When Life, Lifes

I had a whole weekly Wines & Whines drafted for yesterday and honestly… I didn’t want to publish it.

There were far more “whines” than “wines” last week, and rereading it made me feel out of touch.

Last week was one of the hardest weeks I’ve had at work in a long time. Nothing happened to me specifically, but I had to watch so many people I deeply love and care about lose their jobs. Layoffs are inevitable, I understand that. Business is business. Believe me, I do. But understanding it doesn’t make it easy. It’s heavy on your heart when it is your friends.

Then our fridge/freezer decided to act up and needed a full hard reset. Which meant turning it off and leaving it off for 24 hours. Thankfully it’s working now, but at the time? Incredibly inconvenient. Very annoying. Slightly dramatic-feeling when paired with everything else.

Sunday we were at brunch when J got called into work, so we had to abruptly leave. I came home to a toilet overflowing with water — not a little leak, but a literal river running through our downstairs. I used every single towel in the house and still needed more! There is truly nothing more humbling than cleaning up a scene like this.

And that night, we decided to cancel our trip to Mexico. Which comes with its own list: customer service calls, lost deposits, unpacking suitcases you were so excited to zip up. That specific kind of disappointment that just stings when it is the middle of winter.

Then I looked down, and my beloved everyday necklace broke. SOOOO trivial, I know. But I don’t wear my wedding rings daily, just this necklace and my bracelet stack, so I’ve felt oddly naked without it. It’s funny how the smallest things can feel so big when your emotional bandwidth is already maxed out.

So yeah… these things and other things that don’t need internet air time, there weren’t many “wines” I was pouring last week.

Just a lot of whines.

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I used to think that if something didn’t work out, it meant I was failing. That if things weren’t going according to my timeline, my vision board, my five-year plan, then I was somehow behind.

Behind who? No idea. But behind.

When I first moved, I really struggled with this. I was carrying expectations about how quickly everything would click into place. Instead, I was left feeling angry at everyone but me. And that angry way of living? It was lonely. Let me tell ya. I used to live in the spiral. In the “why me?” It took therapy, inward reflection, journaling, and honestly a lot of “eating crow” moments to realize my brain had learned to default to the worst-case scenario. I had to actively teach it a new language.

But here’s the thing (and I’ve touched on this before) that I’m still learning: two things can exist at the same time.

My yoga teacher said recently that her favorite word is “and.” Not “but.” And. Because “and” allows multiple feelings to exist at once.

I can be grateful we had the option to even go on vacation and disappointed it didn’t happen.

I can be happy I have a job and mourn the loss of my coworkers.

I can be frustrated we had no fridge or freezer for 24 hours and — well, yeah that one just straight-up pissed me off.

I can feel blessed that I own a piece of jewelry I admire so much and frustrated that it broke with no easy fix.

I can know people are fighting battles far bigger than mine and still acknowledge that my broken toilet absolutely sent me over the edge this week.

Life will always life. That part doesn’t change. What changes is perspective.

Disappointment is real. It deserves space. But it doesn’t deserve to run the house. I don’t want to live a life where I minimize my feelings in the name of comparison, rather shift the perspective. My frustration doesn’t make me ungrateful… It makes me human. Because believe me, there are still plenty of things in my life I still choose to be negative about (lol).

But how we live our days is how we live our lives. So I had to choose to reframe the narrative.

This won’t be the last time I have a hellish week and want to throw in the towel (literally and figuratively at the river in the kitchen). When I started this blog, I told you I’d be transparent… and well, there ya have it.

So if you need a laugh, just picture me home alone, screaming while trying to shut off the toilet water. And a gentle reminder: if you need a plumber for a water valve that’s acting finicky… don’t put it off.

In love & life,

-M