Frustration and Vanity

This has been the first week of my sabbatical, but thus far it hasn't felt very restful. Some of this is the reality of children; colleagues who have gone on sabbatical have told me that they spent the first week or so just sleeping. They obviously don't live with little beings who bound into their room at 6:30 every morning.

But the deeper thing that has made it less restful has been the environment of frustration I seem to be living in recently. None of the aggravations have been anything horrible: lost contacts that took 2 1/2 weeks to replace, salary changes that didn't go through as scheduled, getting waitlisted for the one seminary class I wanted to take this spring, etc. But it has certainly felt than any smaller, logistical thing that could go amiss, has. Add to that everyday frustrations like hyper kids who missed their naps or holes in a new shirt, stir in my generally low emotional reserves, and I am definitely limping into this sabbatical.

I've been reading Ecclesiastes since Midi's death. Something has resonated for me with the idea that most of life is "vanity and chasing after the wind". It is especially true that many of the logistics causing me frustration these days aren't really that important, vanity in the larger scheme of things. I hope that as I do get some chances to rest a bit more, I will not experience as much angst over these insignificant things. It's also very clear to me none of these things are the real issue. The class I wanted to take (and which I did get into eventually) is called "Grief, Loss, Death and Dying"; during the first lecture I cried through half of it. So I'm hoping God doesn't just relieve the frustrations, but actually brings some deeper peace to me at some point.