It's not an uncommon occurrence, the rushing. I'd stayed at school a little later than I planned to get one more thing done and then done a few "one more thing"s at home, too. Somewhere in tbe middle of starting a quick load of laundry realized I *had* to get going. So, I gave the girls a "5 min and we're getting dressed" warning and hurried into my closet to figure out what to wear myself.
Their "5 minute warning" didn't leave me much time to get myself around, and as I moved too quickly through my closet, disaster struck. It started when I walked in - my elbow brushed a belt I had hooked over some shoes, and the shoes tumbled to the ground. No big deal, I picked them up. As I reached for a skirt and pulled down the hanger, a dress slipped off and hit the floor. The shirt didn't work how I wanted - and grabbing my second choice resulted in another dress hitting the floor. When I turned around to hang the dresses back up, a stack of scarves I had folded toppled over, so then I had to pick them up. By the time I had them picked up, one daughter was yelling for me from her bedroom and the other was tracking me down. I had to fight back a meltdown because I *just* wanted 5 minutes of chaos free time to get ready for church so I could feel pulled together and ready to wrangle my kids .... And it simply wasn't happening.
And here's what I'm trying to tell you: the straw that broke the camel's back wasn't any heavier than the other pieces of straw. It simply got placed at the wrong moment when the stack was already feeling heavy and high.
The scarves getting knocked over wasn't a big deal. Usually.
The shoes falling down? That took two seconds.
A shirt not fitting right? Well, I mean, aren't we all used to that?
But right then? In that moment? It added up all wrong. And all those little things came crashing down in a big heap of overwhelming.
And how do you move on from that?!
....one live of straw, at a time, I suppose.
You pick an outfit and you hang up the others. You shove the pile of scarves into a basket (or, ya know, fold them back up, whichever). You pick up the shoes. You calm the children.
One piece of straw - one thing - one moment - at a time. The same the straw got piled up? You unpile it.
One piece at a time, with lots of deep breaths in-between, the overwhelming gets manageable again - and you keep moving forward.
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