I've been trying out this new approach to life: love, light, open heart, open mind, unafraid.
Choose happiness.
I am working on letting go, letting goodness in, and turning away from negativity.
For more than a month now it has been going very well...
Then my day yesterday began with me yelling on the phone at my husband. This is not a typical scene for us. In the more than ten years now that we have been together, he and I have had maybe two handfuls of fights that involve me yelling and him trying to get through to me.
I was frustrated.
I was planning on writing a long blog post about misogyny, casual misogyny to be specific. And whenever I get angry about men and casual misogynistic behavior, I hate to admit it, but my husband takes the blame for all men everywhere. Suddenly everything he does is oppressive and paternalistic and standing in the way of my feminism and my feminist lessons to my daughters.
Honestly, sometimes he has actually done something wrong; it is usually lots of little things that drive me crazy, then something somewhere else unrelated fully pisses me off and I explode all over him with all the little things that I genuinely don't care about and would probably never bring up except to tease him at social gatherings.
But the misogyny article will have to wait.
I yelled. I cried (because that's how I vent my frustrations). I took my kids to the park. I cooked. I cleaned. I shopped. I prepared lunches. I spent time with my girls. We read. I packed for work: breast pump with all the parts and pieces, check, coffee to go, snacks, and dinner, check, workbag with laptop and history papers, check. I took the fresh flowers I had bought out of their wrapping and put them into vases. I fed my baby.
My husband came home, and ten minutes later I headed out the door to work. As I got to my car I realized I had forgotten my phone.
"Oh well," I thought. "I have my laptop from which I can text and do everything I need to except make phone calls. As long as my car doesn't break down, I have no reason to need my phone. And my car is not going to break down. It's virtually brand new."
So went my thinking.
I got to work early, prepped for my students, had some productive sessions, got two rounds of breast pumping done at work, and planned for a quiet evening at home writing and catching up on some household duties at the desktop computer.
Throughout the entire day I had been thinking to myself, "Apologize to your husband. There is no room for ego and pride in your marriage." So I did. "Look at what a great job you are doing, getting so much done without any stress or anxiety. Doing the important things first and the little things later. Good for you." Yes. I am proud of my new approach to prioritizing and settling into a rhythm and routine that involves me saying no when I need to to certain things, so I can say yes to the fun stuff. "How nice it is that we have a home we love where we all fit comfortably. How lucky I am to have happy, healthy, smart, active, beautiful children. How wonderful to have a husband who is my friend and wants to take this journey into happiness with me." I am working on changing my language to include gratitude and joy instead of lack, need, and frustration and anxiety. "Wow, look at my students, we are making really good headway on this work. I am a really good teacher." I believe in self confidence and positive self talk.
It's working. (more on that later)
So my day unfolded in a very strange but positive way. And then I walked out to my car.
I pushed the button to start my car, the lights flickers, the engine choked, and my car died. No lights. No engine. No action. My battery was dead. I own a 2014 Hyundai Santa Fe. Why was my battery dead?
It was ten o'clock at night. I was the only one at work. The parking lot was empty.
So, a couple of months ago had this happened to me, I would have spun out on all of the evil possibilities. Had someone rigged my battery to die? Was someone lurking in the dark waiting for me to go back to my center and follow me in to assault me? Was my baby okay at home? I don't even have my phone so I don't even have a flashlight. What do I do?
And then I would have pulled it together and figured it out. Because that's what I've done for 38 years.
But this time I skipped all the anxiety. I sat in my car for a moment with my owner's manual by the light of the street lamp, trying to figure out if there was anything I could do, maybe a fuse or something?
Then I packed my breastmilk back into my center to the fridge, called my roadside assistance for a battery jump, and settled in.
And I thought, "how fortunate I am to have roadside assistance. How capable I am that I can do this myself. How nice that I can text chit chat with my sister while I sit and wait and that my sister is a night owl and is up to chat and commiserate with me. I am so proud that I have a capable father for my children. I know everyone is sound asleep without a worry at my house. Oh, I better send a text home so everyone knows I am okay just in case they wake up."
I was flooded with gratitude that things happen out of our control but we control our reactions to them. I appreciated that this was a minor blip on a Monday night that, despite maybe a few hours of sleep lost, would really not make my life worse, and in many ways made it better.
I submitted a couple of proposals for freelance writing work while I waited. I got a new follower on twitter! (thanks for the hookup sis!) And I applied for and got approved for a new 0% intro credit card with a nice high limit. (my credit is looking up!)
Life is good.
The roadside guy showed up, figured out how to jump my car (I think he was new), and made a few cracks about how it was too bad I had a Hyundai because they have so many problems. He should know, he tells me, he has one too.
"Okay Eeyore. Stop trying to rain on my happy parade." I think to myself. My car is just fine. I'm not spending weeks now worrying about what other shoe could drop with my car. (The old me would have.)
He also warned me not to turn my car off for at least a half an hour.
Okay.
I head back to my center, get my baby juice out of the fridge, load my car back up, and head out.
Oh, I also stole a cell phone from work because I was not driving home at midnight through a dark canyon with no cell phone after that.
I get in my car and notice my gas tank is empty.
Oh no! My gas tank is empty! How on earth am I going to deal with this? I can't turn my car off. I need gas to get home.
Oh no!
But, I didn't freak out. I grabbed myself some french fries from McDonald's across the street. I earned those french fries. I reward myself with pure crack when I am at my most Amazonian. And I headed over to the gas station.
"Hey, Nascar doesn't turn their engines off when they fill up the tanks," my sister noted via text on my work cell.
Thanks sis!
So, I filled up my tank with my car running, grateful for yet another lesson: never let your gas tank get that close to empty. Also grateful that I didn't explode. (Yay!)
I pulled onto the road and took out a french fry.
Cold.
My beloved rarely purchased, rarely enjoyed french fries were cold. And everyone knows that crack is best served piping hot. Cold crack is inedible.
Oh no! Poor me! This sucks! I just want to get home!!
That's what the old me would have thought. I would have tossed the fries, gone home angry and hoped tomorrow would be better.
Instead, I made a U turn, went back to McDonald's and asked for fresh fries. They happily accommodated my request. And I enjoyed my fresh fries, my charged car, and some NPR news updates at midnight on my way home.
I rode the elevator up, walked in my door, plopped my stuff down, brushed my teeth, and got into bed.
My baby started fussing so I popped a boob, then the other boob, in her mouth, she went right back to sleep, and I settled in for a nice 6 hours of sleep, thinking about how amazing I am, that I not only got through a very full, very challenging day, but that I chose happiness through it all.
I chose happiness.
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