A valuable insight.

I often write that I am not very good at coping in certain situations. And try as hard as I do, it’s just the way that I am made and no amount of pushing or criticizing me will change my genetic and neurological make up.

Talk to the big guy if you have a problem. I am a product of His workmanship. I didn’t self-design. I can only work with that which I was given.

And He has wired me to be a sensitive person which is wonderful at times – but also can be a REAL burden at others because I have a tendency to take EVERYTHING to heart and it eats away at me and festers long after the original wound was inflicted.

And part of being super-sensitive involves a lot of tears being shed.

Like this morning.

I had intended to go to the school and watch Ella give her speech to middle school. She was chosen as the finalist to represent her class in the heats last week and today was the big day.

I arrived early and grabbed a seat only to be handed a program and discover that she wasn’t on for another 2 hours.

I looked at Lucas and then at the 40% battery level on my iphone and realised that there was no way that I could stretch either for that long.   I made the decision to swap my plans around and go to the local shops and buy my sister’s birthday gift first.

But after I arrived at the shopping centre, my daughter’s teacher called my mobile and told me that it was moving along a lot quicker than they had anticipated and that  Ella would be on next.

I sighed and explained where I was and that there was no way that I could get back there in time so he offered to try and video if for me instead.

Oh well…..I was disappointed but knew that I couldn’t do anything about it. It was just one of those things. I did feel like I’d let Ella down though.

***

The shopping centre that I was at has free parking for the first 3 hours and then they charge from then onwards.

I knew that I would only be an hour so I parked there , and for the first time in my entire life – I took the little parking ticket with me in my pocket instead of leaving it in the car as the signs all around advise you to NOT leave it in your vehicle.

After visiting EVERY single women’s clothing shop in the centre and finding nothing suitable I gave up and decided to head home again. I took the ticket out of my pocket and checked it and realised that I had been there for only one hour and ten minutes.

Perfect – I was well under the free 3 hours.

I walked back to my car, went to get the ticket out and my heart lurched into my shoes.

I felt sick as I searched every pocket frantically and turned my handbag inside out looking for the darn thing. I couldn’t understand how on earth it had gone missing in less than a minute.

Had someone pick-pocketed me?

I was stunned.

I had no choice but to contact the security office and explain what had happened and I was confident that because the centre had only been open for an hour and a half, it was obvious that I hadn’t overstayed the free period.

They didn’t care. They made me pay $25 for a lost ticket…..

 TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS!

And I didn’t even buy anything in this darn centre!!!!

Before I paid it – I spent another half an hour re-tracing my steps JUST IN CASE….but to no avail.

 Lucas was getting tetchy by now and starting to repeat the phrase “Oh no, Mummy, no ticket” over and over and OVER again!

SO I reluctantly paid the stoopid money and drove towards the exit only to see that the boom gate was permanently raised and that the machine was broken so EVERYONE  got to drive out without a ticket anyway!!

***

You’d think I’d be angry wouldn’t you?

No…I was too upset. I pulled my car over in a far section of the car park and burst into tears.  I rung my husband and sobbed into the phone. I cried for almost an hour all up. I was so upset at myself and at the unfairness of the situation. I completely lost it.

He spoke to me gently and calmed me back down again and has rung me every hour on the hour since to tell me that he loves me. He knew that it wasn’t just these two small things that set me off. He knows that there has been a helluva lot go on in our little world this week.  He knew that my heart had been stomped on and that I was already extremely fragile.

But I have been thinking about this whole ridiculous morning since I got home again and it occurred to me that this is very similar to how my Harley explains his meltdowns to me.

•  He has told me that sometimes when bad things happen and he feels like he is going into meltdown that  he can’t focus on anything else that’s going on around him.     (Just like I couldn’t tell you if there were any people near me in the carpark – I can’t remember, all I could think about was the ticket. It was the ONLY thing I could think about).
•  He says that he feels panicky and scared.     (Even though I knew this was fixable – I was overwhelmed with a sense of anxiety that I couldn’t seem to get on top of).
•  He can’t hear what anyone is saying to him and he feels physically sick on the stomach. (I felt like I was going to throw up and I had to ask the lady on the intercom to repeat her requests and questions several times because I wasn’t taking it in).
•  And he just wants to escape. (I wanted nothing more than to jump into my car and drive far, far away from this place that was making me feel so stressed out and unhappy).

 Please note that I am not trying to trivialize his feelings or pretend to know exactly how he feels but am trying to understand him better.

And if THIS is anything close to how he feels – I have so much more compassion for him than EVER before…..it was purely debilitating and sickening.  I know it was only a $25 ticket and not the end of the world. Really I do. But it felt like it was.

But because I have had a really difficult past week and was hurt quite badly, it has made everything else that’s occurred in my life since then appear larger than life. Like a big fat magnifying glass that hovers above me.

And with Harley – it often only takes a very tiny spark to create a bushfire.  It’s rarely the little things alone that send him off…..it’s a culmination of many little things all linked together…..

And if you’ll excuse me, I need to go and remove my smudgy eye makeup before I leave the house again for the school pick up!

Thank you God for giving me this little insight into my boy’s mind….it is AWESOME!

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