On Snapping Turtles

"Look Ray," Fraser gestured out the open plane door as they flew over the frozen Canadian ice fields, "turtles." 
"Turtles?! What...Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa."
-Due South, final episode, sooooo awesome.

Actually, I don't know anything about snapping turtles, so maybe it's a bit presumptuous to write a blog post where I talk about feeling like one, but I'm going to use my imagination and make an attempt anyway.

My not-so-imaginative assumption about turtles in general is that they are prone to withdrawing their head and limbs into the safety of their shell if they are feeling threatened.  Um, yeah, that's pretty much been my self portrait since at least the beginning of the fall.  I am retreating.  Mostly into myself.  

My not-so-imaginative assumption about snapping turtles is that they're ornery and will snap at potential threats to discourage predation or attempted stealing of the turtle's resources.  Hmmm, have I been reactive lately?  The best person to ask is usually Daniel, but he's at work so I'm just going to give you some snap-shots from the last few weeks and you can judge for yourselves.

Christmas Day Dinner with My Sibs:
I have the year's meanest cold, and so does pretty much everyone else. Incredibly, my youngest foster sister, Samantha, actually came to dinner with her boyfriend.  Samantha is a human lynx- super quiet, shy, graceful, and nearly impossible to find.  Thus, when I ended up seated beside her for supper, I was trying really hard to come up with topics we could chat about that would help her feel welcome and at ease.  We ended up on the topic of furbies.  I've only ever seen a furbie once, so to keep the conversation going I was trying to relate an amusing 2nd hand story of furbie destruction.  "Faye," my sister Melanie complains loudly from across the room, "you're doing a terrible job of telling that story.  Please stop."  Melanie does not bother offering an alternative, more entertaining version of the story; rather, disaster averted, she returns to her nap.  Thank you, Melanie, for that constructive feed-back.

Pre New Years Eve Dinner with a Few of My Sibs:
I still have the year's meanest cold, and so does pretty much everyone else.  I am physically exhausted and really just want to be at home snuggled in cosy blankets and watching some sort of happy-endinged children's movie, but Val and Dwayne will only be here for a short time so Dan and I accepted Val's dinner invite and I am doing my best to be sociable.  I am in the midst of telling a story when Melanie interrupts, "Faye, you are making that the most boring story ever."  Looking back, I can't even remember what the story was about so she was probably right, but at the time my pride was stinging so I threw a spoonful of potatoes at Melanie's face.  They make a very satisfying "splat" when they hit her cheek.  Nevertheless, I feel myself melting inwards a bit more.  I'm quiet for the rest of the night.

New Year's Eve Day, at work:
Work is dead.  We're fully staffed and maybe getting a call an hour.  The calls we're getting could be answered by a trained monkey: "Excuse me, what is the number for the Mustard Seed?"  All around me, my co-workers are exchanging stories about their Christmas experiences, future or current academic aspirations, travel plans, and favourite you-tube videos and pintrist items.  I am reading a book.  I read for 8 hours, then go home and have a nice dinner with Daniel, watch a comedy, and try to extinguish underlying feelings of guilt about enjoying myself while Sijie continues to sleep in her guest room 23 hours a day trying to fight off migraines and discouragement about still being stranded in our house.

Last Sunday afternoon:
I pull my car up to the curb in front of the church I attend.  I wait impatiently for Daniel and our friend Lynn to get out of the church and get in the car so we can hopefully get back to our house to serve lunch to our guests before all said guests get there before us.  Lynn just can't be rushed.  She has her own sense of time and that sense doesn't seem to notice that she's the last person in the church, still talking to the Young Adult pastor, who is hoping to lock the church up and go have lunch himself.  I try to remind myself that she can't help it- Lynn's a single woman on AISH who only has her dog for company the rest of the week so this is her "grown-up social time" and she's reluctant to leave it unfinished. 

In preparation for their arrival, I turn my stereo down to half its former volume and switch to a classical radio station.  This is my compromise.  Lynn is certainly not my only friend who prefers to have the radio off or extremely quiet when we drive together, but she is the only one I refuse to entirely appease.  I would like to feign ignorance about why that should be the case, but I know: it's resentment.  While giving her a ride to a train station previously Lynn moaned and asked if I always have my radio on, then informed me that I can't hear God's voice if my radio is on.  That pissed me off.  I gritted my teeth and politely told her that I often find God speaks to me through music, and I leave it on all the time in my car to drown out the mysterious loud sounds my car makes.  She made no response to that statement, and I have felt a slightly wicked urge ever since to play something like Chevelle or Demon Hunter as loud as my stereo will go when she gets in my car.  Today I resist the urge again.

I pull away from the curb once I make sure Lynn is properly buckled in.  As soon as Lynn settles herself, she immediately looks at me with piteous eyes, begins rubbing her temples like she's having a hang-over, and cries, "Oh no! I forgot that you are one of those people who always leaves their stereo on.  I just can't take it today- it interrupts my ability to think and concentrate on what I'm saying.  Oh can't I please turn it off?  Or wait, let me get out and go with Grace- she would let me turn off her stereo."  And somewhere inside my head a door slams shut.  As if I've left the scene and become some sort of omniscient narrator in a movie, I sit back and watch myself shut down.  My hands grip the wheel and I continue driving.  I don't respond to her request.  I don't say anything at all.  When we're several blocks away, I witness myself attempt to employ a very obvious attempt at changing the topic, and duly note that in psychology this would be considered an avoidant communication strategy intended to provide emotional distance from an emotionally-triggering situation.  "So Lynn, how's your arm doing?"

Aaaaaand BLAM! Yoshi the turtle is blown out of the water.  Mario Cart 4Eva!  Well, I guess I'm not an omniscient narrator for my life after all. I didn't see that coming: Lynn shoots my diversion down as soon as I finish saying it.  "Faye, I like you.  Now, I consider myself to be someone who likes straight-forward communication.  Have you noticed that when I ask things of you, you don't actually answer my question?  I have a sense of humour, you know.  When I asked you for help walking my dog, I was joking.  You didn't say whether you would help me, but the next week you asked if I'd thought of tying my dog's leash to my belt.  I am not stupid, or inexperienced.  I have owned 6 dogs before this one- I know all those dog-walker techniques."  I attempted to break in right then with an ill-thought out argument, but fortunately Lynn talked right over top of me.  "I have had to learn to ask for and accept help.  I find it difficult- before God stripped me of everything, I used to be very independent.  The pastor spoke today of the need to forgive and not hold on to bitterness about things.  I have had to learn that, too.  One time when I was at the Central campus, I asked a lady in the foyer if she knew of anyone living in the NW who might be able to give me a ride home.  Rather than saying, 'Yes,' and introducing me to someone she knew, or going off to ask around, or simply saying she wouldn't help me, she proceeded to list all the alternative ways I could get home- cab, city transit, etc.  She wasn't actually answering my question, just doing something to make it look like she was being helpful without actually being so." 

And then it was Lynn's turn to abruptly change the topic. 

Friday afternoon:
I am sitting in our agency's board room with my fellow full-timers as we trudge through hour 7 of our 8 hour training session/meeting.  We are given the sobering fact that call volume is down but our send-outs for rescues have gone up.  Our team leader's theory on the cause of this statistical oddity is that we're paranoid and freaking out over things that aren't actually emergent.  The topic of how to appropriately handle calls where a caller is at risk of self-harm/cutting comes up: "If the person tells you they are not suicidal, they indicate that the self-harm is not life-threatening, and they don't want medical attention, there is no reason to send a rescue.  When you do that, you are sending that rescue because it makes you feel better, because it reduces your anxiety about them cutting; it's not because that rescue is actually beneficial for that person, or because sending a rescue is going to magically cause that person to stop cutting as a coping mechanism."
Then the topic switched to how they're changing our contract and need us to be more "flexible" to "meet the needs of the agency".  A.k.a. please give up your silly, selfish dreams of having any semblance of a normal schedule where you could do things like sign up for an evening course or fitness class and have a hope of being able to attend 1/2 of the sessions you paid for.  By the way, we highly support self-care and professional development activities for our staff. 


Harsh words that have the ring of truth.  How I hate them.  But they're everywhere, knocking on my shell when I'm trying to hide inside and pretend nobody's home, jabbing me in the nose when I come out to bite. 
When I engage with people, am I allowing them to be genuine, or trying to control the conversation so my anxiety isn't aroused by another person's expression of need?  Why am I feeling anxious about that, anyway?

Because I can't meet the needs of all the people I know. 

That's an impossible task.  Why am I even trying to do that? 

Because I'm trying to be God, rather than just be with Him.  Because I'm still lugging around the sorrows I encounter, rather than bringing the sorrows of the world to God for Him to deal with. 

It's really hard sometimes to distinguish between what it looks like being a reflection of God versus trying to be God himself.

God, my heart is bleeding all the time.  I'm so tired of trying to fix it.