Swimming Through Mud

 Swimming through mud. 

Yep that’s the best way to describe the last few weeks. I just was not able to get from point A to point B in any task. Take my broken furnace for example. Three trips out from the furnace guy, the first was the assessment, the second was the "fix" only he had the wrong parts, third was the same.  Good news though, it is now “rigged” to work until they can make a fourth trip out to fix it for real, date of said repair to be determined. Shall I give an update on my bank hack? Let’s see. Initiate a transfer from old bank to new bank. Denied. Initiate from new bank, marked as fraud, twice. Paychecks placed in the wrong accounts. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. We are nearing a month of this and it still isn't taken care of. Try to travel to the west coast for work?  Sit on a connecting plane for 40 mins only to be grounded have  to be routed to a different city before finally getting to my actual destination, for a total of 16 hours of travel. Thing after thing becoming way more complicated and frustrating than it needed to be.  Then there was my first birthday and Thanksgiving within weeks of burying my Dad.....swimming through mud...

The fact is, everything in the last few weeks felt heavy to the place where I was proverbially paralyzed, literally nothing worked.  In a deep thinking 2:00 am insomniac moment with my brain running in circles of worry, wondering if anything would ever go smoothly, I remembered what my Dad had asked of me before he died,"Continue the work I started."  My father was a Catholic Deacon who helped all people regardless of his own circumstance.  He would have wanted me to see opportunity in the muddy paralysis and create something other than anxiety out of it.  I took the time for this elephant snack to see if there really could be some benefit to this mud.  It sure didn't seem like there could be, so in a stall tactic as I grasped for solutions, I took the time to look if there were any literal benefits to mud, as I had nothing.  It turns out in the elephant world mud is a glorious covering, protecting the creatures from overheating in the sun.  It exfoliates their dead skin and  most importantly, guards them from parasites.

As I was surely overheated with my trials as of late, I decided to take this forced slow down and look for opportunity calm my spirit the way my dad did and look for opportunities to help someone else.  I started by complimenting a coworker for no good reason, I began letting people go ahead of  me in the grocery line when they were in a hurry and I wasn't.  I went on to give my own movie ticket away to a friend of my daughter's so she was able to go, as otherwise she would have had to stay home.  Instead of seeing that movie with the girls, I spent that hour and a half grabbing a latte and remembering my Dad saying right before he died,"when you get coffee, I will be there." Suddenly the muddy paralysis seemed lighter, because I realized looking for small things to do for others revealed people in their own pools of mud that was made just a little better by me paying attention.  Along the way my anxiety began to be balanced out with cup filling emotions of virtual coffee with my father, as well as just helping someone else when they least expect it.  

I do have one regret though, one day at the store an older man joked with me when I let him go ahead of me.  I had groceries for six people, he had just a few things.  He asked,"Are you going to pay for my groceries too?"  I said no.  Now, in retrospect, I regret not being bolder and paying for them as I am sure that moment would have mattered much more to him and me than any amount of money.  Well....next time... still new to doing my father's work and all....nonetheless, over time that mucky heavy mud that was keeping my life in a holding pattern began to feel more like a protective space recharging my spirit, like the glorious coverings the elephants brag so much about.

I then literally poured into exfoliation.  If I'm being honest, pre COVID I took the time on my skin.  I wore makeup every day, and would have never thought of leaving the house any other way.  Then 2020 hit.  Wearing an N95 for 12 hours a day, makeup didn't matter.  Not getting open sores from a tight mask across my nose mattered more.  So, with the help of my 14 year old daughter newly schooled from her session at Sephora, I dug back in.  I'm not talking any simple routine here.  My daughter Grace is full on bougie.  We now have a collection of micellar water, hyaluronic acid, lash serum, eyelash primary..... oh we have developed many steps, and had a lot to laugh about along the way.  This simple notion.  This simple act of skin care has brought me closer to my daughter, and allowed me to be proud of looking my best every day.  I guess through the pandemic smackdown as a provider I had forgotten what it was to not be in survival mode day to day.  

Finally, I sifted through the notion of protection from parasites.  Now, I know what you are thinking.  Here's the part she says she deleted her toxic friends list, or put a profound post on social media about her freedom from terrible people.  I did not, as that is not my style.  I cannot control anyone else's reaction to the world and therefore doing anything extrinsic like that does not allow me to use my muddy paralysis to my advantage.  Instead, I took the time to see what parasitic quality I can remove in myself.  Let's be real.  I am a self proclaimed fierce independent.  I have all the plates spinning all the time, work, second job, kids, travel, bills, household schedules, thing after thing after thing.  I can do it all...well that's what I say anyway.  What I don't do?  I don't ask for help.  Last week, I had worked and travelled too much.  I was at my limit, yet I was at my second job working a ten hour shift with a flight out the next day to my primary job for a 7 day 70 hour stretch.  I was tired.  It took all I had, but I took a deep breath, texted my coworkers and asked if anyone could cover me.  A trusted colleague came in for just two hours.  Two hours to put my head together, take a much needed ride on my Peloton and just breathe.  

I guess in the end we really cannot control when all the trials of life hit at the same time to where we feel that cesspool of mud welling up and threatening to consume us.  What we can do is use the forced slow down to take a good look around and realize there are others swimming in the same pool, and if we just pay close enough attention we can offer a simple act that makes their own struggles just a little bit easier.  We can return to our roots of self care and find joy in sharing things with the people that matter and rid ourselves of fierce independence and know when to ask for a lifeline.  As for the rest of my world?  Goals are being set, irons have been placed in the fire and I will continue to eat this elephant of good health and happiness in front of me one piece at a time.