Two mornings ago, I pulled the pork out of the freezer, ready to do meal prep when I got home from work. I signed up for a "30-minute challenge" to help me detox from phone use, and downloaded an app to track how much time I spent using technology each day. I planned to mail out the item I had sold the day before.
Tuesday evening, I stopped at the store for some groceries, ready to whip out dinner not only for that night, but for the rest of the week.
And then I got home.
I walked into our apartment to find our furniture covered in plastic and water streaming down our walls, one of my pots catching drips on the counter and a plastic bin (previously storage for summer clothes) catching a stream in the closet.
Clearly, all my plans went down the drain. (insert clever water pun here)
Now that the initial chaos is over and I've had a few days to sleep, eat, and distractedly step back into work, I've also had a few moments to think. I think back 72 hours to that second of walking in my door, not knowing what was salvageable, if anything.
Perhaps many of us have had that thought: "If my house was on fire, what would I grab before running out the door?" If you've seen Leap Year, you'll remember the scene that was the test of a relationship. I knew my husband was safe at work, and that I had more than one minute to gather my things, but the first things I thought of? The letters Christopher wrote me as part of my wedding gift. The scrapbook I made him as his gift. And our wedding photos, memorializing the most important day of our lives.
Thankfully, all those things were safe, as were most of our belongings. We'll be out of our home for a week as our carpets and drywall are restored, and most of our clothes are being cleaned for the next month. I won't get to mail out that item I sold, and my seller rating will probably go down. The pork is now sitting in my mom's fridge, and I've used my phone for 3 hours so far today, calling insurance and banking and apartment management.
But ultimately, I don't care about my rating or these challenges. We're safe, and those "what if" items are safe, and we're having a crazy adventure suddenly living out of suitcases for a week.
So Happy New Year. Happy sudden-end-to-personal-challenges. And happy real life, no filter, true as can be marriage. It may be nothing like the movies, but I wouldn't trade it for the world.