5 days

Last week was not a good week. It was one of those weeks when I just seemed to continually run up against all of the worst parts of myself. And by the end of it, I was ready to go into hibernation and swear off human contact for the next three months.
Maybe it is the stress of moving. There are only five days left until we move to our new house. That means I have five days to pack up the old house. It sounds like a decent amount of time until I figure out that I can really only pack during the hours that all of my kids are sleeping and I'm awake. That takes it from five days down to 15 hours. And I still have to make dinner, do laundry, return phone calls and emails, and all of the normal stuff I do in those free hours every day. So I'm feeling the pressure and it isn't pretty. I've had numerous moments of having to go back to someone and apologize for being ungrateful, harsh, snappish, etc. I've thrown massive pity parties for myself and spent way too much time focusing on myself. It has been sad.
And the stress won't magically end in five days. Because once we get to the new house, I have to unpack everything. Throw in the fact that I won't have any kitchen cupboards or counter tops and it goes to a whole new level. I have no choice but to put my head down and push through.
The only redemptive part of this is that I haven't gone through it with my eyes closed. I've been very aware of my faults and how they are surfacing. It has made for a tough week, a week that I'm coming out of feeling as though I could do nothing right and every day was a failure in some way. But if I can recognize those times that I'm sliding into self-pity or ingratitude, the times that I'm inflexible and unsympathetic, then maybe I can begin to work on them. If I notice them, then I have the chance of possibly being better. So here's to hoping that these five days bring me plenty of opportunities to change the way that I react under stress. I'm hoping that these five days can be days of grace for myself and the people I encounter.