When Life Doesn’t Go As Planned
So, there I was; plugging along like a kid on a glorious Saturday afternoon, making their way through the neighborhood to hook up with friends. Confident, unbothered, happy. That’s how it feels just before life starts to throw shit your way. Then, it feels more like you’re dodging line-drives from the pitchers mound, and you start talking to yourself.
“I didn’t sign up for this shit!”
If you read my previous post, the holidays were good and I was quite optimistic about life in general. I’m still a very optimistic person, regardless of the bizarre circumstances I find myself in these days. But sometimes, you just gotta sit back and scratch your head in wonderous confusion, on how the tables can turn so quickly. How one minute you feel like you’ve got the world on a string, then the next you are holding onto a tiger’s tail, praying the bumpy ride will be over quickly.
The new year of 2026 started out fairly well. The Mister and I had a lovely two week trip making the rounds to see a multitude of family and friends, sight seeing along the way. It was great! Spending quality time with my hubby, laughing, joking and toasting each evening with cocktails, often gazing at painted skys of sherbet. Just living our best life!
But the Universe sometimes presents challenges that we aren’t expecting, and it’s in the way we respond to these challenges that shows just how far we’ve come on this evolutionary plane. Sometimes, we respond with grace. Sometimes we say the fuck word…a lot!
A few things have thrown a cog in the works of my nicely greased machine I call, My Life. Now, as I just said, I can usually respond to unpleasant situations these days, (oh, say the past six years), with a resonable demeanor and focused goal on what to do next. But sometimes things build up, and then all bets are off. Yeah…I can lose my shit.
When we returned from our fun trip out of state, I was in a car accident that left me with injuries I’m still healing from, and it flat out sucks. No other way to say it. I won’t go into any detail about the situation, for one, it won’t do any good, and for two, I’m trying to move forward and not rehash things. Still, it was a sucker punch thing to happen in my life, and I feel sort of ambushed.
You cannot prepare yourself really, to have shit go sideways. I mean, we do our best, each day to be mindful. To live with intention and kindness. We work hard, strive to do the right things, and still, sometimes you get to eat a shit sandwich. Fair? Nope. But that’s reality. And here I am, asking myself if I’ve done enough work on my spiritual-self to move to the other side with dignity and grace.
Like, when I’ve been working diligently with both Amazon and Ingram Spark, for months on end to get it together and, won’t somebody please tell me why these guys can’t get along? I own my ISBN numbers (which is the International Standard Book Number), for both my books, (After the Fire, and Wildflower), and still, they each think the other owns it. So, they aren’t letting me publish on both platforms. Nothing I do has helped. I know it sounds confusing if you aren’t in publishing, but trust me, it’s an independent author’s nightmare.
It pisses me off.
But still, each morning I wake up since the accident, I tell myself how blessed I am to be here, and how grateful I am for this life. I try to be hopeful each day, and spend time reminding myself of my great fortune, by listening to things like, Tuesdays with Morrie, on audiobook, or reading inspirational stuff like, The Happiness Project, for the hundredth time. But as my dear friend told me on the phone when I was promising that everything is gonna work out, she said, “Yeah, but Patti, it still fucking sucks.”
IT DOES!
Getting your bearings when you feel you’ve been thrown off course, can take time and patience. I’m learning all about patience, and what I’ve discovered is…I’m not all that patient. Ha!
Recently I read a substack post by author Annabel Monaghan entitled, “Don’t Tell Me to Relax.” It was interesting to me as well as funny, because I was like, yeah! Don’t tell us to relax when things aren’t going our way, dammit! And while she was stuck in this AirBNB, instead of her new place she was waiting for months to move into, the decor of this rental was mocking her with over-the-top vacation vibes. Too much sealife ornamentation, happy signage, and aggressive decorating to the point that even the back of the toilet had an enormous seahorse sculpture sitting on it. Offensive and ridiculous if you are not really on vacation, but in limbo waiting out escrow.
I tell you that only because, toxic positivity can come from most anywhere. Especially if we are feeling shitty. And it is OK, to be both an optimistic person, and still admit to feeling like you’ve been served piss in your champagne flute. You don’t get demerits for speaking your truth. Still, I don’t want to wrap myself up with a pity party and live there. But once in a while, I let myself cry for about 10 minutes before moving on.
When you are landblasted with an unexpected situation, allow yourself time to digest it. To sit with it, and wait for all the pieces to fall before you expect yourself to reassemble. These things take time, and you deserve the grace, love, and understanding to process it all before moving forward again. These are the things I’m telling myself every single day. The more I say it, the more I believe it. It’s true for me, and it’ll be true for you too.
And before ya know it, life takes on a beautiful glow again. It might look different, or it could point you into a different trajectory, but it’s in the nano-moments and glimpses of light that filter through the cracks that brings us the tread we so desperately need…and that is hope.
With love, Patti
* Pictures of me and Marina del Rey, are mine. Feature post courtesy of pexels.com and cartoon is Bitmoji.
