Murphy's Law

Who is this Murphy and why do we let him make up the rules? I was doing just fine with all the changes in my world, the lack of control I had over the course we'd been set on and was even welcoming the idea of leaving all that is familiar and starting from scratch in a new town. Then I go and admit how stress-free I am finding the process and BAM! - it all falls apart.

I am ashamed to admit that this particular meltdown did not occur today, but rather yesterday, when I was far too upset and down right cranky to even begin to make any sense. The day started innocently enough, we had a viewing on the house at 9am so I thought, simple - I'll shuffle the kids onto the bus, do a quick tidy up and head out for some groceries. Only the morning didn't go so smoothly. I was still screaming (and by that I mean screaming) at two of the kids to "get dressed NOW!!" a mere 10 minutes before the bus was due, while frantically running in circles trying to dig up three juice boxes and three appropriate snacks to go with their lunches. I so needed those groceries. I had long since decided not to walk them to the bus stop, as I needed to vacuum and scrub out the bathroom. However my son changed those plans for me when he tripped on the road and I had to run out to inspect his scraped knees. I lost a good 20 mins of cleaning time after that and flew out the door by the skin of my teeth feeling like the house was not ready to show. STRESS.

I made it to Sobeys, was finished my shopping in 20 mins - with 40 mins to kill elsewhere - when my contact decided to tear in half and render me virtually blind with tears streaming down my cheek. So now I have to leave my very full cart and run (literally) to the bathroom to try to remedy this situation while half the front end staff think I've had an emotional breakdown in Sobeys. But no, that was to come later.

Fast forward to me making it home finally, only slightly humiliated, and thinking it a good time to work on soccer registration stuff. Namely, the dreaded deposit. It should be said that I am not - nor have I ever been - good at numbers. There is a reason why I am not the club's treasurer and don't deal with the deposits. My job is to collect the money and hand it on, but this year our treasurer is out sick and the responsibility has rested on my shoulders. Because I am a procrastinator I have waited until this point to try to balance the money and the receipts and of course in keeping with my day - I couldn't get them to match. By the time my poor unsuspecting husband came home for lunch I was pulling my hair out and cursing like a sailor. The rest of my afternoon was filled with small incidents that at the time all seemed so significant to me (stepping in the cat's water bowl, cracking my head on the bottom bunk while trying to make it, slamming my finger in the dryer door, running out of propane mid-bbq) so when it was time to go to work I was well past stressed and on to ANGRY. I was mad because I hadn't heard from the agent, I was mad that my favorite work shirt no longer fit me well, I was mad that I'd forgotten to burn my new CD for the car ride to work, I was really, really mad that I had forgotten my supper at home - hell I was mad because there were no good songs on the radio for my commute. I was inconsolable.

Thank God for two things: my husband and my work. When I left, my better half was hard at work on that blasted deposit and had it all figured out long before I came home. His calm, cool approach to such problems was exactly what was needed to solve the dilema and his patience with me and my tantrum was much inspiring. Once I got away from the craziness of the house and all its stresses of the day I was able to focus once again on what is important and why we are making all these changes in the first place. When I finally sat down to register a 36 year old male patient who had "fallen out of a tree", I began laughing and finally felt like myself again.

So now I've decided not to try to make it out of this stage of my life completely stress-free. Obsessing over the small things is how I gear up for handling the big things. I will try very hard not to lose sleep over things I cannot change and to take life as it comes at me, but I will never again brag about how simple things appear at any given time. After all, we're all entitled to a bad day every now and then, right?