Sometimes the stories you tell about the awful or embarrassing moments of your life, make it easier to bear in the long run. For myself, I usually am able to reflect back with humor. When I first moved away from the Puget Sound area, I had a lot of uncertain emotions rolling around in my overloaded brain.
My first and foremost concern was my family. My husband was finally in charge of his own office and it came with an immense amount of pressure. I was determined to support him in this, pushing aside all of my own emotions. The next major concern, was my daughters. I wanted this move to have the least amount of negative affect on them. I wanted them to view this stressful, uncertain moment of our lives like a great adventure.
We had lived in our home for less than a week when I finally decided to brave a trip to the grocery store. I honestly had no idea where it was because I hadn’t ventured out to explore our new town. My daughters feeling the effect of cabin fever were excited to do something other than unpack. The morning was cold and icy. The sun was shining though the trees and the world around us was beautiful. My oldest rushes out to the car, hits the driveway while not realizing that it was completely iced over. Her legs slide out from under her, go in opposite directions and she falls flat on her back.
She attempts to pull herself up and promptly falls down again. Without thinking, I scream for her to hold on and rush out onto the ice to help her. I fall flat on my back, land on my elbow, bump my head and slide down the driveway. My youngest who is on the porch starts crying as she watches this disaster unfold. My oldest daughter is also crying and still trying to stand up. I’m lying on the ice and cement in a daze, wondering how we managed to get ourselves in this predicament.
I try and stand up when my head clears but my feet refuse to grip on the ice. I end up marine crawling over to my daughter, while silently repeating curse words within my head. We crawl all the way to the grass, filthy, disheveled and aching. We were both bruised and had ripped articles of our clothing but luckily there were no major injuries and my head only received a small bump.
For a moment I was convinced that our move had been one big mistake. I posted our predicament on Facebook because after moving to a place where you don’t know a single soul, that’s the only social life you have. I received a lot of condolences but also a lot of laughs. People thanked me for keeping it real and even sent me private messages regarding their own mishaps with children. I reminded myself to keep viewing our move as an adventure. There’s always a lesson to learn.
Sometimes we slip on the ice. We fall down, struggle to stand and feel our feet slide out underneath us again. Sometimes we have to crawl our way out, fighting and maneuvering our way to safe ground. But….we always manage to get back up. The ice eventually melts. Remember to embrace your own crazy family moments no matter how disappointing, how embarrassing or how difficult they may seem!
