Overflowing

Thursday evening:
"He is just so handy" I remarked to my mom who had arrived from out of town just an hour before.  We stood observing my husband through the kitchen window - watching him measure out the angle of the slope for the playground foundation we are building for our daughter's birthday.  "He can do anything", my mom responded. 

I wanted to show my mom a little area in the house I had been working on, so we went around the corner to the hallway:  "one of these things does not belong"...  tile: check.  stairway: check.  doors: check.  waterfall - ..."oh SHIT." 

A sheet of water was coming from the ceiling in the middle of my hallway (no, we do not have a water-feature).  I was pouring a bath on the second floor for the kids, while I was trying to help get dinner on and visit... and had forgotten about it.

"No! No!  Noooo...." I sobbed, racing up the stairs to the bathroom - soaked.  Fumbled around sopping up what I could, then went back to the main-floor.   The bathroom had water streaming down the clay walls - both walls, behind the cabinet.  The closet had water running down it, as with the hallway.  Went to the basement.  The mechanical room was flooded.

Less than one week before my in-laws were to move in and I had just drowned the middle two floors of our home.  I couldn't breath.  I went out on to the patio, shoving what breath I could muster with all my might out of my lungs to yell to my husband outside.  "HUN!... I need your help.  I made a huge mistake"  Oh, he knew something big had happened.   I've done some stupid things in my life.  But this was definitely up there.  I was GUTTED.  The water soaked through things faster than I could process how widespread the damage was and what it all meant.

My husband came in and began taking it all in.  My heart wanted to pull his in, aching at the shock I had caused him. That felt the worst.  Then he went in to his office... the whole wall was water damaged.  The clay plaster walls oozing down on to the memorabilia he had collected over the past twenty-five plus years of his career.  My heart turned inside out.  I felt ill.  I fumbled to get the photos out of their frames to dry off.  I wanted to cry, but I needed to make it better even more.

He was choked, but went in to action right away - tearing out the ceiling under the bath, punching holes in the walls, yanking out insulation.  He rigged up the industrial vac with a hair dryer in the intake and shot the nozzle in to the ceiling and the various holes in the other walls.  He exposed the mechanical room damage and set another fan in to that wall.

In the midst of it all, I recall somehow setting off my car alarm, and not being able to find the key fob - that was fun.  And then the dog peed on the porch in front of the entrance.  That pretty much iced my cake.  My mom wrangled the kids and dog, taking them back home, saving them from potential shrapnel from the time-bomb that was me.

I raced from area to area, trying to clean up whatever I could and then my hubby came in to the bathroom where I was.  He just stopped and looked at me with gentle eyes.  At that point, my own flood of watery tears overflowed on to my face below.  The words, "I'm so sorry", stumbled out of my mouth and off my lips.  He held me saying, "everything will be fine - it was just an accident".  I've always loved the smell of the crook of his neck - my favourite smell... "ok, it will be ok..."

As the fans wailed through the quiet evening, I wondered, "what can I take from this?  Think.  Think. Think."   ...Too much thinking.  My head hurt.  My heart hurt.  I was tired.  My mind was in a million places.  Wrapping my head and heart around an upcoming shift for my family of three with hubby taking on a new six month job.  Trying to get the playground done before hubby would be unavailable.  Prepping for family moving in.  Managing issues with other loved ones.  Wanting to plan a lovely birthday for my daughter (I'm so not crafty).  Trying to not kill the two horses that, earlier in the afternoon, broke in to my garden, punched huge hoof holes through the raised beds, disheveling and eating my hard-earned tiny veggies...  That last one alone nearly had me reconsidering retiring from gardening and taking up crafts - sewing nice brown, short-haired hand bags, and creating a line of organic glue. ...etc. etc. etc.

All these issues that I took hold of over the past months, that I ran around and around in my head, like a pack of horses on lunge lines; becoming tangled and busy, tugging my grey-matter limbs this way and that.   I had worn myself down and turned an otherwise normal day of having visitors out to the farm to be... not so normal.  The littlest issues - running a bath, helping to make dinner and visiting, just overflowed in to everything else... and I made a mistake.  It was my fault - I allowed my own perceptions of things take up too much head-space and this was the breaking-point. 

I have had warnings about my lack of management skills: I have had three cigarettes in the past couple months - I am not a smoker (used to be years ago), the on-going tightness in my stomach, lower tolerance to things.  But I didn't get the message until now.  It is not the horses/issues that take up energy.  It is me holding on to them and driving them that does.

Sometimes things get hectic, or we must think outside of our comfort zones.  These things require extra energy, which is normal.  There are things that just 'are' and they are just going to happen whenever they will unfold.  But I ran them over and over, trying to plan things, focusing on contingency plans so it'd be fine "even if...", or dealing with issues when maybe they weren't mine to deal with, or the right time to deal with them because they weren't a real priority.  Those things take on a lot of space and a lot of energy; using up energy I could have banked.

This has nothing to do with what is going on around my life nor other people, and everything to do with how I am managing my own perceptions, how I define situations.  I need to be mindful of where I spend my brain-fuel or I'll end up idling away in a useless manner and then running on fumes when I really need to the fuel to 'go' or plug in to those I love, or even give to myself.

"I GET IT!!!  thank you."

Making adjustments:  "See life with more positivity and maybe even magic".  "Have faith".  "Don't take 'x, y or z' on right now".  "Say 'yes' when people offer help".  "ask for help".  "Know my boundaries". "Say, No."  "Let go".

I had some wonderful friends offer their experience and support with regards to the flood etc - thank you Jenn and Susan.  My sister for coming and helping me to work on the playground.  My other sister for just being there to listen.  My sister-in-law for offering to help.   It undoes knots.  Having people around oneself just makes all the difference to bring a person back to their centre.  Thank you very much.

My husband was the second lesson in this.  At Christmas, we had an incident where the fire truck came out.  It was not as destructive as my waterfall incident, but he made a mistake.  I thought back to that after this happened.  I don't think I was a 'cow' about it - we laughed, gave the firemen cookies, video'd it and pointed out to my daughter that she got to see a firetruck.  But in my head,  I wondered why he chose to do what he'd done.  On a level, I would say I was agitated.  With my mistake, he just leaped in to action.  He was the one who came to me as I scrambled to clean.  He just looked at me as though he were coming to check in with me.  He knew how I felt already and just loved me from the inside out.  He is my sweetie and teaches me every day to be more loving.  Thank you sweet man - and yes, you are incredibly handy.  "I get it, thank you, My Love".

We now have a big hole in our bathroom ceiling and in our walls - the fans running when possible.  I will not get my daughters playground done for when we hoped to.  I don't know how things will go for the next while but I have done the best I can.  I will now have a staggered harvest in my garden, and feel that the lawn in there has been successfully aerated.  My daughter deserves a little "special" everyday with a momma who is whole - that's all she wants... and a birthday cake of her choice, so today I am taking her to the berry farm.   I have been thoughtful and honest with those I value - I have been open and said my piece.  Me, my husband and my daughter will make our shift together as a family in a loving way and we will help each other as a team.   I've let my horses off their lunge lines, but a couple that require some tending to and even then, I will tie one up while I work with the other; one at a time.

A relatively small wake-up call...  lessons received.  Balance being restored.  Much appreciated.

*Photo/illustration references (horse on lunge line - http://www.bpknaus.com/docs/superstars.aspx)