Letters from NYC

Frayed at the Seams

For the past 8 weeks I’ve been working hard on several projects and dealing with lots of stresses:
- working on the splitting up of our dept., and the transition that will require us to re-allocate: work, assets, resources and personnel
- not knowing until the end of last week, that my employment would continue
- organizing high level business meetings with a Gov., several Commissioners, some senators and Reps along with business leaders for that state
- reading, digesting and analyzing pressing time-sensitive legislation and forwarding important items to people within my firm explaining why it’s important they review it
- dealing with prima donna staffers at work & elsewhere
- dealing with first, my son’s ear infection, then his throat infection, which is now a mild chest congestion
- dealing with the abnormal growth of my son’s incisor tooth which is bothering him
- answering my accountants questions so he can finish the taxes I started (but was unable to finish filing due to my additional work
- dealing with the shortcomings of my babysitter which led me to fire her
- getting my wallet pick pocketed on the train and having to deal with reporting all my cards as stolen
- dealing with almost daily changes in my son’s school schedule and class routine
- taking him to swim class, baseball clinics, birthday parties, etc.
- maintaining a clean home, cooking 3 nutritious and delicious meals a day, while my soon to be ex-in laws were visiting for 4 of those weeks.

Well, in the last 48 hrs life reached a level of stress that made me fray at the seams and finally act out in passive-aggressive ways, some of which involved playfully transferring my frustration onto 2 very patient and kind individuals. Along the way God showed me that he still loves and cares about me and that he’s still \taking care of me. “How do I know?” you may ask.

Two days ago, while riding in a fellow parent’s car, I began to get an eerie feeling of desperation that I needed to leave the car right away. So I begged the driver to pull over because I had forgotten that I needed to take the train in order to be on time for a mtg. Mind you, I had already been riding in the car over 20 min. But something inside kept nagging at me during those 20 min., and my increasingly queezy stomach convinced me to change my plans.

Five minutes later, while I was comfortably sitting on the train reading Tammi’s blog, a car rear-ended my friend’s car at 70mph, sending it into an active intersection, where a 2nd car smashed into the passenger side (where I had been sitting) making her car jump onto the sidewalk, injuring 5 pedestrians, 2 almost fatally. After I visited the driver in the hospital and saw her extensive bruising, I decided to go see the car. What I found at the police parking lot was a smashed up and flattened sardine can. I could not help but break down and cry and thank God for keeping me here on earth for a little while longer.

Somehow, the sudden unravelling of all my projects doesn’t seem all that important. What is important is that I was able to have a wonderful dinner with my son tonight, I was able to sit on the floor beside his bathtub, while reading to him the recap on last night’s Yankees and Mets game; and most importantly, I was able to hug him, kiss him goodnight and sit on his bed holding his little hand telling him all about the very first time I went to a baseball game. Those 3 hours were parenting magic. He not only said please and thank you… he asked if he could be excused from the dinner table.

I’m so very grateful that I not only get to spend more time with this incredible little guy that’s my son; I get to have the pleasure to be around and enjoy his company.

Daz’d, I believe this definitely qualifies as one of those pre-cognitive experiences you’ve asked readers to share about.

Posted by Michele at June 15, 2007 11:32 PM