Get Rid of It

Day #27

I’m busy.

Sometimes I think I have so much to do that I’ll NEVER get it all done.

And then I remember I’ve been busier.

I remember that I’ve been busy ON TOP OF my house being renovated.

I found this in my drafts that I never posted.

THIS.

This is when I had a lot going on.

In the past week, I took McDaniel to the doctor for an ear infection and the weird rash on her leg that hasn’t gone away in months.

I tucked her into her bed with hammers hammering and saws sawing on our addition.

Ellie had her tongue tumor removed two days later.

I set her up in the basement to watch TV only to find that there was a worker sawing into the wall 

and completely picked up the sectional couch and moved it WITH ELLIE STILL ON IT. 

So I moved Ellie upstairs into our bedroom. 

When I came downstairs, I was greeted by the siding guy telling me he accidentally crashed into my car trying to avoid backing into the other workers’ truck.

He felt terrible and said he would take care of it. 

I told him, 

“No problem. It’s no big deal.”

Two hours later, as I was taking a bag of trash to the garage, I noticed the wrong siding was on the garage.

The same guy that hit my car now had to hear he was putting the wrong siding on my garage.

He looked so discouraged, that I almost lightened up the mood by saying,

“Well at least you didn’t crash into my car!” 

but I’m pretty sure he would’ve burst into tears.

Then I had to take the dog to the vet because he needed shots and he had a funky rash too and of course I mentioned ALL THE SHAKING he’d been doing with all the construction noises and the head banging on the French doors trying to go into a room that was no longer there.

The vet said that half of a Benadryl twice a day, along with an antibiotic, 

would clear up his rash and his nerves. 

Apparently he’s stopped giving out Xanax to dogs 

because the owners were abusing it 

and not giving it to their pets.

For the love of Pete.

So in between changing Ellie’s gauze after her tongue tumor surgery and giving her Alleve and everything soft and mushy known to the food world and giving Nigel three pills a day in peanut butter along with a spray for his tummy rash that I had to HOLD HIM DOWN FOR

and seeing how NOT RIGHT the siding looked on the garage,

and realizing we’d have to get the bumper on my car fixed,

and maybe move the side door on the addition or just completely get rid of it,

I felt my sanity pump-pump-pumping its way 

right out of my brain through my left eye.

I started to think that every decision we made on the whole addition project was bad.

Really bad.

Like, maybe we should just stop everything and take a second and see if any of this made any sense, looked right and would actually work in our everyday lives.

Or burn it all down.

Anyone who stopped by

or drove by

or even called,

was invited/dragged inside 

to get their take on the addition.

We overwhelmed them with the door placement, the random column that had to be RIGHT THERE or our upstairs bathroom would come crashing down in between the kitchen island and the family room, the counters that may or may not be enough, the pantry and the WHERE IN THE WORLD WILL THE TRASH CAN GO? issues.

Our very patient builder listened to me slowly ask if any of it made AN OUNCE of sense while I hoped he couldn’t hear the thumping of the heartbeat in my left eye.

He drew me pictures so I could study them and see how I felt.

In the mean time my girlfriend Julie got back from Guatemala and shared the VERY REAL poverty  she saw there.

Like, HOW LUCKY I AM that I have a roof with actual shingles.

And clean drinking water 

(even if it isn’t coming out filtered from my fridge but from a bottle).

And refrigeration 

(even if it is temporarily in the dining room).

I needed that perspective.

I needed that slap in my VERUCA SALT face telling me to stop with the,

"I want the world. 
I want the WHOLE WORLD" song.

Then Julie walked into our unfinished addition and pointed out the problem.

We were trying to hang onto a built-in piece of what we loved about the old kitchen and incorporate it into the new kitchen. It was causing a lot of problems because it. just. didn’t. work. 

She said, 

“Get rid of it.”

And things cleared up a little bit.

We told the builder and his face lit up. He’d been scratching his head trying to configure cabinets and counters AROUND this piece ALL THE WHILE wondering why we didn’t just get rid of it.

Apparently the electrician felt the same way.

Apparently they talk about things like this while I’m not around.

And for the love of Pete, I don’t know why they didn’t just say to me what Julie did,

“Get rid of it!”

Are they that worried about if I’d get mad or my feelings hurt? Were they afraid of my reaction? Did they actually hear the heartbeat in my left eye??

I’d like to think that I am self-aware enough to know all the things I have in my life that are potentially hindering me but here’s the thing,

I don’t.

Sometimes it’s the one thing that we love from the past that we are hanging on to for dear life even though it’s kinda messing up things for the future.

Sometimes it takes a good friend fresh from the bush in Guatemala, to walk into your house and say,

“You are lucky because you have shingles on your roof!”

and

“Get rid of it!”

Our built-in in the kitchen isn’t the only thing I need to get rid of.

It’s my bad attitude.

I need to take a deep breath and GET RID OF my feeling hemmed in that I have to cook my meals in a microwave or a hot plate or a crock pot all in a little dining room.

I need to GET RID OF my not being thrilled that there is an 

oven and a dishwasher in my living room.

As my sister-in-law pointed out, 

there could be a bathtub too.

I need to GET RID OF my not being able to get things clean or put away.

And I need to GET RID OF my bad feelings of freezing my nose off downstairs only to boil like a hot dog upstairs in the bedrooms.

It’s all temporary.

It’s all the bad that goes with the good.

And it’s worth it.

It’s amazing how soon we forget all about those struggles once they are over.

So thankful to find this post as a reminder there’s always something to “get rid of.” 

And thankful for good friends willing to point them out.