Tired

I was exhausted last night. I went to bed right after dinner, but had trouble falling asleep. Turned the TV on, volume low, and let our large dog lay across my cold feet.

There was a silly comedy on, The Office, about a dysfunctional paper company in Scranton, Pennsylvania, led by a clueless, dysfunctional manager who was just dumped by his new girlfriend (apparently on the first date he had proposed and swiped a picture of her family, photoshopping his face over her husband’s to make himself look like a part of the family).

As he moaned about his love life through the rest of the show I became increasingly embarrassed.

I saw too much of myself there.

His friends tried to console him, took him out for dinner and drinks, listened to his pathos, the agony of it all.

I am tired of all of this. I am tired of the situation where my wife’s heart is elsewhere, where I think constantly about trying to save a relationship, where I moan through the internet about my love life.

I’m tired of being depressed. I’m tired of counseling and walking through the minefield of marital conversations and even of praying, at least about this.

I’m tired of the idea that people are reading this stuff and seeing a dysfunctional, moaning, Christ-follower.

I feel myself becoming more rigid, less willing to be understanding. I feel myself readier to call it quits, to fill out paperwork which would dissolve this legal and emotional relationship.

I’m not Hosea. My life isn’t an object lesson for a nation about the relationship between men and God.

I’m just someone who wants to do the right thing.

And I’m tired.