If you think this is going to be a feel-good, inspirational piece, you are mistaken. This is me: a single woman, mama, friend and employee bitching about how hard life is. You can either keep reading and commiserate or move along. Up to you, my friend.
You know how the brain shuts down during traumatic injuries such as a severed limb, deep gash, or other such injury so that the afflicted person does not feel the full extent of the pain? It’s a defense mechanism. Yet a paper cut or stubbed toe can make you feel like you’re going to die? Yeah. That’s how I’m feeling about life right now. In the past two years, I have survived the death of my beloved grandmother, the demise of my 12-year marriage and subsequent divorce, and the life-altering transition from a stay-at-home mom with three kids to full-time working mama. Those things were, of course, difficult. However, every morning I woke up, suited up in my armor, flexed my biceps and got ON with it. But oh.my.dear.gawd. These little, bitty, teeny, tiny everyday annoyances are driving me CRAZY!
Each morning I wake up and before getting out of bed, I tell myself: You can DO this. You’ve GOT this! And then I get out of bed only to step into a plate of ant covered cookie crumbs that my daughter left on the floor the night before. UGH! Immediate and irrational anger! I go to work and turn on my computer, only to find that my password no longer works and have to spend the next 2.5 hours on the phone with the IT guy. WTF?!? After picking up my children from school and sitters, I decide to treat them to a trip to the park only to have my son get stung by a wasp as soon as we hit the slides. WHY, DEAR GOD, WHY????? After surviving a parent’s least favorite time of day (bedtime, amirite?!??), I decide to treat myself to a glass (or four) of perfectly chilled Pinot Grigio only to have the m*@#%@f&@%#^* corkscrew BREAK OFF INTO THE CORK! WHY MEEEEEE?????????? Cue me sitting in a heap on the floor rocking back and forth and mumbling incoherently.
And this is every day, y’all. EVERY DAY. A check engine light. A text from your guy that bugs you. A red light that malfunctions when you’re in a hurry. And I would be remiss if I did not mention your computer deciding to reboot in the middle of you writing an article and losing ALL of it forcing you to rewrite the entire thing while trying desperately to refrain from throwing your laptop across the damn café! (THIS JUST HAPPENED!!!) In the words of Alice Cooper, “it’s the little things that drive me WILD!”
So how do I survive? Well, at the risk of sounding just like the very person I loathe (that well-meaning person who says, “Just remember, dear! It could always be worse!”), I constantly remind myself that things could be worse. I have a good job that I enjoy. I have three beautiful, relatively healthy children. I have a nice home. I have food in the fridge. I have friends and family that love and support me. I know that I am fortunate. And while those little things add up and make me want to run away and become a barmaid in a quaint little pub in Ireland, I make myself focus on the good. I allow myself to feel the frustration and anger. I vent, cuss and cry. But I always come back to just how happy I am.
