All the small things
Today, I was reminded that when you pretend a problem isn't a problem, it grows roots and ruins your plumbing. What I mean is that we're often so busy dealing with the most obvious, in-our-face issues that we neglect the smaller things by not acknowledging them as something of concern. In this case, it happened to be the plumbing in half of my house giving me trouble since moving in. I blamed it on the old toilets, but I knew it was odd that both bathrooms with issues were right next to each other. I had a feeling it was more than that. In just the same way as I brushed off the odd plumbing issue, I've brushed off minor aches and pains that turned out to be so much more than the things I was actually stressing about.
The truth is, as humans, we only have the capacity to juggle so many worrisome things at once. We unconsciously make a prioritized list, and it's not always in the order it should be because some problems require more emotional, financial, or other costly bandwidth than we are able to spare at the moment. We put those problems in a pile and set them aside for some undisclosed moment in time when we might be able to handle them. But that pile haunts us as we walk by and catch the scent of gasoline from the burning dumpster fire that is our neglected dilemmas. You know the feeling. Something reminds you of what you've been putting off, and the pit in your stomach rises—acid reflux of the worst kind.
I'm going to tell you that you should go to the dentist before a filling turns into a root canal. Call a plumber to check your weird pipes. And for god's sake, get an x-ray on that achy knee. But I've made all those mistakes, so who am I to tell you what to do? Everyone has a dumpster fire pile of troubles. Everyone has a maximum capacity limit for those "Are you kidding me? What now?" kinsd of problems. Since I clearly need to work on all of this myself, please feel free to join me as I take lots of deep, deep breaths, drop as many F-bombs as I like, and stumble through reorganizing my to-do list every time something suddenly can't wait.
