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You can’t always get what you want…

From my IG feed: Photo Credit Very Jane.com

Ya’ll….We are living in crazy times…CR.AAA.ZY times.

I’ve been on the search for toilet paper for the last week. We are not dangerously low yet, but we are creeping up on it!

I’ve gone to SEVEN…SEVEN stores over the last week and have yet to find a single roll. I can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve google searched it to no avail. Even AMAZON.Freakin’.PRIME is out of toilet paper. FOR REAL YA’LL….WHY can’t I find toilet paper? Why is this a thing? Like a real thing?

I already feel like I’m taking my life into my hands when I enter Walmart. I try not to breathe the entire time. I have my sanitizer wipe in my hand. I wipe down the surface of the cart and nearly everything else. By the time I’m through, my wipe is shriveled and dry. I’ve pre-mapped out my game plan in my mind based upon my shopping list and the store layout. I’m half exhausted before I even walk in the door….I secretly curse anyone who comes within my six foot radius. There has been at least once that it was not so secretly ….

Now, I’m out there going in and out of SEVEN different stores looking for something I clearly took for granted just weeks ago.

My husband, who is already very picky about his TP, thinks he has an idea. When I say picky – I mean to say, we have to pack toilet tissue on any over night trip because he doesn’t want to risk using whatever they may have there, picky….SOOOO he says “well, we will just use wipes”….Nope…Those ARE ALL OUT TOO! Someone already had that idea, Fred. (That’s not his real name, it’s just what I call him from time to time.)

So I ~~mention this~~ rant to a few friends. They have some they will share with me they say. No, no, not yet. But I leave the door open in case I do get desperate.
Oh my geezee…

And then…then ya’ll

My coworker calls me. She is at the store shopping for her elderly parent and has found the holy grail! She asks me if I still need it, to which I practically leap through the phone – YES! And, then – she offers to deliver it… To do a drive by and toss it on my porch. (Six foot Corona virus rules.) I mean…How freakin’ great is that.

I have tears.

Text between my husband and I after our delivery

You guys – I love my coworkers. I really, really do. I count myself so blessed that I get to go to work and spend time with these fantastic people. Over the years we have been through so much together. They are my work family! Today, one of them rescued me in more ways than one.

I’ve been trying so hard to find the positive in this Corona Virus mess. But truthfully, it is wearing thin. I. WANT. TO GO. BACK. TO WORK….Like physically, go into my office. Chat with my work friends at the coffee pot, argue with my work friends in the conference room, and have “ah-ha”, breakthrough, fantastic ideas to “fix” or “resolve” a seemingly impossible problem. It’s what we do. It’s my favorite work thing in the world – to make hard things simple…I want to go back to work (in the office).

I also want to go to the beach…I want to hang out with my girlfriends…I want my kid to go back to school…I want to go to the park…to the store without holding my breath….I want to stop worrying if my family and friends will get this damn thing…to stop worrying if the economy will ever recover and if my friends who have lost their jobs or those who run a small businesses will find their way back again… I want this virus thing to be over with already. The thought of it lasting eight more weeks makes my insides hurt.

And yet, with a deep sigh and adult understanding (I get it…I really do) I will stay home – and I be grateful that I still get to work with these awesome people from my make shift desk in my home “office”.

If you don’t have people like this in your life – people who will hunt for toilet paper for you and throw it on your porch in the middle of a pandemic – get some! Get on it pronto! Seriously! It’s not to late…Because when you are stuck and a friend rescues you – it puts your world back together again, if only for the day.

“You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, well you just might find, you get what you need.” ~ The Rolling Stones

Today, I didn’t get what I wanted…but I got what I needed. I’m so thankful for my TP Angel and for drive by deliveries.

xoxo,

Lady Chats A Lot

Tags: blog, choices, Corona, Corona Virus, friendship, happy, life, People, Rolling Stones, toilet paper, Women

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Categories Corona, Encouragement, friendship, growth, humor, Inspirational, Lessons in Life, life style, Women

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An optimist, a pessimist and a realist walk into a bar…

19 Jan

I’m not exactly sure how the conversation started. This very young, cute-sy, twenty something year old tells me how optimism is really the cure for all things painful. That’s not exactly what he said, but that is what I heard. My eyes narrowed to slits, I took in his perfectly coifed hair do, not a single black strand out of place. His slim blue suit was on point… He could have just stepped out of a magazine spread. Legit. I wish I would have taken his picture just to show you. No doubt, his broad smile had opened a few doors, and likely even more zippers. No, no he isn’t at all my type, even if I were single (which I’m not. I’m WAAAYYY married, like 22 years of marriage – married.) That’s not where this story is going, but I would be remiss if I didn’t give you the background.

I stood there taking him in (judging this book by the cover) and wondered if he really believed what he was saying. Could optimism really be the cure for all things? Could bad things cease to exist by simply not acknowledging them? Had he been successful with this concept?

My response, “hmmm… I’m not sure about that. I’m more of a realist. Neither believing all things are good, or bad. But allowing space for both.”

He sputtered a bit and I continued to stare. I do that sometimes when I’m thinking. I stare …and blink….and remain uncomfortably quiet. Wanting to be cynical and ask him for the resume of loved lost, evaporated dreams, crushed opportunities….and yet willing myself to not go there. For one, I didn’t want to have to share my list (if asked)….and I honestly found it hard to believe that he had experienced enough to hold the conversation. I stared until I noticed him blushing and then said “do you really believe that?”

Yes, of course he did.

Would he in ten years? In twenty? I don’t know.

I know that I’ve learned that life is not all good or all bad. It certainly isn’t fair. Bad things DO happen to good people.

Positivity is such an endearing quality and I really do try to “look on the bright side”. I start each day fresh. I forgive (even when I don’t want to.) I believe the energy you put out in the world is the energy you get back. Some call it karma, some say it’s biblical with “you reap what you sow”.

I also allow space for heartache. For disappointment. On those days I don’t simply suck it up and power my way through.

I feed it Chick-Fila….and chocolate. Sometimes vodka …I smother my self with blankets and wallow in the sorrow of it all. I take the time to be there, to breathe in the heaviness, and to grieve. I allow myself to cry. Nothing feels more lonely to a person struggling than suggesting they barrel through to the land of sunshine and roses powered only on fumes and a fake smile.

No. No, it is ok to be sad too. Some where along the way I think we’ve forgotten that.

The trick is, not staying there for to long. At some point, you have to bid it farewell. Pack it’s lunch and send it on its way. It’s even okay to offer a warm goodbye hug or two. He will be back….sadness, disappointment, heartache… They always return at some point, knocking the dust from their boots as the enter through the threshold. They find their way to your table and ask for coffee. While it brews, you wonder how you got here, again….We can only pray the visits are few and far between…maybe that’s just my realistic world view. Maybe it’s not the same for everyone.

The ebb and flow of life. It’s hard to appreciate triumph if you have not experienced defeat. It’s hard to know true love without first knowing heartache. Sometimes the two are intertwined and inseparable.

A realist searching for balance – believing that to far to the left or to the right is neither right or wrong …it is just to far.