So I have a fascination with old sayings…things like “a stitch in time saves nine” or “that was the straw that broke the camel’s back”, although the latter admittedly seems a little cruel to the poor camel. But still, this particular saying has rung true in my life so many times, especially in the last several years. In my case it was not a straw but an Ice maker that broke if not my back, then my sanity. My friend Kathy and I still refer to any crisis in our lives as “ice maker” moments.
To those blessed with calm lives, it must seem crazy that people seem to lose it over such trivial matters. But when you are in the middle of a crisis, the smallest of things is strong enough to shatter your already fragile sanity. I remember years ago, a friend of mine lost her husband quite tragically at a young age. For six months she sat with him, comforted him, waited through surgeries, took him to chemo, wiped his forehead when he became violently ill, and finally took him back home to their little town in the Midwest, to be with their family as he died, holding her hand. They were only in their twenties at the time and I was amazed at her confidence, her calm, her ability to keep it together for the sake of her husband. Then she had to plan his funeral and throughout the planning, she still showed such maturity, well beyond her years.
And then came the potato salad. Yes, you heard it right…..potato salad. Some weeks after the funeral, when she returned to what was once their home, but was now merely her home, Carly was talking to me about plans, what she would do now that she found herself defined by the term “widow”, how she would support herself, how she would find new dreams to push her forward. She started opening up to me about her husband Matt’s suffering, his final days etc. remaining remarkably strong and calm as she told me stories that broke my heart just to hear them. But her entire countenance changed when she began to describe the funeral. Her face clouded over when she told me how pissed off she was at one of Matt’s aunts. When I asked why, she said while sitting in the funeral mass, she heard her aunt whispering to her daughter that they were going to bring potato salad to the house after the services. I asked why that would piss her off and Carly, calm, collected Carly burst into tears and said “she was talking about freaking potato salad while I am burying my husband….MY HUSBAND! Who the hell cares about potato salad…what the hell was she thinking?” and her sobs echoed the heartbreak that had been locked away deep inside her all these months. Potato Salad became that straw…the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back…or in this case the dam that held her heart together.
We all have moments like that. I can think of several in my own life but nothing as memorable as when the ice maker in my refrigerator broke. Yes…the ice maker was my potato salad…umm I mean straw. My ex had just moved back to Houston, leaving me with one son in college 3 hours away, my younger son having a great deal of emotional difficulty at the time, my 16 year old beagle and best buddy, Trapper, starting to have some health problems, a house to sell, a new one to buy and a new job to find. No problem right??
I was having daily panic attacks. I sold our existing home and put in a bid on a new one. I thought that situation was taken care of until my realtor called and said the owners of my new home could no longer move and were backing out of the deal! So now, I had my current home sold with the closing in two weeks and nowhere to go. Another day….another panic attack. I thought things could not get much worse, but once again naivete reared its ugly head. I received a phone call from a friend who announced excitedly that she arranged an interview for me with the head of the Special Ed Department in the largest public school district in the area. Okay!! Things were looking up. I carefully selected my interview outfit to look professional, but teacherish….I updated and printed out my resume. I prepared for the interview as best I could. On the same morning as the interview, I was to take my son to an appointment at his pyschiatrist’s. He was having a really tough time since the divorce. Autistics don’t handle change in routine well and I know he was also picking up on my anxiety, which was resulting in a major episode for him. My plan was to take him to the Psychiatrist, come home, change, pick up my brief case and head off to my interview. Before I could do any of that, I received a phone call from my realtor telling me that the people who bought my house had arranged for an inspection the next day. No problem…things were fine, aside from the fact that my son, myself and my beagle would soon be homeless….but I digress. As I was about to leave I went to get a drink of water. I was surprised when no ice came out of the ice maker. When I looked inside I saw there were no ice cubes! The Ice maker was broken. Then I looked down and saw a pool of water gathering at the bottom of the freezer! It’s amazing how I could go from sanity to insanity in a matter of minutes….maybe seconds…time ceases to matter when you are facing a crisis of such epic proportions! I found myself in full blown panic mode.
I had to take Chris to the doctor, set up my interview, but now I also had to get this refrigerator fixed before the inspection. Of course I was too panicked to realize that if the refrigerator was broken during the inspection it would not be Armagedon…but again..I digress…. I called several places and one person could come out, but the only time he could come was during my job interview…which I couldn’t cancel. Now a sane person would figure out a solution, realizing a broken ice maker is low on the totem pole of crises. As I’m writing this, I understand how ridiculous it sounds, but in the throes of hysteria, a broken ice maker takes on legendary significance…it somehow goes from minor inconvenience to nuclear disaster! I remember standing against the wall and sliding down it, sobbing. At that point my phone rang and it was a good friend…..She must have picked up on the fact that I was upset….Perhaps the hiccuping sobs gave me away?? Not sure, but she asked “What’s wrong?”….and despite everything swirling around me all I could blurt out was “My ice maker is broken”. She calmly took a breath and then said ” Okay…are we really talking about an ice maker here??” After I sobbed out the whole story, she volunteered to come over while the repairman was here….Problem solved. Cardiac incident averted! BTW…the ice maker was fixed, my son improved, I got the job, I sold the house and I eventually found a place to live, avoiding homelessness.
Being in a constant state of panic magnifies the simplest of things. We can seemingly handle extremely difficult situations, but fall apart at something so trivial. I had friends tell me how much they admired me for my strength during the divorce. They pointed out how well I handled myself, my business etc. I rarely asked for help…I had it so “together”….except, I didn’t. I did what I had to do for as long as I could and then that darn straw came and landed on the camel’s back. It would be easier if we could predict the coming of the straw, but we can’t. It could be potato salad. It could be a broken ice maker. It could be a malfunctioning air conditioner, or a flat tire or heck….a broken fingernail. The straw has no predictability, is an equal opportunity straw and shows no mercy. I feel a sudden affinity with camels these days.
New Endings 