Greetings on a Monday…

Aren’t there some weeks where it feels like there’s more than one MONDAY? You know what kind of week I mean…

You wake up late and you’re stumbling toward coffee, barefoot (of course), and one foot lands on a hard dog toy just before the other lands on something soft, wet, and squishy while you vaguely recall the sound that woke you. At least the cat now looks happier…

You bake some sweets for the office party and hand off the pan (brand new, nonstick) with just one request – use this spatula (also handed off) because it will scratch if you use a knife. The spatula comes back clean. The pan comes back full of crumbs with a grid of heavy scratches…

You come back to your car after a stop at a local grocery to find someone has let a cart run into the door…

In a fit of “helpfulness” a neighbor who apparently has golf course fantasies runs a mower across part of your yard you did not want mowed. Especially not down to the roots. Especially when you’ve asked every way you know how in polite language that they not do that. And now you’ll be looking at the damage for several weeks…

Your tire’s flat. Your balloon flew away …

Some weeks just ain’t got no reason. No getting around it. No making the best of it. Your stuff gets beat up, you feel beat up, the world wants to jump on you with muddy paws. And right now, it’s not even cute…

Life’s like a box of chocolates and someone took a bite of everyone and put ’em back. It sucks. And I’m sorry.

Which leaves the question: where do we go from there?

Getting too wrapped up in what’s wrong won’t help. I’ve had my rope wrapped around that axle more than once. I’ve been dragged behind a bad mood until I’m so twisted up and angry there should be a warning sign for explosives over my head. That’s an awful feeling. Better to find another way.

When the stuff that makes me crazy starts piling up, I activate the D.L. No, baseball fans, I don’t mean the Disabled List. I mean Don’t Look. If seeing that scraggly brown strip of yard that the neighbors messed with makes me crazy – Don’t Look. Especially when I know it will just make me angry. And I can’t change it. It’s already in the past.

Don’t Look. As much as I want to find some fix, some things have no solution. I have learned (slowly and sometimes painfully) to leave those things alone and to shift my focus elsewhere. Can’t stand looking at the yard? Take the dogs for a long walk in the other direction. Can’t stand looking at a scratched pan? Wash it and put it in the give away box. (And don’t EVER take your good pans to work again!) Park a little farther away from the cart return at the store (and think about the extra steps you get credit for!)

Sometimes making the best of a bad situation means just walking away. Maybe a better solution will arise. Maybe not. Truthing here: some things have no better solution. That’s rotten, but getting stuck on what I can’t change doesn’t help.

The big lesson I finally learned is this: If what you’re holding on to is hurting you – let go.

Stay tuned for more on the Here’s a Quarter blog next week! As always, your thoughts and comments are always welcome – they are moderated (I know – adulting again), so they may take a little while to appear, but I read them all and appreciate that you were here. Thank you!