Not Myself

"I just don't feel like myself." I said this to Chris last night as we stood on Third Avenue waiting on the M101 bus to take us up to 91st street. "Not that I know what I feel like, or that I feel like someone else I just feel blah."

Sunday and Monday, I just felt blase. Bland. "Poopy" as Chris and I say, which has no inference to actually needing to use the bathroom, it's just an emotion. Sunday I took a nap and Monday morning I didn't go to the gym. I wore brown instead of black. I wore my hair pulled back. I ate a slice of pizza for lunch instead of my usual Hale and Hearty or soup/ tuna combo I bring from home. Pizza is not me. (It was vegan pizza on whole wheat crust, but pizza nevertheless.)

And I had to work yesterday. What I mean is I had to actually do work at work. I didn't even get to check my Facebook account until after 2:30pm and I still haven't responded to an email that I would like to respond to. I thought I'd get to edit that piece I wanted to submit by November 30th. I mean seriously. I thought this was a low key work week. I thought I was just a measly receptionist who did a little of this and a little of that, gee whiz.

Then, when my co-worker told me to have a glass of wine and relax when I got home after work I let her know that after work I was heading to choir rehearsal. (Monday night instead of Wednesday night this week: our modified Thanksgiving schedule.) My usual routine when I get off work at 6:00pm and have choir at 7:00pm is to wander uptown to church, taking my time, stopping at Ann Taylor or Sam Flax Stationers. But yesterday I walked myself right down to the subway, got off at the first stop, and walked straight to church at 6:20pm.

When I got into the sanctuary there was no one there. Everyone was sitting at Starbucks, or grabbing a burrito, or picking up toiletries at Bed Bath and Beyond one block over- or so I assume. I laid down (or, did I lie down, or lay down?) the first pew in my sweater dress and boots, wadding up my scarf as a pillow. I had no energy. I had no money to spend on stuff. I had no want to. I was tired and lethargic and didn't feel like myself. And I don't think God has a problem with us coming to Him like this.

So, laying (lieing??- Listen, I'm a writer not a grammar teacher. And yes, my masters is in Journalism, but I don't have my style book handy.) on the pew at church was just where I needed to be. (For those of you haven't, I wish you could be inside Trinity for just a moment. It's beautiful. Mystical. Old and cave-like.) Growing up in a "gym church" I appreciate the architecture and design and meaning behind each pillar and painting and stained glass window. The ceiling in the sanctuary is a dome which has smallish windows that let in ample sunshine. Directly in the center of the dome is a triangle that has an eye in it. I realize that it sounds creep and new-age and a bit non-Christian, BUT the designer intended it to represent the eye of God, looking down on his people. Laying on the pew, I looked into that big eye.

I could hear Dave playing his guitar and singing upstairs in classroom C. I could hear Beth singing along to the worship song pumping out of her computer speakers, "Fill up my lungs with air, my voice with prayer and my mouth with praise...." Downstairs I could hear metal folding chairs colliding as the monthly prayer team circled-up. And I liked it and I knew this is where I was supposed to be.

And when I did get home, sometime after 9:30pm, I did have that glass of red wine.