Ready in Time

This isn't nearly as self-deprecating as it's going to sound: it may be true that I could have a propensity for the dramatic.

Now. I have no love for drama. I do not thrive on it. I do not think it makes life interesting; I think it makes life suck. I much prefer boring, and when I need a little spice in life, I turn to self-preserving fun (as opposed to the self-destructing variety)--not drama. But I discovered something about my bend toward drama today.

I really let stuff get under my skin. And when it gets me like that, boom. We have ourselves some drama. Sometimes, as in yesterday, we end up with a whole existential crisis.

Yesterday, soon after I wrote, my husband's work day was over. And because he is such a peaceful and comforting force in my life, peace and comfort came home with him. Well, at least to a degree. His presence can't solve everything, of course. But shortly thereafter, I went to church.

Ah, you say. And yeah. Pretty much.

In the Orthodox church, we pray a lot for peace, rest, health, and visitation. I don't know about you, but I can totally get behind that. And I went from rather a mess to a much more peaceful version. Then we proceeded to our Orthodoxy 101 class where we read a chapter of St. Innocent's amazing book. Now, St. Innocent was serious. He was a Russian missionary to Alaska, where they had no written language yet. He learned their verbal language, created an alphabet from it and the entire subsequent written language, and then used it to write a beautifully simple presentation of the Faith. I mean, wow. (And I'm worried about learning a little math? Sheesh.)

So, at the end of the chapter, he explains that happy is the man who accepts the love and help of Christ. Unhappy is the man who turns Him away because he is too weary or thinks the work is too hard, because he is pushing away the helping hand of Christ. There was more about woe-ing and being hateful and obstinate and all that, but I was held up by the unhappy, weary person.

Ding ding ding!

I turn Him away because I think to myself, He is too much work. I have enough work to do. I am tired. How do I fit Him in, too? And all along, I make myself downright unhappy.

Anyway, much peace and clear logic ensued.

I woke up this morning ready to open up the book and my calendar. I didn't intend to study today. The plan was to bust down my boundaries for a masters' program and make every "need" into something flexible. Maybe I could come up with a do-able plan.

So I opened up all the books. That's when I remembered which problem caused the emotional explosion and following meltdown. Ah. That's right. I can't remember why one-third equals x over x-60. To be honest, I'm not sure I can tell you even now. But I was surprised that this was question 17 and not question 3. That's not how I remembered it.

I looked back on my previous work that day. Look at that. 16 correct answers.

Well, I'll be damned.

Maybe I'm not so hopeless, huh? I mean, geez, I told you I let stuff get under my skin. How can I utterly forget about 16 correct answers once I've spent 30 minutes failing to understand the 17th? I mean, I forget the good, then I fill in the blanks my mind's left with pure lies. I said before--I do not enjoy drama. Neither do I much enjoy attention, so I didn't do it for that, either. I just...forget what I've done right. Get it together, Maura. Holy Moses.

I finished the rest of the exercise, which included twelve more questions. It did take me a long time to finish. I mean, it's not like I came up with an existential crisis ex nihilo; it was indeed difficult work. Most questions required that I turn to the answer key for guidance. But I got through it. When I'd finished, that's when "the answer" fell into my lap.

December. I will take this test in December. Screw the experts' whole "more-than-12-weeks-of-study-is-too-long" thing. I'm not ready. I'll take this test when I'm good and effing ready.

Hmph.