Pretty Darn Good

It’s been a while since I’ve felt compelled to declare thank goodness it’s Friday. But this has been a week… well, it’s just been one of those weeks.

If I were to tell you what caused the headache of my past two or three days, you might look at me and say… really? Pink envelopes? There was just a devastating earthquake in Chile, for Christ’s sake. And my life is so awful because someone packed 2800 invitations incorrectly… well… yeah.

And no.

Because, I get that by comparison to the people in Chile or Haiti or Afghanistan, the fact that I was able to get through my Wednesday and Thursday headache and have it all be over today shows that this week’s provocation really wasn’t that big a deal. It made a couple days… hours in those days… unpleasant. But, still… my life goes on not much altered by this minor detraction.

I don’t like when people get bent out of shape about little things. I try to live my life with some awareness of the fact that I’ve got it pretty good. And most people with whom I come in contact on a day to day basis – even if it is merely observation on Facebook – have got it pretty darn good overall. Because we live in the US of A in the 21st century. And you know what? That puts us well ahead of the curve of millions of others from different countries and times. But we still… complain so freakin much.

So maybe that added to my stress. Because I wanted to complain and bitch about an understandable mixup in communication and human error that took away my Wednesday evening and made me have to get up and come in to work ridiculously early yesterday. And I knew that any complaint would just sound like… whining.

Don’t get me wrong. I complained. I let this stress be an excuse to have another breach in my Lenten forsaking of wine and then indulged in a sugary buttery scone for breakfast. I let myself justify doing something against my conscience because I was unhappy.

I was … human.

Inevitably that fallibility gets the best of us. No matter how proud, how determined to maintain fortitude of spirit. Eventually something pulls the rug out from underneath us. Sometimes it is possible to keep standing even when the removal of that rug leaves us on the brink of a gaping hole. To find the strength to endure, keep calm, and carry on. But all the anxiety appropriate for that stress manages to eke out when the elimination of a mere mat causes life to stumble and lose balance.

The invitations were really a bathmat. Not a big deal. Life is back to where it should be this morning. It is Friday. The sun is daring to expose itself in the sky, promising a mild weekend. A weekend when I don’t have to do anything except take a day by myself to reassemble my wits.

Maybe… maybe the point of this little infraction wasn’t so much that it was a wretched bore of two days to get through. Maybe the point really… is to get on the other side and say, yeah, life is good. Really pretty darn good.