Stumbling Through Merky Waters

The past couple of weeks have been a challenge toward the positive strides I have been making in my life. I had been so motivated and excited about what I'd been accomplishing, that when a really stressful day occurred, I wasn't prepared for it and it's made me question what I've really learned, and what I need to re-evaluate and improve upon in order to handle setbacks and serious stress better.

So far, all the tasks I've been doing have been to create more positive energy and time for good things in my life. This included finally getting new floors. Because I'd been so positive about everything so far, I was unprepared for the alarming mistakes and damage the installation guys caused. I was handling them fairly well and just addressing each thing as diplomatically as possible. However, the installers had to redo two areas on a Friday when I had to leave town. My neighbor took care of letting them in and locking up after them (in addition to resolving a major problem he found while he was there-Thank God for good neighbors!) So, they finished the floors on Friday night and my neighbor locked up after them. I could not wait to see them (however, I had become apprehensive about the quality because of some things I already experienced with them.)

I was due to get home from my trip Monday evening. Monday at work, a medical crisis arose to where I was assisting a doctor on board with a potential heart attack victim. We cared for him for about an hour, using the Automatic External Defibrillator and monitoring his vitals continuously. When they did not improve, we diverted to get him immediately to a hospital. We felt relieved that he was in a better environment to treat him. Meanwhile, we were stranded there because we'd used so many of our on board oxygen bottles that we could not depart without getting new ones. This whole thing took 4-5 hours and the customers were very unhappy. When we finally left for Houston again, the adrenaline rush had dissipated from the emergency and I was low on energy, both physically and mentally. So I was grateful to get to Houston.

However, when I was driving home, I hit a traffic jam. This was unusual because of the late hour in the day and no traffic updates reported anything unusual on this freeway. This would have been fine, but today my car was acting strange and it scared me! When I braked, the back end of the car swayed to the right, then to the left and I felt like I didn't have any control of it. Also, when I tried to go above 45 mph, it just chugged slowly up, 1 mph at a time. I was becoming alarmed as I realized it was indeed going to keep doing this the whole drive home. I got in the right hand lane and putted along slowly the 57 miles to home, planning a strategy for getting it repaired on my one day off the next day, and trying not to stress about the cost.

I was grateful to get home safely, and still looking forward to seeing the finished floors. I opened the door quickly and stepped inside. I was perplexed when the first thing I saw was a big puddle under a chair which was sitting in the middle of the living room. Where could liquid come from? Walking toward it, I was tuning out the continuous meowing of the cats which had been homed on the balcony during this renovation and pondered the source of the puddle. Could the installers have spilled something and not seen it? Could they have purposefully poured water on the floor, angry that they had to come back to redo some things? Kneeling and lowering my nose to the floor, the worst smell known to this nose smacked me and sent a surge of momentary confusion through me. It was cat urine! How can this be? My cats are locked outside. I ran to the cat door. Yep, it was still blocked by a heavy chest, and still locked. I see one cat outside. Where's the other? Now I hear two meowing- wait, one is coming from inside! I sprinted through the condo and found Zeke terrified and crouched under the bed. Why is he scared? Because he'd been let it and locked in without food, water or a litter box since Friday- it was now Monday night! I was unprepared for the anger I felt toward the installers and when I could not get rid of the urine smell with my own cleaning, I had a meltdown. I could not muster any positive emotion. The cats remained stressed and continued to meow incessantly. I had hours worth of work to do to put furniture back and clean all the dust that was everywhere and in the back of my mind I kept thinking about the early car appointment I had in the morning. Not only did I not know if my floors would have to be replaced where the unine had sat for 3 days, but I knew my chair was ruined, and I'd also found two dents in my refrigerator door. It was too much for me and my attitude took a dive. It's as though everything I'd learned in the past couple months just floated out of my head, never to return. Over the course of the next week, I didn't even have the desire to continue to learn and coach myself. It's been a struggle to get back on track. I try to think about why this might be so hard. A couple things come to mind:

It was easy to be positive when things were going my way. But what I really needed to learn was how to remain positive when the cards are stacked against me. One or two things that are a challenge, I could have handled in a positive way, but the overwhelming stress of each of the three events that day, taxed my ability to cope.

What I am disappointed about most, is that I just didn't turn it all over to God right away. I let my faith in Him slip as my primary coping skill and I proved to myself that I cannot handle life (good or bad) without Him. I know He was communicating with me that day, asking me to rely on Him and to be humble and realize He is who carries me through life. I'd been proud of what I'd accomplished and didn't recognize every instance of success was His.

I woke up Tuesday with more acknowledgement of God and more calm that He would help me cope with my situations. How did He help me? By removing the major problem my car had had the day before. Literally, there was no evidence of ANY trouble! The mechanic and I both took it out on the highway and we could not re-create the problem. They even removed all 4 wheels to see if there was something we missed. They found nothing! God is amazing!

He also helped me clearly and concisely speak to the Floor Store manager and we are on our way to getting a resolution to the several problems that arose.

I am happy with some things since then; however, I feel as though I have taken a huge step backward and am struggling to feel the confidence I had been feeling before. That day was such a blow to my outlook and what I thought I'd been accomplishing, that I now feel a degree of apprehension about my successes. I have started reading and learning from my coaching books again- so let's see where I go from here!