Help! My Magnum Opus Is Eating Me Alive!

I don’t usually lose it, but when I lose it, I lose it. I was sitting in J’s office, destroying his Kleenex supply. “I feel like I’ve created a monster. I keep trying to feed it whatever I can to satisfy it, and it only seems to get bigger, and demand larger feedings. I’ve given it everything I have – my retirement, my relationships, my home equity, and it eats everything and wants more.”

“And now it’s eating you.”

Yes. Now it’s eating - destroying - me.

Exactly.

Is it me? Am I not good enough? Smart enough? Strong enough? I ask these questions aloud, not falling on deaf ears. He says I’ve let this thing I created define who I am – and I need to step back, and remember who I am, apart from what I’ve built. I understand conceptually, and I actually have thought of this before, but I struggle with separating myself from my business. My self-worth rides the roller coaster of our accounts payable and accounts receivable. When it’s good, I’m queen of the mountain, when it’s bad, I’m a failure.

August is historically the worst month of the year in Texas for the roofing industry, and by the end of August I was a puddle of goo. And not good goo, either. This was now mid-September.

Who am I without it? Who am I? These are the questions I left needing to answer. J strongly encouraged me to try to put some space between myself and my business. But first I had to meet an insurance adjuster.

I didn’t know where to go, after I finally got off the roof 3 hours later with the Slowest Insurance Adjuster Alive. He was an analytic with a torn meniscus, communication through an All State desk agent, using an overheating phone. The good news was, he covered the roof and I finally could go to find a bathroom. I wanted to drink, but instead I found myself, with my dog, laying on an abandoned concrete staircase behind the AA building.

I cried. I blew threw the napkins in my glove box, pun intended. My dog didn’t seem to be concerned – she just waited very patiently for three hours until I finally told her it was time to go.

Who am I? How do I separate that from what I’ve built?

I walked into church two days later, without any answers really. The good news is, I was at a good place for answers, if I can just make myself pay attention. The music soothes me. I close my eyes and fall into it, trying to forget - forget where I am, how I feel, I lose myself in order to find who I am.

“I’ve heard a thousand stories of what they think you’re like

But I’ve heard the tender whispers of love in the dead of night

And you tell me that you’re pleased

And that I’m never alone

“You’re a good, good father

It’s who you are, it’s who you are, it’s who you are

And I’m loved by you

It’s who I am, it’s who I am, it’s who I am.”

The tears cascade down my cheeks. I turn away so that my husband can’t see, not caring who else does. I’m listening, I’m listening with all I have.

The pastor opens with talking about the Mona Lisa being DaVinci’s life work and East of Eden being Steinbeck’s. I really liked East of Eden – I start trying to remember what it’s about – I read it a long time ago – I should reread it. I would think Grapes of Wrath was the Magnus Opus…. I forcibly bring my mind off the rabbit trail and back to the pastor’s voice. These are their Magnum Opus – their life’s work. I always thought I’d be a writer – I had hoped a novel would be my Magnum Opus – but instead it’s a roofing company, and it’s apparently eating me alive.

I again reach out and drive my brain back to the sanctuary, back to his voice. We, mankind, are God’s Magnum Opus. I make a wisecrack in my brain, but then I focus on what he said instead of my own self-deprecating puns. That’s who I am – I’m a creation of God. An On-Purpose-Creation of The Force That Created the Entire Universe. That’s a pretty big thing to be, really.

A verse comes on the overhead projector – I know this verse! I wrote a poem about it that I never finished. I fish out my phone, searching my notes file. There it is, there’s the poem. This has to be important, I think, but I don’t see how. My mind fades in and out and up and down for the rest of the sermon.

We are Jars of Clay, May 2019

I read a verse that says

We are jars of clay

I thought of a mason jar

With clay inside.

The clay is soft and malleable

Easily beaten down by outward forces

Easily dried out

The glass jar, while almost invisible

Protects the clay

I felt protected suddenly

But it means the opposite

The jar is made of clay

And we are the jar

Shaped from the earth

Of the dust

Fragile, very

Easily broken

Not permanent

And we house a treasure

That is eternal and perfect

And will last long after

The jar returns to its dusty state.

Me, it reminds me of an old album cover

The Jar of Flies

I remember it had little flies

That slid about inside the plastic CD cover

I used to wonder how they put them in there.

I am a Jar of Flies

When I am in a panic

I exhale slowly

And I see little gnats come out

Of my soul

I’m in the Green Mile

And the demons are exiting my lungs

It is not a holy image, my Jar of Flies.

That I am the opposite of holy.

I breath the flies out, the demons I house.

It is now a week later, and I am finally writing this out. I lack the bow for the top of this writing. The accounts payable and the accounts receivable have both decreased, and thus with them so has the crisis of my soul. While I should feel better, I somehow feel even more exposed and vulnerable. Maybe like Jonah, hiding under a withered plant leaf, smelling like whale barf.

My company is not my Magnum Opus. I’ve made it that, but it isn’t that. My brain keeps nagging, whispering that I’ve made a False Magnus Opus. That’s likely the take away from all of this, although I am certain it is a vital part of my life work and where I am meant to be, right now. It is not a mistake. It’s not a misguided mission. I am not in the wrong place, and my story is not over. It is not time to give up, but rather it’s time to dust myself off, once again, and move forward into the next chapter.

And I should stop feeding my Magnus Opus Monster.