The Structure of Summer: Cabin and work

Life is not where you live. It's also not a string of tasks, one after the other. Instead, life is lived on the inside, within those structures, where personal experiences pile up and intertwine and are sorted into meaningful categories by memory.

Still, my internal life feels a tad sensitive right now, even messy. I had an EBD (emotional break-down) at lunch today, and the categories aren't clear at all. 

So I'm writing now about the external structures of where and what. Maybe later I'll get to the other stuff. 

Our Summer Home:

This is our home for the next month and a half! Isn't it cute? 

The YMCA of the Rockies was established around the turn of the LAST century--more than 100 years ago. Built in 1914, our little duplex is one of the oldest structures still standing. Every year they threaten to tear it down and build something new, but every year it somehow escapes the ax. For the tree growing up through the roof of the water closet, that's a good thing! 

We have one large room with a kitchen,

and two tiny bedrooms. The one where we sleep is just big enough for a double bed and a chest of drawers.

We haven't had an official hike yet, but because our cabin is perched so far above the main YMCA campus, I feel as if we get a mini-hike nearly every day! 

Two Very Different Hats:

As far as work is concerned, I feel as though I have my feet in two separate buckets. 

Photo credit: Google Images

In the first bucket, I don a forest green polo shirt and make my way among wet floors and clanking machinery to clean and sort trays of dirty dishes from the guest dining hall. Since hubby is considered LT staff this summer, we aren't really working for the Y, but they are kind enough to let us volunteer two morning shifts each week in exchange for all the food we can eat. :) A pretty good deal!

In the second bucket, there are no dirty dishes, but the water is murky and confusing. Suddenly, the same tasks I have been doing for our church office the last two and a half years take twice or thrice as much effort. A simple thing like checking the office email may take two hours, simply because the internet connection keeps logging me out. A question to a co-worker that would have been solved in a three-minute conversation down the hall is now a 2 day email exchange. 

Don't get me wrong--I'm thankful to be here, thankful that supervisors allowed me to come with hubby on this summer adventure, and thankful for the income.

But with deadlines looming...
and banks saying they can't give me information to do my job unless my boss is on the phone WITH me...
and the information from the office incomplete and unclear...

A growing sense of failure and frustration is tightening my throat and making me wonder what I'm doing here. Shouldn't effort equal success? But at the moment, it feels like I am dumping effort into a black hole, with no results in sight.

But now I've gone past the external structures to the rawness I promised not to share. Oh well...I guess God knew I needed to share it. Prayers are appreciated.