Velcro and Baby Poop: How NBC’s The Office Saved My Mother’s Day

Journal Entry: Friday, May 11 10:42am - Today I woke up feeling bleh. No reason in particular. It happens. Typically, I’m bouncing for joy for one reason or another. But today feels different. I feel unusually sad. Like an invisible hand slapped me into a reality I cannot escape. Words that normally ring in the ears of my heart grow eerily silent as waves of gratitude recede from the shores of my soul. I imagine this is what barrenness feels like: empty silence. 

Journal Entry: Saturday, May 12 9:04 pm - I don’t think I’ve ever cried so much. She’s dying. No, not the kind of dying where it at least gives you time to prepare to say your goodbyes. Not the kind of dying that gives you a sense of feeling like you can have closure, even if it’s imagined and enacted by my own selfish desires. She is dying. Right now. Right this minute. And inside, I feel the walls of my kingdom collapsing. She’s a few days shy of her 27th wedding anniversary. It’s time like this that I secretly wish rage would pay me a visit…this silence is killing me.

By far, this weekend was probably the toughest I’ve encountered in a while. After learning of my relative’s condition, I decided: Mother’s Day was canceled. There’d be no trip to Coldstone’s Ice Creamery. No trip to Mom’s to celebrate. No gifts exchanged. No joy. Just silence. If that was going to be her fate; it was definitely going to be mine also.

It was my full intention to barricade myself in my room, watch movies all night and feign sickness the next day so that I wouldn’t hurt my family’s feelings when I announced Mother’s Day was over. I had it all figured out. Then I started catching up on the Office. 

First, am I the only one who didn’t know Jim and Pam had another baby?!! I just about hit the floor when I saw Dr. Who’s Donna Noble eating a taco by pouring its contents into her mouth! (How bad is it that I have no idea what her name is on the show?) But what really made me laugh was when Jim ripped Dwight’s velcro-suit off him and ran. I think I laughed for about 20 minutes before I could continue watching the episode.

All in all, I watched about 3 hours worth of Office episodes and you know what? The silence lifted. I heard myself asking is Kelly seriously dating the hottie from Heroes?! Is Angela kissing Dwight in the paternity clinic?? !  Of course, that got me laughing even harder all over again and again and again.

Why I wrote this post:  Pain happens. Grief happens. It hits hard and pulls no punches. You cry. You ache. You bleed. Isolating yourself as a means to coping with pain or loss seems like the ideal solution–it isn’t. You’re going to find that sometimes when you can’t reach out because silence traps you inside a shell of yourself,  laughter is the best medicine. Find a funny video, photo or keepsake that never ceases to put a smile in your heart. You never know when you’ll need it.

P.S.

My Mother’s Day was a smashing success: Brunch. Coldstone’s. Moscato Champagne. Once Upon a Time. Sherlock Holmes. Hugs. Kisses. Gifts and lots of laughter.

Chasing the Wind – A Guest Post by MaryEllen Schlusser

After feeling like I was chasing the wind for a couple of years, I stopped dead in my tracks. Each day after the kids went to school, I finished my last cup of coffee, curled up on the coach and went back to sleep. I would get up by around one in the afternoon, get dressed quickly and run to the store before they got home. I would spend most of the afternoon and evening trying to get a million things done, that I could have done when all five kids were in school. Next day, repeat…again and again and again.

It was a year of loss. Not one loss in particular, but I’d experience  a small loss here, a big one over there, a betrayal, a rejection, another pain, and another and another and another. It almost didn’t even matter what the circumstances were. I always found myself paralyzed and unable to move.

At times, I felt like a petulant brat who was constantly whining about something or another. After all no one died, my kids were healthy,  and my marriage was strong. Still, with each new loss came the renewed sense that LOSER was stamped on my heart.

Jesus is and always was the Rock of my salvation. But it felt like there was this gigantic rug that practically swallowed me, keeping me from the Rock I desperately  loved. Not to mention all the other muck and mire, I felt at every turn. I was at a loss.

I began to read, pray and soak in God’s Word. The book of James says that we are to always be ready with an answer for why we believe what we believe. I just kept reading, determined to find something to get me out of this funk and I did. I found wisdom!

While wisdom didn’t completely cure me from sleeping half the day away, it did lead me to seek out sound teaching, wise counsel and it got me to get off my bum and get to bible study! While this sounds like I was definitely “doing” more, in reality I really wasn’t, at least not at home. So, I prayed: ”God, please don’t leave me here, on the couch.”

My answered prayer came through unconventional means:  a Pinterest invite from a friend.  If you haven’t been, go, go, go!!

I started looking at this idea and that idea. One morning after my time with the Lord, I took a part a frame, painted it and made a chalk board. The next day, I spackled a wall, cleaned out a drawer, fixed a broken tea cup. I repaired an old mirror. I crackle painted a frame to make a calender (okay, so I gave it seven days and seven weeks so it still needs some tweaking) and painted the kitchen. I got my resume completed and sent it out as well. Yesterday, I went to work, just to fill in for a few hours, but oh, it felt so good. Look at me, blogging. Haven’t done it in months on end.

I knew I could be transformed by the renewal of my mind, if I kept at it. His Word told me so. Even though I didn’t believe in me, He still did–and always does.  I figure if He can speak through an ass, He can grab this heart of mine with a Pinterest invite, a can of paint and a stable gun. Who knew?