[8/27/12] Saying "No."

I had a bit of a meltdown yesterday during Sunday School. Yes. I skipped Sunday School. It was one of Those Days.

Thankfully, Kam went to our ward (congregation) yesterday instead of the young single adults ward she's been attending, so she hung out with me in the car during my meltdown.

She is awesome.

I will miss her so much when she goes back to school on Saturday.

But we're not talking about that at our house.

A few weeks ago John and I were asked to teach a class on Sunday nights at our house with another couple. We would alternate Sundays.

At first I was pretty excited about getting to do this with John. And I love to teach, so it was all good.

I tried and tried to ignore that little voice in my head that said, "Are you crazy? You have 10 credits of school this semester, you're helping out a bit at the office while one of the admins is on maternity leave, you help John from time to time with his work stuff, you do John's monthly newsletter for work, you serve in the Young Women (Sundays and weekly activities and other random stuff), you accompany the ward choir, you play the organ every other month (although that one is easy), you still have Kailen at home, you have an awesome husband who likes to spend time with you who also travels quite a bit, and you're still not feeling really great a lot of the time."

And I'm not complaining about my full plate. I really think all these things are "best" types of things.

But I ignored that little voice and thought, "Everything will be okay."

Until yesterday, when some more concrete plans were made for this class during a meeting we had before church.

And I realized that it was too much. Way too much. I started listening to that little voice, which was getting louder and louder.

But by knowing that I needed to say "No" I must admit that I felt like a bit of a failure.

(Why do we do that to ourselves? Maybe I'm the only one who does that to myself...)

So after Sacrament Meeting when I was done playing the organ, I went down to where Kam was sitting and got my bag that I'd left on the bench to save a spot for the kids and said (through teary eyes), "Do you want to come with me for a minute?" She looked at me and knew something was wrong (the teary eyes were probably a big clue). So we went and sat in my car. 

John saw me leave and came out to see what was wrong.  I told him everything and then said, "I'm sorry. I just can't do it all."

He said that everything was fine and that he'd tell the Bishop we wouldn't be able to help teach the class.

And I really didn't feel much better. I never want to let anyone down. Or disappoint people. Or admit that I can't do everything I want to do.

Kam said she had watched me during church while I was sitting on the stand and just knew that something was wrong. 

She knows me oh so well. 

She was really good at distracting me and getting my mind off of things while we were sitting in my car, and I was able to look kind of back to normal before I went to teach my lesson in Young Womens (we Kelley girls are not pretty criers!).

And while a tiny part of me is sad we won't get to help teach the class, a much larger part of me is feeling very relieved. 

I just need to get better at the "nonapologetically" part of saying "No."

That is so hard.