Setbacks, or, A Mouse Stirring in Christmas Decorations
We unpacked our Christmas decorations today only to discover that throughout the year, while we had been suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, a family of mice had been making themselves at home in our collection of holiday bric-a-brac. The tree skirt, a variety of little plush snow men and reindeer, and several singing and dancing cloth figures with “Try Me” switches attached to their hands had all been shredded into rodent bedding and comingled with generous assortment of mouse poop. It was not exactly a Christmas miracle, and it came at the end of a very frustrating week.
Working backward from discovering that our three cats have been absolutely not pulling their weight, yesterday I got cute trying to pull my car into the driveway and managed to hit BOTH my wife’s car on my left side and the garage door trim on my right, scraping a generous amount of paint, destroying a wing mirror, and leaving a gouge in the garage itself in the process. A few days before that, my injured leg that I thought was healed up swelled up and started throwing arcs of pain at me again, so I have an MRI to look forward to later this week and potentially quite a bit more time in the boot of shame coming. Earlier in the week, my 3 year old was diagnosed with another ear infection, explaining why he hasn’t slept through the night for a week. Fundraising for my running project has gone very slowly, with next to no participation from friends and family and my social media promotion fading into internet obscurity moments after I publish it. Add that to the existing stress gumbo of the national and international news, my students lack of motivation as cold weather sets in, my six year old’s discipline problems at school, and the sorry state of the Chicago Bears, and it is easy for me to feel like things are not exactly going my way.
On one level, it is easy for me to apply some “power of positive thinking” magic to this and work on seeing the bright side. The most important, family heirloom type Christmas stuff was not damaged by the mice, and much of what we threw away was Target junk we had accumulated unintentionally over the years and won’t be missed. The damage to my car is all cosmetic, and the biggest problem there is honestly that I feel stupid about it, not that I set us back in any kind of material way. I would much prefer not to be injured than the alternative, and it sucks that my son has another ear infection, but PT and a new set of tubes are relatively easy solutions to medical problems that hospitals full of people would happily trade for. There’s plenty of time for my fundraising project to pick up speed, and again I’m more embarrassed to push it out to family members and get no response than I am genuinely hurt by it. And the news will always be stressful, students will always struggle with motivation, etc. There’s not much to be gained by complaining about it. I have my warm house and loving family, a stable career, I consider the lilies of the goddamn field, etc.
But thinking through all of that doesn’t necessarily make the things I’m frustrated about any less frustrating. They are still there, even if I am able to put them in better perspective. It’s a real tricky situation that one of my biggest frustrations—- my injury—- directly impacts my best mood improving coping strategy—- exercise. The car thing will end up costing a minimum of a few hundred bucks, and just because I have a positive attitude it doesn’t make us a thousand dollars richer. I’ve put a lot of work into this fundraising project, and sure, it might take off later, but if it was going to generate a lot of interest it seems like it would do that right away. Sometimes, things legitimately suck.
The line I’m trying to walk is allowing myself to feel the suckage of sucky things so it doesn’t overwhelm me later because I’ve just been denying it, while also accentuating the positive enough to keep it moving one day at a time. Let me know if you’ve got any advice on how to do that!
