The word I chose to focus on this year is "peace." While this isn't always the case, I have some type A tendencies, control issues, and general anxiety issues. Part of this is my inherent high achiever, perfectionist nature while part of this was nurtured in college. All of it adds up to over-thinking and over-analyzing, which leads to unnecessary stress and worry. Not only that, but in stressful situations I often tend to have knee jerk reactions rather than remaining calm and thinking through a solution without getting emotional.
An example of this was my mother's recent visit for Christmas. As excited as I was to have my mother here for the holidays, there was an underlying fear that things wouldn't go as planned while she was here. My mother is bipolar and is still trying to establish a new routine after moving to Florida. While she has moved forward leaps and bounds in the past few years, I still worry that change in her routine will trigger a negative reaction. Thankfully, her visit went very well until we were on our way to the airport.
I have an older car and a notorious track record for shenanigans. The second day of my mom's visit, I started having trouble with the electric panel for the starter. Some wires weren't making good contact and needed to be adjusted occasionally before the car would start. It was under control most of the time, but the morning I was taking Mom to the airport it acted up. I got it started and we drove on without worry because once it starts it's smooth sailing from there. That is, until the car decided to coast in a non-responsive manner during the drive to the airport.
I pull off to a safe side road and started the usual trouble shooting, which wasn't working. Panicked, I called in for back up and a rescue ride for my mother. While I'd love to extend her stay, she doesn't have an option for a direct flight home and I didn't want either of us to deal with the stress of re-routing her travel plans. I nearly started crying in a "Woe is me! Why can't anything ever go according to plan?" sort of manner. I'd try to take a deep breath and finagle with the wiring again, to no avail. As the minutes ticked by, my panic started to increase. Would her ride get here in time? Would she check her bags and get through security without any trouble? What if we had to reschedule? Would my car get fixed? Why was it doing this?!?! I finally took one more deep breath and adjusted the key, only to realize I didn't even have the key in the right position to see if the wires were making contact and registering again. DUH!
Fear, panic, and anxiety had blinded me to an obvious stumbling block to fixing the problem. It's amazing how just taking a deep breath and calmly taking a second (or third, fourth, fifth. . .) look can quickly solve the problem. There is no place for over reaction in that situation, and it just wasn't necessary.
This morning I was locked out of my office, as I was the second to arrive and don't have a key. As I was getting ready to call to have the door opened, a coworker pulled into the parking lot. I got out of my car, locked, and closed my door. Then I checked to see if my keys had been put in my purse. Not finding them right away, I checked my pockets. Definitely not there, I double checked my purse, which sometimes eats my keys. Still not finding them, I looked inside the car, finally checking the ignition where the keys were hanging. Great! I remained calm, walked in the office and started asking for a wire hanger and planning my break in. Nobody had anything that would work. One of my coworkers asked the obvious question of whether or not there was a spare anywhere.
Aha! I do happen to have a spare in a trusted location accessible to someone who might be able to bring it to me. After a few phone calls and text messages, I'd not only arranged for the spare to come to my rescue, but I made a lunch date with my sister who is in town from Hawaii. We hadn't had a good time to sit and have a heart to heart chat during her visit, so this morning's rough start turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
Experiencing these two stories, one before and one after my resolution to make peace a focus for 2013, has helped me realize that there is a lesson to be learned in the most ordinary yet annoying mishaps. Whether it's the reminder to calmly take another look or seeing the opportunity disguised in a typical nuisance, just because something stressful happens doesn't mean the situation is ruined.
Wishing you peach and clarity in the moments that try your patience and stress levels,
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