Friday, April 18, 2014

#POSITIVITY

Avery and I recently had dinner with my good friend from college and sorority sister, Karen. She introduced me to a delicious vegetarian place and considering I have eliminated gluten, dairy, beef, pork, caffeine, and artificial sugars from my diet, I figured this place would be right up my alley. I was hoping it would be a relaxed dinner where I wasn't consumed with -adding this- or- eliminating that- from menu items, in order to meet my needs. #dontspitinmyfoodplease. It was even better than I hoped, right down to the vegan strawberry milkshake that I happily ordered in the largest size they had.

I was so excited about my frosty glass of dairy-free deliciousness that I felt it was a preferable moment to share my dietary triumph with the hashtag happy world via Facebook and Instagram. While I am guilty of posting foodie pictures on occasion, I've actually been quite resistant to the hashtag craze... until this blog.

I slid my phone out of my purse but not to be unnoticed by my darling daughter, Avery. She had decided that even though she was a Tri-Sigma Legacy, that she had enough of sorority talk from the old days, as well weddings and baby talk from the new days, and instead preferred to catch the latest episode of Mickey Mouse that could be streamed on my cellular device. Considering I had exhausted all my other options of coloring, princess-playing, and piecing together a portable potato head, I acquiesced her request to "wah-tch Mickey pease," for the last few minutes of my dinner date.

It was during the hand-off that the unspeakable happened, and my iPhone slipped out of her ten tiny fingers before bouncing off the edge of the booth and ending up face down on the concrete floor. Karen scooped it up and handed it over, but not without a horrified look on her face as we both realized the screen was completely shattered.

Shit. Sorry, but... Shit.

I didn't really think it was going to break. For a second, I felt a wave of panic rush over me as I realized that I didn't have insurance for my phone and this wasn't going to be a cheap fix. Then, I thought to myself... "Ok, gurrl needs to get a grip. This is a phone." It did not mean my life was ending. Cancer had already tried that approach and I was now privy to such shenanigans and I wasn't going to fall for that again. I'm not gonna sweat the small stuff. I sweat enough with my hot flashes and until my patent for a personal air conditioned bubble is approved, I'm not giving my body more reason to revolt.

Truth is, I have a pretty good handle on which things are important in life and which things need to be shrugged off. In a two year span of time, I lost my job as a second grade teacher #districtcuts, am going through a divorce #nohusbandnoproblem, and gotten cancer #boobissues. Those have been the absolute worst and hardest times in my life, all at once, and they are very big lessons to learn; but, being positive is how I cope. I have preached it here before and it doesn't take a broken cell phone to illustrate my point but it does make it so much more obvious about what deserves your focus in life.

I'm actually, incredibly happy and instead of being resistant to change, I'm excited of what is going to come next... even $150 later for a cellphone repair. #Longest20minutesofmylife.