I have an intense dislike of getting to the end of a given week and feeling as if I have gotten “nothing done.” I look at my planner and my lists and feel like nothing has been crossed off and nothing has been accomplished.
I sit and wonder why all this stuff happens to me. Why all these interruptions come along and mess up my agenda. I get more and more frustrated. I don’t much like myself and I’m sure I’m not pleasant to be around. It’s even harder when I don’t feel very good and I’m praying vehemently that the stomach bug thats been invading my family doesn’t get me and my pregnant self.
Then, by some small measure of grace I wake up. I look at what I have gotten done this week. I’ve gotten good meals on the table for my family consistently. I’ve been keeping up with my own pregnancy nutrition in top form. I haven’t gotten sick and thankfully have been able to eat enough for a rapidly growing baby (and a rapidly expanding baby belly).
And I’ve gotten quite a few other things accomplished too. Not everything. But I’ve gotten things done. More importantly the children are getting back to being cheerful helpers most of the time. We had a really fun time at the park yesterday morning, just playing together.
And I realize that I need to let things go and move on. Yes, we had a really hard couple of weeks. I’m still upset by events that led up to the past couple of weeks – but those events were essentially out of my control. A couple of good things did come out of the rush and stress. And there’s no way to predict what would have happened if things hadn’t gone that way. There’s no promise it would have been more pleasant (despite the fact that I can’t think of many things more unpleasant than going 2200 miles in 48 hours only to get home to a week and a half of throwing up and other assorted digestive system ailments … I know there are some things that are indeed more unpleasant than all of that).
I’ve been struggling with choices that other people make which influence my life and my plans and feeling somewhat resentful. And again I realize I need to let go and move on. If I can take an action on the issue I should do so. If I can’t (or shouldn’t) though, I just need to trust that it will work out. And even if it ends up a mess that I need to clean up I don’t need to worry about that clean up yet.
It’s important to let go and move on. If things didn’t go according to plan, just let go of what the plan was. Re-evaluate and start afresh next week. Things happen the way that they do and sometimes they’re out of our control. In the end that could turn out to have been for the best. I know that the things I’ve been planning will get done (like all these pages on the site converted to the new template!!). And some of them may not and I’ll realize they weren’t really important.
What’s more important is that I determine what I have control over and what I don’t – and I let go of that I don’t. And move on. Easier said than done, of course, but I sure do feel a lot better now that I’ve calmed down and decided to be content with the way things have worked out.
