Dear Proselytizers, Missionaries, and Evangelists: Stop Being Coy and Just Cut to the Chase

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

Sunday morning, going on noon, and we were headed to Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport. My sister was in a long-distance relationship and we were picking up her boyfriend, flying in from Texas. Riding shotgun, I was in a groggy state of semi-consciousness, alternating between fifteen-minute cat naps and reading a few pages of the book I’d brought along.

We’d been on the road most of the morning, fighting the traffic, but we’d made it to the outskirts of Atlanta with time to spare. The boyfriend’s plane wouldn’t be landing for another hour. Since neither of us had wanted breakfast, we were now starving, and decided to stop for food. We had some time to kill.

As mentioned, it was a Sunday. I may have been aware of that fact at some point earlier in the morning, but by the time my sister pulled into the Wendy’s parking lot, that fact had slipped my mind. This wasn’t something I realized at the time, but looking back, I can tell now that I was in the grip of a powerful depression in those days. In those years. Keeping track of what day of the week it is, that’s not something you worry too much about when you’re having a years-long depressive episode. When you’re sleeping twelve hours a day. It’s a lot like being an alcoholic on a perpetual bender, in that regard. So…