Having a Hard Week

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This past week has been a real hard one. I have felt like almost every insecurity and major life issue of mine has been challenged in the past five days. I don't want this post to turn into Lucy Rose's Lengthy Catalogue of Woes. I will be careful. Don't worry. 

I drew these pictures onto some napkins from the school dining hall. Napkins are an under-explored surface for art making. I like how the dull tone of the paper is suited to my mood this week: Dull. The structure of the paper is cool, because is looks like an expensive, heavy drawing paper. I think the pen also looks good. I expected it to bleed a lot, but my fine-tipped Sharpie was great--precise, clean lines. 

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So I felt like during my week the following Big Areas of my life were challenged:

1. My Job Security: I need to look for a new job instead of my old babysitting one. The circumstances of my termination at this job were frustrating, because they felt to be beyond my control. This event is so fresh that I cannot yet write about it without great pain so I need to keep it brief and be vague, but it really triggered feelings of insecurity about money and finding a new part-time job. It also gave me great insecurity about being a competent and trustworthy caretaker. 

2. My Relationships: Because of the stress of losing my job, I found myself especially sensitive and liable to lash out at Sheldon this week. He bore this so graciously and kept in mind that much of what I said was influenced by my sorrow at losing my job. I also had some communications with friends that made me feel vulnerable and brought up old Lucy Rose Problems. 

3. My Phone: My phone cracked. This is not a big deal, because it still works fine. And I realise that this last area of my life is kind of unusual to be insecure about. I started to realise how reliant I am on my phone. I love my phone. It is my calculator, my contact to other people, my camera, my period calculator, games, internet access etc. I am addicted to it. I was trying to figure out if has become too much of an addiction that it has been cutting off my ability to pray and  be quiet in the mornings when I usually like to devote time to reading the Bible. That was why breaking it felt like a confirmation of the fact that it has become too important to me. It felt like cracking my phone was an opportunity for me to loosen my love of my phone. 

These were some of the things that were challenged for me this week. I told several people who asked about how my week was going that it felt as though God was using a pokey implement to jab me in between the chinks in my various forms of armour--as though my job and my relationships and even my technologies are forms of security. By exposing the weak points of all of these areas He made me more helpless than usual. I am a pretty competent young woman who doesn't like to ask for help. This week I needed to pray more often and ask for help from God and friends and family. I suspect that that could be one reason the Lord let all those things happen this week--He wants me to be reliant upon Him. 

Here are some back-issue posts for you to peruse, in case this napkin post was too depressing and you need something cheerier after it:

- A day full of hands

- Babysitting my littlest brother

- Finding lost things

- Middle-school flashbacks

- My literary crushes