Giving Away Our Power

Sometimes I feel like I give my power away.

Let me back up and explain.

The last couple of weeks, and the last week in particular, have been rather tumultuous to say the least.  We put our house on the market at the beginning of the summer.  We had an offer nearly immediately.  And then we waited.  And waited.  And waited some more for things to go through all the required channels.  It’s not easy to sell a house that has lost over 55% of its value in the few years since you purchased it.

And then on December 16th, I was halfway through finishing hanging up our holiday decorations when I heard a bling from my phone.  I went over to check my email to find that our sale was approved.  We were good to go.  I was ecstatic.  And then I read the next line… closing needed to happen on December 26th.  Ten days later.  I looked at my overfull house, my three kids, my two pets, my calendar explaining that two of the ten days between then and closing were holidays, and I went into a panic.  A happy panic, mind you, because we had been dreaming about this day for years, but a panic nonetheless.

To make a long story short, we were able to negotiate a slightly later closing date of the 30th, and we went about finding a place to live.

Because we had almost no time to do all of this, we only had two criteria — that the house was near Magoo’s school and that it was  available nearly immediately.  We would worry about finding a forever house in a year or two.  Right now we just wanted a place to regroup in.  One without rodents!

And then we found it.  The house is remarkable in my opinion.  Everything I have ever wanted.  It was built in the later 1800s, and it has all the character and quirks of an older house.  But it was flipped, and as such it has all the modern conveniences — new floors, new kitchen, new bathroom, new electric and ac and heating and windows.  It has a huge attic and basement and backyard.  It has an extra room for a playroom and since the kitchen is eat in, we can actually use the dining room to take out all the books we have had stored since we converted our office to a playroom when Magoo was two.

It’s gorgeous, and I am in love.  I have spent the last two weeks obsessing over the pictures online.  My first apartment in Milwaukee back in 1998 was in an older building, and ever since then, I have wanted to move back into an older place.  We are the first owners of the house we are currently in, so while it is all pretty and fresh and new, it totally lacks the character of an older building, and even worse, it’s new subdivision cookie cutter.

But of course there was a catch with that.  It wasn’t available until this upcoming Friday, but our new owners are pretty much the most awesome people I have ever met, so they agreed to let us stay until then.

All was going according to plan.  And then on Friday my neighbor’s pipe burst when they weren’t home.  And that really sucks when you live in a townhouse because that meant that before the fire department was able to break in and shut off their water, the renegade water destroyed half my downstairs and half my other neighbor’s downstairs as well as the entire downstairs of the original house.  So now we have no kitchen at all.  All the flooring, baseboards, appliances, cabinets, and everything else are gone.  Destroyed.  Ultimately it’s not our problem because it’s not our house or our insurance anymore, but I still feel bad for the new owners, and it’s still insanely impractical to take care of three kids with one pedestal sink and a microwave, and half our downstairs is inaccessible to them all because the floors have been stripped to the concrete base and their are wires and exposed pipes.

And then Goosie got sick.  She threw up the whole night the other day.  We finally fell asleep around 2:00 or 3:00 am, and then we woke up to no electricity at 7:00 am.  Right at the beginning of this “polar vortex.”  And we went off and on (but mainly off) with power until 7:00 pm yesterday.  We spent half the day in the car with the kids and the pets just trying to warm up.

And then I woke up today, and things feel normal.  I can’t help but feel the other shoe will drop, but as of right now, things are as normal as they will get.

Except in my mind.

I am so overwhelmed that I feel I cannot do anything.  I feel incompetent and insufficient for the task at hand.  I look at my kids and know they need baths, and we have to get Magoo’s school gear ready for tomorrow.  And I have to pack up the rest of the stuff upstairs.  I have to do a few loads of laundry so we bring clean laundry to our new house.  I need to read to the kids.  I have to figure out a way to do a load of dishes in a pedestal sink while also trying to figure out what to serve for dinner when we have no stove or real sink or any other cooking necessities.  And I have to figure out how to do this all while taking care of three kids who are all displaced and discombobulated and out of sorts.

But instead of getting to work and figuring out those problems, I panic.  I don’t know how to start, so I sit here in a panic and tell myself that I can’t.  It’s too much.  And then I see work not getting done and I get more overwhelmed and more down on myself and more sure I can’t handle it.

Do you ever feel this way?  Do other people do this?

And then I realized.  I’m giving away my power.  I’m giving away belief in myself.  I’m outsourcing my life because I’m too afraid I can’t handle it myself, and then I’m getting flustered when it doesn’t work out right.

I don’t know how to stand back up after all this chaos.

But who else is going to figure it out?  Who else is going to do it?

Maybe it’s about time I stop listening to those voices that tell me I can’t.  How different would life be if every time we felt we were incapable of something, we reminded ourselves that we are capable enough and smart enough and tough enough and strong enough.  How much less panic.  How much less despair.  How much less stagnation.

I’m not feeling the strength, but in this case, I’m hoping to prove it to myself.  And I guess I’m the only one I have to prove it to in the end, anyway.

Any thoughts?  Do you all get overwhelmed?  Do you ever give away your power?  Do you ever tell yourself you can’t do something that you actually can?

And how different would things be if you stopped those messages?

I would love to hear what you think.