Sometimes life is well beyond our control.
I recently returned from a visit to family and as usual, I turned my water back on and started to do one laundry. Water leak! Right at the basement floor! Turning off the water had no effect! I won’t go into all the frustrating and stressful details. All the people I had to deal with were most helpful and eventually I had water, hooked up to a neighbour temporarily. My exterior lead pipe section was due to be replaced and will be done sooner.
Secondly, I had a computer problem with my laptop. Both it and my small notebook are old and I was thinking about replacement but hadn’t done it. The maker of my laptop had always been a company I’d had good service from. This time they sent me a part while I was away without explaining, and written instructions to replace the part. Lots of back and forth emails while I tried to do this and ran into a snag where I no longer felt confident to continue. More back and forth trying to get them to understand that no they could not take over my computer to deal with the issue because my computer was partially dismantled. Finally they sent a tech who got me set up again, though I’ve still got an issue with one of the programs I reinstalled. Hope to get that worked out as it affects getting my next book out this year. Again, lots of frustrations, except this time, I didn’t feel very well served through the process, except at the end. I’m thinking about replacing that laptop with a newer one soon, by a different manufacturer.
A couple of days after returning home I also got the coughing virus that my grandson caught just before I ended my visit. That has had its ups and downs. Frustration with the cough hanging on so long. Positive - it’s not Covid and finally, after about 10 days, the cough may be leaving my body.
Through all this, I kept telling myself that there was no point getting overly upset. Life was going on and though I could do certain things such as drink plenty of fluids for the cold, others, such as how long each step was going to take, was beyond my control. I needed to relax as much as I could, let go of previous plans to do a whole lot of things that I wanted to do. For a few days I had to stay around my house making sure no worse water leaks happened, etc. to wait for the technician to be sent, to wait for the cold to be over.
Two lovely things also happened: I got home in tine to see my tulips bloom and I bought an iPad. The iPad has been fun to learn to use as other than my mobile phone, I’ve never had an Apple product. Also the staff at The Source, where I bought the iPad were friendly and very helpful when I needed assistance with getting my external keyboard linked.
Life lessons - keep as calm as possible in tines of stress and find things that give you joy, even in adversity.
