June 21, 2023 It brought me back to a different time in my life. Nearly every workday, I grab a frozen coffee drink from a local fast-food establishment. When I approached the drive-thru window to pick up my drink on Tuesday, I saw a young woman using a spoon to get the coffee from the blender to the cup, place a cap on the cup and promptly drop the spoon, trying to catch it as it tumbled to the ground. She handed me my beverage with a smile but only after an exasperated sigh. “You’re doing great,” I said. “A dropped spoon isn’t a big deal.” “I’ve been dropping things all day,” she replied. That’s when I thought of that period of my life. “I get it,” I said. “I was a waitress for years. I remember getting ‘the drops.’” “The drops,” was something my coworkers and I talked about often when I worked as a server. It’s like a snowball effect. It starts when, as the name suggests, you drop something, usually a dish or a food item. Almost always, dropping something as a server creates more work. You have to replace the item that was dropped and/or clean up the mess. It can also be embarrassing, especially if it’s a noisy drop or a drop that breaks dishes. So that first drop makes you a bit frustrated. The result? You keep dropping things. It becomes a pattern. It becomes “the drops.” As I was thinking about “the drops” that afternoon, it occurred to me that I get “the drops” in my faith life, too. If I drop something in my faith life – I miss Mass, fall asleep before praying, skip my gratitude journal…– it’s easy to keep dropping it. It becomes a pattern. It becomes “the drops.” So, what’s the cure for “the drops?” When I was a waitress, I realized the cure was a bit dependent on the person, but it tended to involve “a reset.” I’d go take a 5-minute break. I’d go work on side work (things like filling salt and pepper shakers) or find a distraction. Now that I see this similar tendency in my faith life, I’ll be looking for the resets. It’ll likely include going to confession. It may include starting a new routine. It may include something God hasn’t yet revealed to me. And I hope I don’t drop doing so. |
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