Surviving the Avalanche

I had a tough week last week. I had two major problems in my household crop up. I found out that I have a plumbing leak under the concrete foundation of my house. I also had my air conditioning unit fail - during the hottest week we've experienced so far this summer in the Seattle area. Sigh.

The problems required troubleshooting and service appointments, yet nothing is resolved. Hopefully this coming week, all the repairs will be completed. Both issues, however, are pretty disruptive to normal schedules and life.

I also experienced some interpersonal challenges as well. Communication challenges in a couple of relationships and an ongoing, unresolved conflict with a couple friends.

In addition to all that, there were some really big projects that I am in the midst of.

As I said, it was a tough, taxing week. There was a point today, while I was on a long drive, when I had to wait for 30 minutes for an accident to be cleared off the road in front of me. Later I was stuck behind people driving 40 in a 55 MPH speed zone. There were several moments today on that drive where I literally thought I was going to scream. What should have been a 3.5 hour drive took 5.5 hours. The frustration I felt was incredibly intense.

Once I arrived home from that drive... I had to spend some time decompressing. I took a lot of deep breaths. I put on comfortable clothes. I did a little venting. I started to feel a little better.

I thought about what things might be like one week from now. These problems might be completely behind me by then. I went out to two weeks from now. I am fairly certain that these issues will be all handled in that amount of time. Then I projected out to 1 month from now. I'll be on to other issues by then - both positive and negative. After that I thought about my life one year from now. Will I even remember these problems by then? If I do, will they have the emotional 'charge' that they have now? I sincerely doubt it.

These are toady's problems, challenges and growth opportunities. My only responsibility is to take them as they come - one at a time and do the best I can to handle them well. So that is what I'm doing.

First, I'm going to have a good, long, restorative sleep! I'll face what comes... tomorrow!