What If…
Oof. It’s been a rough week around here in a lot of ways. Getting back on the school schedule has been tricky; we can’t seem to leave the house as early as I would like, which means the drive to school takes twice as long as it should due to terrible traffic. And, guess what? Right away my daughter refused (in a continuation of last year’s crusade) to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. This year it involves two teachers (they alternate odd and even days- so every other day either period 1 or period 2 is the first class, where they say the Pledge.) One of the teachers has asked everyone to stand to avoid offending others, and my daughter still refuses. I mean… I get it. It’s hard right now to feel patriotic when Florida is going off the rails, with DeSantis’s assertions that there were some good things about slavery (check out this interesting video.) I just wish we could have gotten through one week of school without conflict. My daughter is still in that phase where passion and principles are more important than other people’s feelings, and there are no gray areas. She will learn… I hope. Meanwhile I’m worried about how this will all play out. Put that on top of all the other mundane concerns of life (will we ever decide on a backsplash? What if the one we choose looks stupid?) and I was walking around in a fog of worry. On Wednesday I decided to indulge in a little retail therapy. While I was in Home Goods browsing through Halloween Decor- a favorite pastime this time of year- I came across this notebook: Yes. What IF it all works out? As a matter of fact, I recently had this conversation with my daughter. She was stressing about something relatively minor (involving her new class schedule) and I assured her it would all work out. She got annoyed with me: “You ALWAYS say that!” I said, “Yes, but think back. Has anything, ever, turned into a complete disaster? Or does it always work out in the end?” She tried hard, but couldn’t honestly come up with anything that had resulted in utter ruin. I rest my case! Taking my own advice, we’ve chosen a backsplash. (Hint: it’s not any of the ones I’ve already shown here- ooh! Drama and Mystery!) We’ll have it installed and then I can STOP THINKING ABOUT IT. And it will be completely fine. Would you consider yourself a worrier? Or do you usually feel confident that things will work out? – Usually I’m the latter- but I can get caught up in worry too. Photo by Matt Walsh on Unsplash