S#@! Happens - My Sarah Grace Moment that Led to my First Meltdown of Married Life

A picture is worth a thousand words, right?

Well, here is one of them that lives up to that saying:

Yes. That happened.

And, believe it or not, my melt-down did not happen in that moment.

"Ironing"

First off, I never iron; ironing for me is pulling the clothes immediately out of the dryer and hanging them on a hanger so they don't wrinkle. I never even bought a full-sized ironing board but still have the 2-foot long, 5-inch high, bright-pink dorm-sized one that I got as a freshman in college.... and it has seriously been used less than 10 times since then.

Admittedly, I am inexperienced with ironing ;)

Having said that, now that I have a husband and he often has to wear khakis to work, my version of "ironing" wasn't doing the trick. He was attempting to iron his pants and left the iron face down on the khakis and after I fussed that doing that would scorch the fabric, he suggested I iron them. Boy did I eat my own words.

Burning

I still have no idea how but in the midst of ironing and talking, I set the iron FACE DOWN on the floor. Just 5-10 seconds but enough time to do damage. And serious damage.

Sarah Grace struck again.

It burned the carpet leaving a dark indent AND we have short-haired carpet so I couldn't trim off the burn. Not that I was being rational and thinking of that in the panic that followed my discovery of the burn; here I am trying to scrape off the scorched portion with a knife. I was so focused that I didn't even notice when poor Scott was documenting his crazy wife:

To make matters worse, of course I wasn't ironing in a dimly lit corner. Nope, that would be too convenient to cover the burn mark. We set up ironing in the middle of the floor and in our teeny tiny apartment, the burn is visible not only in the living room but also from the bedroom, front door, kitchen AND breakfast nook.

I had a mini-freak out but no meltdown. That came the next day.

Crying

I didn't want to have to pay the $500 security deposit when we move out of the apartment... so I was determined to fix my mistake. I researched oodles of options and watched a few youtube videos and then set out on a mission to right my wrong.

I especially felt the need to correct the burn mark mistake since the day after I burned the carpet, my car was due in for its repair from my previous Sarah-Grace moment and the deductible was also $500. I couldn't handle being the cause of $1,000 worth of mistakes.

Sadly, there didn't seem to be much I could do to fix the burn mark. My only hope, according to the far reaches of google, seemed to be sandpaper and a scrub-brush.

Fast-forward to the end of the day: I had purchased the necessary materials and been scrubbing and rubbing at the iron burn for a good 30 minutes when Scott got home.

What was his reaction when he walked in to find his wife scrunched down on my knees, red in the face, raw-fingered, with my hair up and my nose down to the floor, sandpapering the carpet...?

Laughter.

Looking back, obviously I can see how that was a natural reaction. However, in that moment, it was not the reaction I was hoping for. And that is when my meltdown happened.

The Lesson

Why the iron burn incident was my breaking point, I don't know. 

Context: 

The backstory is that Scott and I have been great but our first bit of marriage has been filled with a lot of transition and stress. We did all the normal post-wedding stuff  like registry returns and purchases, changing over our insurance and bills, writing literally over 100 thank you cards and getting adjusted to living with one another. 

But we also moved him half-way across the country and tried to organize our very small apartment which was already a squeeze when just I lived in it. Plus, we both started and quit bad jobs AND found and started new jobs this summer. Both those new jobs have had crazy hours and lots of stress. We did a family trip to see my family and then another one to see his family - both family vacations within the same month. And, I've been prepping for the next year of grad school. 

In the midst of all of that, I had kept it together and just plugged along grateful to be married and moving forward with our life together. However, inside me was a pressure cooker of stress - trying to be the perfect wife, daughter, daughter-in-law, employee, student, friend, etc. 

The Real Problem: 

Despite all those serious stresses, what broke me was an iron burn to my carpet!?! More specifically, my husband laughing at my earnest efforts to sandpaper the iron-burn away. 

I was trying to fix my mistake, to remove the obvious blemish on my attempt at perfection. 

But the truth is that sometimes s#@! just happens. 

Fortunately, I have a husband with a great sense of humor and perspective. When my meltdown started, he immediately quit laughing and helped me realize that it was just carpet and by the end of our conversation, he had me laughing. 

Of course, my meltdown was about more than an iron burn. It was about how I was trying to do the impossible: hold myself, my life and my home together perfectly, even when s#@! happens... whether that is an iron burn, job changes, school demands, etc. 

What I Learned: 

As I mentioned, that mark is in the very middle of our tiny apartment. I can see it from just about anywhere in our home. Sadly, it hasn't faded much and doesn't look like it will :(

We might be out $500 when we leave here but I've learned a lesson that is priceless and I'm reminded of it every time I see that freakin' iron-burn: I'm not going to be perfect and I never will be. Shit happens and we can either accept it, laugh and learn from it OR be bitter and beat ourselves up. I beat myself up and took it out on the carpet with the knife and sandpaper for a few days but now I have learned to sigh and chuckle when I see the mark. 

Most of all I have learned that I have a great husband who doesn't get upset at things like iron burns or at me when I pull a Sarah Grace moment AND that he should be the one to do his own ironing from now on ;) 

Southern Belle Slip-up: On Doors and Attitude

Letting the door fall in someone's face is not an action; it is an attitude. 

                                                                                      - Cindy Grosso

So I had a little slip-up recently, in addition to not posting in a long time - sorry about that; my summer job has been keeping me busy!

But, my slip-up involved doors and attitude. 

I was heading into the post office to buy stamps and some envelopes.Here is what unfolded:

An older woman was maybe a foot in front of me and then a middle-aged woman was at my heels and the three of us walked in together - all through the door in less than 30 seconds.

I was lost in my thinking, trying to tally up how many stamps I needed and what size envelopes would fit the different items I was about to mail out, etc. etc. That mental concentration was broken when I heard this:

"You coulda said thank you.  [And then louder] You coulda said thank you!"

The older woman had stopped about three feet in the door while I had veered hard to the right to complete my mission in search of those stamps and envelopes. I turned around, startled to realize she was speaking to me. She continued:

"Yes, you. You coulda said thank you. Young lady, you are so rude and ungrateful -"

I must stop to interject for y'all a little explanation. I was born and bred in South Carolina and my Mama and Daddy raised me right: I know my manners and I use them. Or I thought I did.

In confusion and embarrassment, I listened on (along with about 10 others in the store who now noticed as the older woman had raised her voice):

"Next time I'll just let the door slam in your face. Can't believe you didn't say thank you. So rude."

The poor woman who had come in behind me - and I might add did not say thank you either - stood between myself and the older woman like a deer in the headlights. Furthermore, just about the entire room was now staring at all of this unfolding.

The whole situation had AWKWARD written all over it!

But I had slipped up.

In an attempt to smooth things over gracefully, I stuttered out an "I'm sorry" and "thank you for holding the door" though my gut reaction might have involved something a little less polite ;)

Being called out like that made me feel like I had failed in my Southern Belle ways. 

I had not realized she had really gone out of her way to hold the door open or I would have said something. Ordinarily, when anyone lingers to hold open a door or steps aside and lets me enter first or something a little more obvious like that, I never fail to thank them.

In fact, I even do those things for others - female, male, old, young, black, white. It doesn't matter.

I always try to hold open the door for others, especially after I heard the introductory quote:

Letting the door fall in someone's face is not an action; it is an attitude. 

                                                                                 - Cindy Grosso 

Cindy Grosso from the Charleston School of Etiquette and Protocol lead an event in table manners for a leadership group I was a part of. And she was legit; she has even been on Dr. Phil ;)

But, honestly, more than the table manners, the biggest thing that struck me in her presentation was that side comment about the doors; I'm ashamed to say I can hardly remember how to use all the utensils BUT I do often remember that quote about the doors.

As she explained, if you cannot take 5 seconds out of your day to linger and hold the door for someone, that says a lot about your arrogance and self-absorption but also of how little you think of that person behind you.

It truly is an attitude more than an action to snub someone by letting a door fall in their face.

As for my situation, I just can't help but wonder what Ms. Grosso would have to say about the woman who caused the commotion with me in the post office... and her attitude.

Regardless, that moment in the post office now joins the lesson I learned at  my leadership event. Though I was going in for a completely different thing - stamps and envelopes - I came out with something unexpected  seared into my memory:

the lesson that one should ALWAYS say "thank you" when someone holds the door cause you never know what attitude you might get otherwise!

Twisted Logic: a lesson for guys

I recently had some boy troubles and called my brother for support.

Background:

1.) RIGHT before calling him, I did dinner with a (girl) friend of mine who was also experiencing boy troubles. We commiserated together and were definitely a bit irrational, possibly neurotic. However, through the course of conversation - vent, compare experiences, vent, pout, question love and boys on our campus in general, vent some more, - we then had a wonderful building up process - you don't need a guy, look at how involved you are (aka: no time for a boy), you'll find a guy eventually, we can be happy without one, girlfriends are the ones you keep from college anyways, etc.

Altogether, it was a wonderful female bonding time and soooo therapeutic.

2.) My brother is a VERY logical guy (he is studying to be an engineer) with a tendency to enjoy arguing his point.

ENTER our phone call.

Every single comment I made about the boy troubles was met with a question or a counter argument. I was in NO mood to be proven incorrect about my views on the subject. Finally, I insisted he listen to a little lesson that I feel ALL boys should know (hence this post!):

1.) When women are upset and possibly irrational, you CANNOT convince us to agree with you. No matter how many times you state your points (and regardless of how logical your points may be) it will be an uphill battle. You. Will. Lose.

2.) This time period of irrationality, in my experience and that of close girlfriends', will last 24-48 hours after the incident.

3.) During that time period, you should let us vent, possibly even support us, and for kicks, throw in something about how you would never do that to a girl, if you were here then you'd beat him up for us, etc.

4.) Under NO circumstance - absolutely none - should you support the boy's side (my brother did this repeatedly!?!). I realize guys might have some sorta male kinship connection that prevents them from bashing their own kind BUT for your own sake in maintaining your relationship with us, restrain yourself from supporting his side of things.

5.) We don't need y'all to fix the problem; simply let us go through it and try to understand us. Hugs help too.

6.) Once the time period has passed (be aware that the seriousness of the incident could lengthen the 24-48 hours so proceed with caution), you can kindly share your opinion as a potential explanation for the boy's behavior.

If you do these things, I can assure you, you will be very much appreciated by the women in your life who come to you with their issues. When we do that, we just want a kind male to listen and love us.

You can try to fix the problem when we are ready for it to BE fixed. We'll let you know when :)

For the record, I was right about the boy. AND, for the record, I love my brother and he is a huge support regardless, but even moreso now that he knows to give me some time to be irrational and upset before he tries to logically solve the situation.