The Small Stuff
Last Wednesday, before went to the hospital, Austin had a crying fit over something inconsequential, like what color spoon I gave him for his yogurt or whether his pants legs appropriately covered his boots. A few hours later, he sat in my arms as two nurses inserted an IV line into his hand and barely let out a whimper. I mean, he didn’t even cry. Mark commented with more awe than frustration about what a big boy he is for the “big” stuff and what a baby he still is for the little things.
Another way the little guy takes after his mother.
I have done a pretty good job keeping it all together since we received Thursday’s news, staying calm and not panicking until we have a real diagnosis. Somehow I manage to be alright with the big stuff. It’s the small stuff that gets me.
We had an Open House yesterday, scheduled to begin at 1. We’d spent the weekend alternately cleaning this house and spackling, sanding, priming and painting at the new house. Sunday morning, we were rushing around mopping floors and hiding toys. While Mark put the finishing touches on the house, I took the kids on a mad dash to multiple stores to buy a new rug for the back hall and some pumpkins to add color to our increasingly bare backyard. I had it all planned out so I would make it home with just enough time to put the shiny new items in their places, make sandwiches for the boys and change my clothes for our afternoon exile. And then Mark called to say our realtor was there and she had switched the start time to 12:15.
Without telling us.
Now, in her defense, I had said we were probably going to be in Chautauqua, a trip that was canceled for illnesses much more common than cancer. But still. A quick email FYI would have gone a long way.
And I lost it. Just went nuts, crying and dropping the f-bomb. I was in the car with the kids in the backseat, yelling to Mark on the phone. Not at Mark. At the realtor, but to Mark. After a pause, he calmly asked if this was about something more than the Open House. And I launched in again: “It doesn’t matter why I’m acting like this. It’s what I feel and I don’t need excuses to justify it! I am tired and I am pissed and I am sick of everything!” So he met me on the corner and took the kids on an extra long trip to the hardware store, while I went to the new house and took deep breaths while stripping wallpaper.
It wasn’t the end of the world, of course. (Although I stand by my insistence that she should have let us know, in town or not.) But I guess I needed some other excuse to let it all out. Sometimes it’s easier to be mad at your realtor for poor communication than to be mad at the universe for making your child sick. A little more concrete of a target, I suppose.
Oh and then, after I’d been hoping that maybe yesterday would be the day we’d get an offer (you know just to create some cosmic balance of good and bad luck), no one showed up, except some curious neighbors. No one. Ugh.
Krissy,
I am constantly amazed at how you express yourself! When my parents moved here from NY, my dad neglected to tell me that he had cancer and my mother was in a wheelchair because of strokes, and he died 6 months later leaving me in charge of my mother and hundreds of thousands of dollars of unpaid IRS bills…wanna know when I cried the hardest…no, not when he died, not even when I discovered how much he owed. I cried, sobbed, and went out of control when at 11:00m pm at UH I put my money in the pop machine anticipating a sugary blast of Pepsi or Coke and a diet drink came out. That is when I lost it! Even less consequential than changing the time of an open house. Nevertheless, it was the small stuff that got to me, just like you said.
Krissy, you are constantly in my thoughts! This entry was by far one of my “favorites” in the sense that I could relate and saw myself in that dark
cafeteria bawling like a baby. I could just see you doing the same, but I can’t believe that you know the f-bomb word. Did you ever drop it at Coventry? I have!!!!!!! That’s probably why they closed the building.
See you at Pilates one of these weeks. Keep being real!
hit the nail on the head with this one. i am exactly the same way! but i will say that the wallpaper removal is one heck of a great way to get anxiety and anger out. My foyer and dining room walls didn’t stand a chance when I did them 🙂
We send you huge hugs which we hope translate into positive energy – for you, Mark, Austin, and Braedan. Maybe Tom will share this story with the realtor gang at tomorrow morning’s meeting. Maybe everyone will learn something.
You know, I think it’s because it’s OK, somehow, to be mad about the everyday things, so you let it out. Only it’s so out of proportion to what set it off, because you have been holding it all in for so long! Somehow I think we feel we “cannot” – or surely “should” not – be angry about the cosmic things, that we have to be strong and carry on… but dammit, it’s not fair, and it’s not right! You have every reason to be angry!
Oh so Betty THAT’S why they closed Coventry!! Solves that mystery. But really, Krissy, I think this is my favorite entry too. We are all so human after all and we hold it together until it is just one tiny little drop too much, then we overflow.
I have two kids who are now 15 and 19. I was going to say I remember having a trigger switch and now that I’m older things are just not that big a deal, so try to relax.
But then I remembered my mother-in-law saying something similar. I was obsessing about fixing up my house, probably, and she said that her mother-in-law, in her 80s (90s?) and in assisted living, had taught her that family relationships are the most important thing.
I took it as criticism of my obsession and shut up but later I realized that of COURSE her mother-in-law, living in TWO ROOMS by herself would no longer have to worry about when to get a real bed for the youngest or whether to have the kids’ toys in the dining room or the living room. But she MIGHT HAVE when her kids were little!
So someone who’s gone through that stage of life doesn’t necessarily have any answers.
But I would still say you have something to look forward to. I went through selling a house when the kids were 2 and 5 and now I can say that it’s not like the hordes are going to burst through the door in the first 45 minutes of an open house. And most of life is like that.
I now don’t care if someone tracks in dirt right after I vacuum (I will ask them to sweep up the big stuff, though) or wipe something green on the yellow towel (I will recall out loud that my dear dad used to say the towel shouldn’t get dirty, just wet) and let it go. And it’s almost a physical pleasure.