up and having no reason to, complain to God about being lonely.

However, there's something about using the word "lonely" that seems to trigger a reaction of "no, not really lonely, God. I'm more... alone. And bored. Bored and alone".

Well... sitting here after a good day's work, and having a much saner state of mind... I'm having to ask myself, "if that doesn't define lonely, then what does?"

Bored and alone.

Today felt like a veritable party, what with having the senior archivist to chat with about old parishes and record-keepers about once every hour or so, and with having seven guys at supper for a change (most of them were gone over the weekend),. Actually, even enduring almost-rush hour traffic coming back from work felt like a social life.

However, the biggest event of the day was not the aforesaid. It was, as I headed down to breakfast at the grumpy hour of 7:15 am when you're fifteen minutes behind schedule, the revelation that I haven't felt like I'm helping anyone anymore.

This was a "revelation" insofar as it was a facet of my life I hadn't considered, but probably has a strong bearing on my mental state of mind--a mental state of mind, to go off on a tangent, that has been very pro-marriage and pro-family of late. Since breaking my leg, one thing that has been completely lacking in my life is any sense of being a support to anyone else. Sure, there hasn't been a lack of love coming my way (though, as an aside... I could have done with a lot more about Week 2. At that point you're still hurting, but people have sort of decided that "oh, he's mobile and seems back to normal, and forget about you), but I haven't been on the sending end.

This struck me as very much tied to my "vocational crisis". The times, barring sacramental highs, when I'm most in love with the priesthood, is any time that I'm helping people. It could just be sympathetic conversations online, or it might be helping with someone's paper, or it might be something more substantial, but helping people definitely triggers a love of the priesthood.

And in the thirty-one days since I broke my leg... I really don't feel like I've done anything. Even the online conversations, if they haven't been me drawing on the sympathy of someone else, certainly haven't cast me as the sympathetic shoulder. In fact, I've been a whiner... though a sincere one.

The related thought was striking me over the last week or so, that I'm wasting my summer, since my whole goal for it is to get it over with as soon as possible. I've lost the ability to savour. And this was striking me as bad, since life is finite, and we really don't have that much of it. I'm twenty, and assuming I live to be eighty (which may be pushing it...) that means I'm a fourth done my life.

Sure, my leg's broken, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to do more of my writing. Now is the perfect time to do it. I'll want to in a few years, but won't have time. Or spending time with friends and family. It hit me that I'm going about this broken leg business in entirely the wrong way. Instead of loathing it, and simply struggling to get through it as quickly as possible, I ought to be exploiting it, especially now that there's no pain in the leg, and I'm increasingly mobile. Barring having to carry anything, I can do pretty much anything... so why shouldn't I enjoy this glorious summer?

All of this cogitation came to a boil either sometime yesterday or today; all this thought spent on the fact that I'm not feeling "useful" anymore, and the fact that I'm taking entirely the wrong approach to life. I have no idea if it'll make a longterm difference, or if my good mood today is simply work-induced, but a good mood is definitely here, and I'm predicting it'll stay. Nothing catches my attention like the reminder that time is running out.

Eighty years is not enough.