Church Parking Lot

It was a Wednesday night. It should have been a happy one, too. But I was alone in my car sobbing into the steering wheel.

I had kissed my husband and kids goodbye that night with the hopes of having a truly fun women's night at the church. Oh how I had struggled lately just to meet the tasks of day to day life without unraveling. Sitting around with women I had gone to church with for the last five years sounded like a nice diversion. I loved them and they loved me. Of that I was sure.

Determined to get what I hoped to out of the evening, I sat down at a table with women of varied ages. What I didn't realize was I had lived in the neighborhood far less time than any of them. And the conversation involved stories about neighbors who had since moved away, stories about things that had happened before I lived here. When they would discuss someone I did know, it became obvious that I did not know them enough, because no I did not know that her mother worked at the bakery with so and so's mother back in the 70s and 80s.

I had genuinely tried to interject, ask questions seven or eight times and still felt entirely disconnected from the conversation. My comments on the yummy eclairs or darling cookies went practically unnoticed. For 35 minutes I remained silent and decided the fact that my seat had been at this table this night didn't matter to anybody sitting there. The familiar process of unraveling began again. Without saying goodbye, I quietly pushed in my chair and went out to the dark car.

I cried, and I cried, and I cried.

What in the world is wrong with me? I thought.

I knew I was being overly sensitive. Incredibly childish.

No one was being malicious, they just had a lot to reminisce about. On a normal day, I could have just sat back and listened, picked up a little more knowledge about the history of the area I now called home. Or if I really wanted to be a part of a conversation, I could have gotten up and moved to a new table.

If it had been intentional, and that group of women truly were on a mission to ignore me all night, I thought how I awesome it would have been if my inner response had been, that's okay! Your loss!

But instead, here I was spilling tears all over my lap and interior of my car.

I had a hard time believing I mattered to anyone. What a strange, awful thought.

But it consumed me for the next several days.

I want to provide a disclaimer here because of how much I love the women I go to church with. This story is meant more to illustrate my depressed state of mind.


Next Chapter: Kitchen