Sleeping with Bread Monday with Pieces of Me

In the last week, when did I feel the most whole?

Being by nature an extrovert, I love to meet new people and welcome them into a group. Yesterday, I was manning an information table at church and was able to meet a college-age woman who was checking out our church for the first time. We spoke a little and I introduced her to the associate pastor responsible for college people and small groups. When I walked into the auditorium I saw her sitting alone and asked if she minded if I sat with her. Now, I haven't done anything like that in a long time. I've been too wrapped up in my problems to have the energy to reach out. I'm glad I took a chance. There were a couple of times in the service when I was able to explain how we did things and I was also able to talk with her just a little. At one point in the service, the pastor asked us to turn to the person next to us and share when someone had served us. I shared my example with her and she looked at me and said, "When you made me feel welcome today. I am served when someone welcomes me." I gave her my phone number and email telling her that if she had any questions to please feel free to call me. I also told her that I knew she was checking out different churches but that I hoped we would see her again. She looked right at me and said, "You'll see me next week."

Now, the point of this is not to show how I am such a wonderful person. The point is that, at my best, I am the person who seeks out and finds new people. It is easy for me. I am the person who will talk to a stranger in the elevator. Challenges being what they have been for months and months now, I haven't been myself. Sunday I got a glimpse of my true self again. I hope I see her more often.

In the last week, when did I feel the most fragmented?

Life being what it is, of course, I go from an experience like that on Sunday back to Raging Hormone Central. As I get older, it is just more and more work making it through certain days of each month. Years ago, while living in Texas, I took a weather class to fulfill my science-for-idiots requirement. One day we discussed the Santa Ana winds that Calfornia experiences. Being one of a few, possibly the only one, there who had experienced them, I likened a Santa Ana wind day to one in which your brain is just a little off. They make you feel a little crazy. Raymond Chandler wrote this about these infamous winds:

"[T]hose hot dry [winds] that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen."

That is my life with hormones right now. They are like the Santa Ana winds causing a shift in my brain that I know will go away when the winds go away. In the meantime, I feel that I should issue a warning to anyone near and dear to me. Watch your necks.

More Sleeping with Bread:

Zoey over at life girl: Sleeping with Bread Monday: Just Plain Scared.

Atypical at nonsensical text for: my yeast is outdated.