True confessions

This is something I have heard several times in the last few months. I will say or do something, and the person I am with will say, "You're back!" For some reason, this really bothers me. Everything in me fights that notion, and I usually end up "worse" for awhile. And I think it's because there's a lot packed into that concept of being "back to normal." I'm' not. It may seem like I am. But honestly, I can't stress this enough, a lot of it is fake. A lot of my days follow the "fake it til you make it" motto. Because of depression and grief and exhaustion, I have to pretend to be myself. I can sometimes feel myself subconsciously trying to figure out "what would Monica do in this situation?" so that I can approximate my own normal as best I can. Often, the statement that I'm back follows a whole lot of pretending to be my normal self. Even if it is a genuine moment of "me-ness," it does...

"Come Unto Me, Ye Weary" sounds easy. The second line is supposedly, "and I will give you rest." But that's not the real second line. The rest of the hymn goes like this: "And you will need to rest.  Because this hymn is awkward  And difficult at best. Oops that was a wrong note And those chords were all wrong.  You really should have spent more Time practicing this song"

True fact: The complexity level of the hymn is inversely proportional to the amount of time you leave yourself to practice.  If you wait until Sunday morning to look at the hymns, two of them will have 4 flats. One of them will have a bunch of accidentals (and I'm not talking about all the wrong notes you accidentally play...) and awkward chord structures.  Good luck. 

Playing chicken with yourself looks like this: *Looks at hymn list. Doesn't know what to play for pre-service.* "I'll figure that out later." And repeat, hoping that you eventually cave before the oncoming train of Sunday morning hits. I also call this: Playing for church in the summer when it's all "general" music and your brain is on summer break and used all the creativity in the festival season. See also: laziness, procrastination