WARNING: RANT AHEAD.
I'm in a bit of a funk and a slump all at once.
Its not like enough things are going on as it is with the stress of penny-pinching for my vacation to Miami, stress of school issues, stress of being made a trainer at work (and the opposition with it), stress of normal church-y politics which make no sense, stress of being compared to my brother A LOT because he's getting his life together with joining the Navy and blah blah blah "when are YOU going to get YOUR life together" bull from the parents, stress of cat dieing, stress from worrying about how I'll get to any 4-year university in the area because the private ones are expensive and the public ones are favoring out of state students, stress of living at home with retired parents, stress from the probable-soon-to-be-fallout of more church-y politics (but this one was out of obedience), stress of coworkers constantly nagging "why haven't you found a girlfriend yet", stress from the family on the other side of the state of "when will you visit", stress from all the normal everyday bull and what happens?
One of our elders in the church went to the Lord Sunday morning. He had a stroke on Wed/Thurs, went into a coma and reposed. It is his time to go, yes, but he was like a grandfather to me. We bonded over a common German heritage and Orthodoxy. He was the one who taught me "Christ is Risen! Indeed..." in German; correctly. He had a great dry, yet witty sense of humor and never raised his voice to a soul. He almost always welcomed new people to the church. He will be missed. He is already missed. I was fortunate to be able to visit him in the hospital, I spoke some German to him, visited with his wife and son who were also there, and I said goodbye.
I can handle being in a bit of an emotional slump. I can handle being in a bit of a funk. I can not handle both at once very well. I can not handle both at once with all of this going on very well either. I haven't been on a vacation in years, or had a break from work for longer than two weeks and the thought of actually being able to relax from most of this is just... almost incomprehensible.
As for the issues with the priest and matushka not treating my family correctly; that is in the process of being dealt with very soon. In a nutshell, my spiritual father said to write the bishop, I did (four pages on Word double-spaced and then copy/pasted to email) and actually had a response within the hour. Lucky! But I just hope that the fallout from that, if there is any, will not be too bad and will not effect my family.
I am tired. I want to be on vacation so much right now, but it's two and a half weeks away!
[/rant]
Okay, I feel a lot better now
