Vampire

I found notes from a church staff meeting I attended in April of 2021.

And let me tell you something about finding old notes from your church years.

It’s like opening a high school diary written by someone who had access to Canva, emotional suppression, and a leadership podcast subscription.

The meeting notes started normal enough.

Dollar tacos.
Team night.
Jump houses.
Volleyball.

Then suddenly we took a hard left into:
“Dating the vision versus adopting the vision.”

Which, in hindsight, sounds less like ministry and more like something a startup founder says right before asking everyone to work unpaid overtime for “the mission.”

I wrote the notes sincerely at the time. That’s the part that gets me.

You have to understand, I wasn’t sitting there rolling my eyes. I was all in. Fully committed. Sharpie highlighter energy. Probably nodding aggressively while drinking burnt lobby coffee from a paper cup that dissolved halfway through service.

The idea was that people shouldn’t just attend church. They should adopt the vision. Become part of the culture. Carry the mission. Cross the threshold.

The notes literally say:
“Develop the culture.”
“Strengthen the culture.”
“Do not ignore the culture.”

Which honestly feels intense for a room that also contained inflatable obstacle courses and Mother’s Day baby dedications.

But that was the magic trick of church culture.

Everything felt casual until suddenly it wasn’t.

You weren’t just helping.
You were building the Kingdom.
You weren’t tired.
You were called.
You weren’t overextending yourself emotionally.
You were serving.

And if you’re a certain type of woman? Oh, you THRIVE in environments like that at first.

Give us a mission.
Give us a color-coded volunteer spreadsheet.
Tell us we’re changing lives.
We’ll accidentally develop stress-induced jaw tension while calling it purpose.

What’s wild is reading these notes now while listening to Vampire on repeat like some kind of emotionally unstable archaeologist.

Because suddenly every lyric sounds less like a breakup and more like spiritual burnout with good lighting.

“Bleeding me dry like a goddamn vampire.”

Tell me why that line feels exactly like being the dependable girl in every room since 2010.

The church version of me truly believed exhaustion was evidence of transformation.

And to be fair, nobody sat me down twirling a fake mustache saying, “Hello Sandie, today we will slowly disconnect you from your internal voice through community-based over functioning.”

That’s what makes these environments complicated.

Most of the people inside them genuinely believe they’re doing good.

But systems are still systems.

And systems love women who are emotionally intelligent, deeply empathetic, highly capable, spiritually sincere, and just self abandoning enough to confuse depletion with devotion.

Especially women who know how to perform wellness while quietly deteriorating.

That part deserves its own sermon.

Because somewhere along the line, many of us learned how to become incredibly useful before we ever learned how to become fully ourselves.

And once your identity gets braided together with being “needed,” it becomes very difficult to tell the difference between community and consumption.

That’s the thing I keep circling back to lately.

Not whether people were good or bad.
Not whether church itself is good or bad.

But how many environments subtly reward people for disappearing inside the mission.

Workplaces do it.
Families do it.
Churches do it.
Mothers do it.
Marriages do it.
Brands do it.
Social media definitely does it.

Everywhere you look there’s another room full of exhausted women being applauded for how much of themselves they’re willing to hand over.

And maybe that’s why certain songs hit harder in your forties.

Because you finally have enough distance to hear them properly.

At twenty eight, you hear inspiration.
At forty four, you hear nervous system recognition.

Anyway.

Shout out to the version of me who sat in that staff meeting carefully writing:
“Substance over style.”

Baby, the irony alone could power the entire worship set.

Today’s unofficial soundtrack is Vampire by Olivia Rodrigo. I highly recommend listening while staring dramatically out a window, revisiting your former identities, and realizing half your personality was built around being “helpful.” Creative inspiration for today’s piece was heavily influenced by Vampire by Olivia Rodrigo.

Sometimes a song shows up years later sounding less like entertainment and more like emotional evidence. Thanks Olivia.

If today’s read hit somewhere tender in you, leave me a note about what part felt on fire.

And subscribe to be the first to read what comes next because apparently we’re all excavating our former selves together now.