Something was in the air this week. Maybe it wasn’t in your air but it was definitely in the atmosphere that I was breathing. And I’m not talking about Republicans. Call it a personal cloud of crank. A haze of hassle. A mist of melancholy. A fog of funk. I thought perhaps it was just hanging around me, like the dust that follows Pig Pen, but then I started to see similar symptoms in others. Kim over at Freakin’ Angels summed it up eloquently in her post on Monday as she described what we all feel now and again: Life was kicking her ass.
I can relate. Some days, it feels like death by a thousand cuts, right?
Work is frustrating… The kids are disrespectful… Your spouse is clueless… Your time is limited… Your dreams are gone… Your life is shit. The malaises starts off slow and but quickly spirals. One tiny annoying transgression piles on top of the last off-putting event and on it goes, until we feel so weighed down that our child asks us when dinner is going to be ready and we respond along the lines of:
IT WILL BE READY WHEN I START TO SEE A LITTLE APPRECIATION AROUND HERE FOR MY VERY EXISTENCE AND THE LEGACY OF LOVE THAT I AM BESTOWING ON ALL YOU UNGRATEFUL ANIMLAS POSING AS MY FAMILY! And when your father finishes sautéing the chicken marsala.
Seriously, how on earth can we stop and smell the roses when there are no roses? Only homework. And deadlines. And chores. And angst. And bickering. And…
And then someone dies.
This past week as the Universe was handing me a challenging work project and a child who procrastinates too much, it was giving someone else a death sentence.
On Friday I will attend the funeral of the wonderful woman who took care of Noah from the time he was 3 months to 3 years old while I toiled over work, much in the same manner I do today. She fought cancer and lost, leaving behind a family that deserved to have her around for decades more.
I could lose every fight with my husband, my children, my siblings, my parents, friends and my colleagues from now until forever… and still win.
I have said this here at MoB before but it bears repeating: We who sweat the small stuff do so because the Universe has spared us from the Big Stuff. If there is room in your heart to fit the tiny gripes and grievances of the day, consider yourself lucky. And like everyone else, I too need to be reminded that problems drawn to scale are actually smaller than they appear.
