Nothing fires me up more than complaining. I know because I'm the king of complaining. This blog of mine sometimes is one bug rant. Usually I ponder over something way past my pay grade, end up reminiscing about my life (especially my life before Christ) and then I bring hope into the passage with something spiritual. It's my pattern. Every blogger probably has one. Maybe mine is more evident, but it's there.
So back to complaining. My wife would say I still complain. Lately it's been about spending quality time with my wife. She's busy cutting and slicing in the kitchen while I (sometimes) end up doing random chores when I feel like I've been provided with enough energy. My wife has plenty. Either that or she knows that when she sits, her body is going to hibernate. There was a movie lately with the ever-hateable Sarah Jessica Parker called, "I don't know how she does it." The trailer shows some professional office worker married to Greg Kinnear and looks to impress women by understanding what they go through as they juggle careers, marriage and kids. And all the while looking like a shrunken head of her former self. My wife does that and more. No movie could represent that.
My other complaints have been about my older daughter. She's pretty much perfect. I love her to death and all I want to do is hug her. She's going on a college visit/practice/stay over tomorrow on her own. She has her Google directions printed and all her forms signed. She's worried about missing exits and getting there late. I know I should have probably taken the day off and driven her up there. Her dad in shining armor. I also know it's probably best I send her on her own. Slowly letting go. Cutting the chord one by using a dull butter knife.
Other complaints. Small digs here and there without sometimes knowing it. We probably all do this in some form or capacity. Living in Houston I felt it was my right to complain. Traffic, bad sports teams, Mexican people who weren't born here, Hispanics who held it against me that I didn't speak Spanish, rednecks, etc, etc etc. Once deep in my own filthy life and spewing it for all who would listen, my Mom's husband told me basically to shut up. He was probably the first person in a long line of people who probably who had enough of me.
Then I became a teacher. I didn't know complaints until I became a teacher. I had fun and new things to complain about. Not enough planning time, loud kids, principals, district policy, bad parents, good parents, hip hop, fellow teachers, broken copiers and not having a substitute when it's your day to have Art class. Teaching was not just an outlet for bouts of creativity, but it was a reservoir of negativity if you were willing to find it.
But that's another blog. The demons of my first five years, my last five years before Christ are a strange trip indeed. Those stories are push their way through whenever I face a challenging kid, a bad afternoon or when I speak to an old colleague. Sometimes I feel that my last five years teaching, my first five years after making a decision to follow Christ, was somehow going to wipe away my past teaching sins. I know this is a futile attempt at perfection (and a big fear of failure that's always been there with me, hand in hand like a demented demon just ready to pounce when my confidence gets too high). I know I cannot exempt the screaming I've done, the overtly aggressive hand-gestures and the days I phoned in a lesson.
And work isn't the only thing I've tried to fix (instead of letting Him in more, like I had anything to do with my own salvation other than to make a choice). My bad parenting of Cruz has me sighing each time I come home. His daily behavior log is becoming something I dread opening. When I was a kid, my Dad collected Time-Life books on everything from wars to nature. The pictures were always life-like, and the ones with sharks or insects always creeped me out. I would peek before opening the page so I wouldn't be scared. That's how I feel when I go to open his behavior log. He has good days and I don't believe him. I check for the good stamps and wonder if he somehow stole the teacher's stamp pad.
So it was without a sense of irony when Wednesday we had a district-wide professional development day. All morning I was between creativity, joking (not sarcastic ribs at the presenters like I've done countless times before) and loving the day that God had given me. By the time the day was over, I was almost in tears, wondering what the hell happened to such a great day. I don't know when it became to change. Was it the men who were callously reading the sports page during a keynote address (like I have done in the past,? I used to do this in high school!), or the people leaving early? Perhaps it was my own fatigue, or the stress of our own carpool driver? Once we arrived home, about an hour away from going to church for Bible study, I think I had uttered profanities at my wife, almost refused to go and wanted to sell my kids on e-bay. It happens just that fast.
Maybe my former life wants to have another go-round with me. One more bachelor party for old times sake. Maybe it never leaves us. I hear stories about radical transformations from sin to salvation. That is surely not my story. Mine is going a different path. Slow. God doesn't want me moping about my 33 or so years when I wanted to do things my way, but he's not going to just whisk it away either. What fun would that be? In the meantime, I'm going to keep praying, keep stepping and avoid the complainers. I feel embarrassed for them. I was once them and I just want to hug them. Their God-man in shining armor.
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