My Handle Fell Off

Sometimes life seems to truly be testing us. What will it take to break you? How many ridiculous things can happen before you go crazy or get depressed and feel like quitting?

Some of what has happened recently has been big. A daughter with a concussion, needing a new roof, the well going dry (during the rainiest week of ever!) and endless other significant and insignificant things...but what broke me, you ask? I lifted up a small dish I use for salsa and the handle just fell off. It quit, right then and there. It just decided to no longer "handle". That. That is what broke me.

A million different things happen. We cope the best way we can. We let things stack up, accumulate and BAM! A frigging teeny, tiny nothing happens and we are toast. Done. We quit. Do we learn anything from these experiences? Perhaps. Perhaps not. If we had taken some time for self-care, before the darn dish broke, maybe we'd have a more rational reaction. Right? Nah. Probably not. 

So the handle broke and I wanted to quit. Then a button popped off a shirt simply while it hung in my closet, and the water we had delivered would not come into the pipes. WHY? All the while, the rain continued to come down in buckets, the garden flooded, all the rain barrels filled...but do you think the water could come out of our faucets?? Nope! 

Life is strange. So freaking strange! Test, after failed test. Limits, new limits, broken limits. It is so easy to forget why we bother. Why we work so hard to struggle. Life is hard. So dang hard sometimes. It's unfair, and ridiculous, and frustrating and then all of a sudden, it's absolutely miraculous! The sun shines bright, the previously flooded garden sprouts new seedlings, a hummingbird flies up to your face to seemingly say hello and for a moment or two, everything seems alright. 

I think most of the time we coast along. We exist in routine and all of a sudden you're 40. Wait, 41 and almost 42! Where does the time go?! I blinked, a few times maybe, and I am here! I blinked and my son turned 17. I blinked and I had been at my "new" job for 2 years. I blinked and my puppy doubled in size. How?? 

Life is chaos, mixed with great moments. Soak it all in and find beauty even in the chaos. There is always something to be grateful for...even when soooo much is going on and your handle falls off. Someday it will all be a memory, and then you will simply be a memory for others. Life is short, and precious and it is over in a blink. 

We've got this. Ish.

Sending love!