But I had genuine cause for celebration, because the week had been one of mental stress on a few points. Enough stress that I had at one point thought I was mentally loosing it. To understand my journey this week you need to understand that my thought processes are very rooted in what I see visually. I am driven by color and texture, and have that "knack" for designing things. Perhaps it's my art minor kicking in, I don't know but it plays a hefty role in the events to follow.
On Tuesday I bought a car load of pool noodles for a youth event. 30 to be exact, 10 in each color. I know this because I drove to three different stores to find each color. (Let's be honest, pool noodles are not the typical mid-September find, the school supplies are being placed on the clearance racks, Halloween is appearing in full force. Pool noodles? Pool noodles were so June. So I considered my three store trip a huge success story.) The back of my mini van was happily filled with orange aqua and bright blue noodles.
On Wednesday I went to a friends house with a bag full of X-acto knives, rolls of duct tape, and electrical tape with the full intent of creating 30 noodle lightsabers. You know, one of those charming Pinterest ideas that you think would be totally cool to do. And it was cool. Fun, easy, a great way to spend time talking and planning with a friend. Only one thing bugged me. We only had the orange and aqua noodles. The blue ones weren't in the van anymore.
I wracked my mind trying to think where I had put them. I hadn't thought I had taken any out of the van. After all I knew I'd have to put them right back in. Could it be possible that someone stole them out of my van? But why take noodles and not the GPS, or the case of DVDs? And why just the blue ones? Nothing made sense, and so I figured that I must've taken an armload out of the van thinking I'd come back and get the rest later. I went home and combed my house for any space large enough to contain 10 blue pool noodles. Then I combed through it again. It bugged me, and I had a hard time letting it go (maybe because I also knew I couldn't replace them, until next June since I'd bought the last of them.Or maybe because the money wasn't mine but money from the youth group. Either way I searched my house a lot with no positive results.)
On Thursday, I visited my husbands work for a special meal that they were having. It's one of those places where you sign in and they give you a name badge that proudly marks you as a VISITOR in bright red letters on a white adhesive backdrop. Or at least I thought that until I went to the washroom later and caught sight of the badge in the mirror. The red letters were still present, but the badge was a brilliant cobalt blue. I shook my head, I was sure it had been white. I just kept going forward - though I briefly thought about tearing the badge to bits and jumping up and down on it's remains for causing me such anxiety. Then I remembered that I was at my husbands work and such antics would not reflect well. Thankfully my social filter was on.
In reality they were very small things. Dollar store pool noodles and a name badge that was a different color than I thought I saw. But those small things now had me on a mental edge. What else was I going to loose or see as different than it was. Unnerving.
Then my first break came. One of my husbands co-workers came by and in the course of small-talk said "I see you've been outside." then at my confused look "You're badge, it's blue - they are sensitive to the light - they turn blue if you've been outside." "Oh, oh yes! I've been outside." I am positively sure that my suddenly chesire cat grin of relief was not the polite reaction that should have come from such a conversation. I am also sure that I definitely hit "socially awkward". But I didn't care. I had seen the badge right. Both times. I no longer wanted to tear my badge up and jump up and down on it. No I just wanted to do that to whatever team of scientists, PR, and security that thought that color changing badges was a good thing. I mean come on - what weighs more, the security of your complex or the mental stability of one visually oriented housewife. Sigh.
The second break came Saturday morning when we were dividing up the pool noodles (and thus counting them) into two separate groups. 10 orange and 20 aqua. Yup that pretty much started the song and dance routine. I'm assuming the heat in my car, or the light in my car, or the aliens that took my van for a joy ride on Tuesday night, changed the color of the blue noodles to aqua. So why hadn't I counted them before? Good question and I honestly don't have an answer. I would have saved me a great deal of mental stress.
I am sure that there is some takeaway here. Something profound about angels rejoicing over what was lost being found again. Or learning to live in a world that is not colorfast. Or, patience with those who are battling dementia. Or a little tiny bite of what loosing your mental abilities does start to feel like - like how little things make you feel so out of control so quickly. Or how to learn to let go of little things (I clearly need work there.) But for today I am content to laugh. The singing and dancing has passed, much to my children's vast relief, and I can laugh at myself. Perhaps because I'm blogging you can laugh too. A good laugh goes a long way. And I'll hit the analyze button on another day.
This Is The StuffFrancesca Battistelli |
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