The Irony of It All

I'm going to get real wtih you for a moment -- show you a moment of my day where I was not at my best, and how I dealt with it.

A friend is going through a challenging time right now, so this morning, I called her at work to tell her that I would be bringing dinner by tonight.

A woman, presumably an administrative assistant, answered my call. Here's how the conversation went. (I am changing the names of the people to protect their identity.)

"Hello. How can I help you?" Amy the Assistant said.

"Yes, I'd like to speak with Suzy Somebody, please," I replied.

"May I ask what company you are with?" Amy asked.

"Oh, I'm not with a company," I replied.

"May I ask the nature of this call, please?" Amy asked.

"It's actually a personal call!" I said, in a peppy voice.

"Well, you're going to have to do better than that. I can't just put anybody through." Amy said in an authoritative voice.

This sent me off the deep end. My patience was gone. I lost my cool. I was pissed off. How dare this woman give me the third degree. "Who does she think she's answering calls for, the President?" I thought. I'm trying to do something nice for someone, and I have every right to call.

I replied in a bitchy, firm tone, "I am her friend, and I am calling because I want to bring her dinner tonight."

"Oh, that's all you had to say, that you are her friend." With that, she kindly patched me through.

I had a sweet conversation with my friend and hung up feeling very mixed emotions. I was grateful that I had a small way of helping her out and showing her I cared, but in the process of trying to do that, I treated someone else badly.

It was as if my tone with Amy had negated the good I was doing for my friend.

I thought about it for a little while and realized I needed to call Amy back and apologize. So I did.
I feel better now that I had a chance to apologize. I had a nice little chat with Amy. We even laughed about it. But I am still annoyed with myself for acting that way.

I think Amy forgives me, but now I need to forgive me ... how will I do that? Part of it was my sincere apology to Amy. Part is writing this blog, and sharing my story with others, but I will also journal about it with good old-fashioned pen and paper. And finally, letting go of it. There's no reason to carry it around.

Master Life Coach David Essel says to not forgive (yourself or someone else) is like having a huge anchor around your neck that goes behind you into the ground, that you’re constantly trying to move forward with. But you’ll never move forward with the pace and the ease you could if you could let go.

So, I'll be workong on that today ... is there anything you need to forgive yourself for?

So, how are we doing without Paul? Eh. OK. There has been one small disaster after another, but I'm keeping my cool so far...

Last night I was too lazy to make a good, healthy dinner, so I made one from the freezer -- it wasn't very good. The kids didn't care for it, and neither did I. None of us ate much. But, I still let them have dessert (I normally would not), and I even offered a bowl of cereal before bed as an extra-special treat! My mom tells me I used to have cereal before bed quite often.

Today, Alyssa was a crab. She did not want to go to the gym with me -- but I didn't give her a choice. Today was one of the only days I might make it there due to my schedule with my clients, Tyler's school and Paul's absence.

Then, she didn't sleep during nap time, which made dinner a real bear for the rest of the day. I tried putting on some fun music to lighten her mood and get her to eat -- no luck. I took a "mommy time out" in my bedroom for 3 minutes -- no luck, still crying. Then, I put her in her bed for a 3 minute time out -- you guessed it, still crying.

I sent Tyler in to try and calm her down. I think it helped a little. She then ate three more bites of her dinner and had some pudding for dessert. Whatever.

Her next demand was to take a shower instead of a bath. At first I said, "no," but then decided to take one with her since I hadn't had time to take one myself yet. It worked out just fine and helped her mood quite a bit.

I read a blog posting from MOPS today about taking mothering too seriously. I am so guilty. I tried to keep that in mind as I went about the bewitching hour tonight. It helped keep my spirits up!

It's only 7:13 and both kids are in bed! Time for me to journal, read and work a little. How can I complain about that? Hopefully the kids can't complain either.