Sundays are Hard

It's Sunday morning.  I've fed William, bathed and dressed him.  I've had my breakfast, and coffee is brewing, hot and fragrant in the kitchen.  I've showered and brushed my teeth.  My makeup bag lays open, contents sprawled across the bathroom counter.  My hair hangs in tangled rings past my shoulders, waiting for a comb and at least two hair elastics - I am not brave when it comes to my hair, and it is perpetually up in a messy bun.  I grumble, plucking a few greys from my freshly scrubbed scalp, I'm too young for grey hair.  This is ridiculous.  I groan when my hair, now combed, doesn't want to stay in the confines of the elastics, doesn't want to hang straight, doesn't want to cooperate with me in any way, and I start to wish I knew a good hairdresser.  I think about when my hair was less than 2 inches long, and how simple it was.  And how manly I looked. Ok, we won't go that far. I need to still be able to pull my hair out of my face.  I start comparing myself to the other moms at church - that one always arrives with perfectly coiffed hair.  That one is so thin, and yes, she does have a child.  Stop, I think, you are your own person.  It doesn't matter what they look like.  And I convince myself that a little foundation and some mascara will hide my insicurities. 

At least until it's time to get dressed.  I open my drawers, clothes folded neatly inside - my jeans that are too tight, and whose metal rivets bite into my hips leaving raw flesh beneath, and my black "going out" pants - an early maternity purchase, still "regular" pants, just a few sizes up from the old me.  I'll have to make due with the same black pants I've worn to church almost every week for the past four months.  Ok, I think to myself, I can handle that.  They're black, they're mostly comfortable, and they're basic. No one will notice that they're the same. Again.   Then I check my drawer of shirts, and decide to clean out the stash as I go - one, two, three, four maternity shirts that I should really pass on to my sister-in-law (who's expecting in September!) that leaves, one, two, three shirts that don't  actually fit this more-generously-proportioned post-pregnancy me.  Apparently there are a few shirts in the laundry hamper, and we're down to three shirts.  Two Value-Villiage finds that are beginning to fall apart, and should only be worn if there is 0% chance of visitors, and I need to scrub the bathroom floor.  And a tank top.  Perfect.  It's February.  I head across the bedroom to the closet - maybe my husband's shirts have had female children in just-my-size overnight.  Wishful Thinking.  So I head back to the dresser.  And then back to the closet.  And I try not to scream in frustration.  And then I remember the one well-fitting, nice-looking, maybe-it's-even-clean, wore-it-last-week-and-the-eight-weeks-prior shirt, and I run to the basement to check the dryer.  It's there.  Great.  I get to go to church looking exactly the same as last week. Again. 

Shoes? Yep, the only pair I have - two chunky grey mesh running shoes.  Perfect for church. :(

It's ok.  No one will notice.  I hope. And I think,  Who am I kidding?  

I'm so tired of feeling ugly.  Boring.  I just want a little life in the way I look.  


I enter the sanctuary where the worship team is doing a final run through of their morning lineup.  I pass off my son to his grandfather, and sit quietly in the back, sipping my coffee and trying desperately to fade into the pew, hoping no one notices how grumpy I am and stops to ask why.  I don't want to have to explain how fantastic a pity party I'm throwing for myself.  I don't want pat answers.  Can't bear the idea of someone breaking in on this shell I've put on and joining the pity party.

I settle in to listen to worship, unable to carry the tunes myself, thanks to these issues with my voice.  I wait for the sermon, try to pay attention, and drift off, back to my pity party part way through the Pastor's teaching.

Sundays are hard for me.  

Just throwing it out there.