Life Happens, how you respond is your choice

There is a saying that life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you choose to respond to it. To that I say, amen! 

I was standing in my closet looking for the power suit that I was going to wear when I met with a colleague who was arriving from the east coast that morning for a meeting only I would be attending and after which he would be leaving.

Then I heard, thump, th-thump, thump. It could only be one thing, the cat had gotten out of the bedroom. I had recently brought a new dog into the house and the meet n’ greet between the two was not going well. Each animal got time to roam the home while the other spent time in bedroom with the door shut. This morning, the cat had apparently learned how to turn the door knob and exit the room.

I ran for the staircase and bounded down the steps, took a sharp right through the living room and saw the stain on the wall from a cabinet that had been shoved into the drywall. I continued past the basement stairs and saw something small and white on the floor but had not time to stop and look. I would later learn that they were teeth. I kept running. As I hit the kitchen floor I slid, instantly knowing that it was urine and blood, but remained focused as I saw my very large boxer dog under the frame of the laundry room door. In his mouth was the cat. I instinctively put both hands on the dog’s jaws and opened them as though he was an alligator. Now free, the cat projected himself into the air and over the dryer only to hit the wall and leave a trial of blood running down the wall as he slid to hit the floor. I could not get my cat out from behind the dryer.

I then did what any 34-year-old, single woman would do in this situation. I called my dad! I awakened him from a deep sleep and explained my urgency. It was 6:00 a.m. and while he was not awake, he would have to get dressed and drive nearly 30 minutes to my house. At 6:20, my doorbell rang. 

We bundled up both the dog and the cat, after retrieving him from behind the dryer. My dad would take the dog and my young daughter in his car and I would wrap the cat in blankets and take him with me.  

After having left both the dog and cat at the vet’s, I looked down to realize that I had jeans and what had been a clean sweatshirt on, which were now covered in both animal blood and urine. I had a choice to make. I could go west toward home and shower and then drive back east to work, which would likely take about 90 minutes. Or I could go directly to the office. I called work and told the admin that a man was about to walk in and ask for me and to please give him whatever he wanted: an office, a computer, coffee, breakfast, anything. About 30 minutes later I walked off the elevator to the gasps of those standing around. The admin pointed to a door and I walked in, held out my hand and said “This will probably be the shortest meeting you‘ve ever had as I’m covered in animal blood and urine.” It was and I can imagine that somewhere in the U.S. there is a man who has told his version of that story more than a few times.

Why did I tell you that story? It wasn’t even about divorce. I told it because it has three elements that are very important to every experience that life throws at us, including divorce.

There are three takeaways from this story.

The first takeaway is to … Expert the unexpected, UNCERTAINTY is part of life. That morning I had a plan. I thought I knew exactly where I was going, at what time and what the day would be like. But, when you get up in the morning, no matter how much planning you have done, no matter how prepared and clear you are on what is going to happen, you just never really know what’s going to happen. If my story doesn’t show you that, let’s all think back to January 2020. Which one of us saw the virus coming?! We live with constant uncertainty. 

Secondly, You always have a CHOICE. As I stood in the parking lot, I had to decide if I was going west toward home or east toward the office. I had to make a choice and my story also showed that sometimes none of the choices are good. You have to make the best choice you can with the information you have at the time. It helps immensely to be aware of the choices you do have, and to know that as you get more information, you can adjust your choice or make a different one. But, you always have a choice!

And finally, All you can ever do, is to do your BEST. That day I knew I had done my best. Somedays my best has been incredibly bad, but it was the very best that I had to offer each and every moment, and at the end of the day I could rest knowing that I had done my best. And I just want to say that you don’t have to be strong or perfect to do your best – you just have to have the courage to try and to say that you will try again … tomorrow.

The lessons that I learned that crazy morning, and the mindset they created, have served me well in everything from successfully overseeing the daily and managing the medical care of my parents, while being a CareHero® on their weekly schedule, for 2.5 years to thriving through my third divorce.

Remember that life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you choose to respond to it. It’s your choice.