volunteering on xanax

November 26, 2009 6:50am

So I promised myself that I wouldn’t try to send myself on a guilt trip if I didn’t write in this journal on every day of my sabbatical. So far, I’ve done rather well at keeping that promise. Considering I haven’t written since Saturday, and it is now Thursday, I feel it’s safe to go on a little guilt trip. It’s not that I wanted to start the habit of journaling daily, although that is a goal I would like to achieve at some point, but I really did want to keep better track of my thoughts, actions and attitudes during this time period.

Unfortunately, I’m not going to be able to write very much this morning, as Cody and I are headed off to our church within the next half hour to begin prepping for the community Thanksgiving Day meal that the church is hosting this afternoon. It appears that there is now an over-abundance of volunteers, but God forbid everyone should think that and no one show up. We’d much rather err on the side of too much help than not enough.

I’m excited to be able to help out with the prep work and setting up, but I’m hoping our volunteer coordinator(s) can find some behind-the-scenes work for me in the kitchen or elsewhere once they open the doors and people start to come in to eat. I’m just not comfortable enough with strangers to be able to interact with a multitude of them non-stop for a couple of hours straight. I do have a Xanax in pocket in case of emergency though. I will tell them my preference, but I won’t tell them “No” if asked to do something else.

We’re not even sure if they’ll need us at serving time, as that appears to be the time most of the volunteers have signed up for. So we are planning to be there until 3pm, but may end up leaving sooner if we aren’t needed for the entire time. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to stay and help with the clean up, as we’re headed off to Cody’s mom’s house at 5pm for dinner there. Ideally, I would have signed up for setup and prep, come home, and then returned in the afternoon to help with the cleanup. Since we have other commitments though, I’ll make the most of my time during the serving hours instead.

I have a feeling that I’ll have another backup there of the non-pharmaceutical persuasion though. I’m sure Pastor will be there for a large chunk of time, if not the whole day. While I know that he’ll be busy “being Pastor” with all those people there, I know that he knows me well enough to recognize that “deer-in-the-headlights” look I get when I’m overwhelmed or uncomfortable. I don’t expect him to swoop in and save me like Superman or anything, but he always seems to know when I need a word of encouragement, support, etc.

We’re headed to Bowling Green tomorrow, so I’m hoping to have a chance (and the energy!) to write some more tonight and/or tomorrow morning before we leave. We won’t be back home until at least late afternoon on Saturday, and this sabbatical is drawing to a close at the end of the weekend. I never really worked out the “rules” for when I would officially re-enter the 21st century, but I’ll probably sneak a peek on Sunday, provided I have the time. I won’t actually show up on facebook or anything like that until at least Monday, but I may take advantage of any free time Sunday to get a head-start on what I’m sure will be a lot of blog posts I’ve missed. A lot of the minor interest and/or news blogs will simply be a quick click of “mark all as read”, but there are others that I really do want to catch up on.