You ready for this???

I was really dreading meeting with my new church group last Wednesday night. And when Mr B ditched out at the last second (with a suspiciously valid reason with suspect timing), my excuse making mechanism went into overdrive. I created 413 valid reasons not to go in under 4 minutes. So between my nagging guilt and the feeling of being a wimpy, spineless, co-dependent freak, I went-solo. And of course the hostesses were lovely; the young married couples were adorable; and the empty nesters were steeped in patient wisdom. I was really feeling all warm and glow-ey and unusually charming with this new group. Who knew I could get my charm on this quick??? And then it happened. The group leader asked the question, “So why’d you decide to join this small group?” And I knew I was gonna mess this up. My perverse thoughts kept crowding my brain and wouldn’t let me think up a reasonable, trite lie. And I began to panic. Because it was almost my turn. And then it was. So I blurted, “ I really don’t want to be here.” And every mouth dropped and every eye bulged in my direction. So I weakly tried to explain:
*
“I have a cub scout AND a boy scout, and cross country and basketball, and 138 essays to grade, and 9 loads of laundry, and dirty floors, and 3 disgusting bathrooms that I will NOT describe for you, and a trumpet to pick up from the shop, and the dog to take the vet, and the van needs an oil change, and the voice mail is blinking with 5 new messages, an overextended hubby in graduate school, and I need to reschedule our hair cuts and a dr's appointment, and I need to defrost something for supper tomorrow night, and the pantry is empty, and I'm too scared to balance the checkbook, and I have a 7 yr old party to plan with nine, needy 7 yr olds coming to my house in 36 hrs, and prescriptions are waiting at the pharmacy, and I have 6th grade and 2nd grade homework every night, and I really suck at math, and I need to send in the permission slip with the money but I’m waiting on payday, and the 7 yr old wants me to buy 5 items for the fundraiser so he can go to the reward party and there’s no way I can afford it so he'll probably get left out, and I’m really, really, really tired, and I just want to be in my bed watching trashy reality TV right now because I’m too over committed to take on new people and new projects and might not be able to make the next meeting-but of course I want to because you are all really lovely people-really, but I still have to study spelling words tonight with Noah and he still hasn’t spelled ‘sandwich’ the same way twice!”
*
And I took a breath. And they laughed. In shock or relief or sympathy-I’m not sure. And you know what? I don’t regret telling the messy truth at all. Actually-I hadn't even really gotten to the good stuff yet. But telling the truth had an interesting effect on all of us. My confession lead to someone else's confession which lead to someone else's confession, and you get the idea. So there we all were. Feeling the same-like tired, overworked, empty, broken, needy vessels. And somehow knowing that we're all in the same boat made it all better-or at least bearable. Telling the truth is scary and risky at best. But maybe we should shock more people with it. What would happen if we told each other how broke we really are; or how sad one of our relationships really makes us; or how worried we really are; or how pissed we really are?!? I suspect we have a whole lot more in common than we might think...
*
So I'm going back to this new group in two weeks in spite of the fact that they now know that I am an over-extended-commitment-phobe who probably has her priorities all screwed up and is likely to let them down sooner than later. I just hope they're ready for this...