Sifting Through The Piles

Just as I thought, we're dealing with a huge pile of crap!

Last week, the weekend, and now this week have been full of various piles that have had to be shoveled. Sometimes it was a matter of picking up and moving a pile from one place to another while other times it was in a failed effort to take care of a stinky situation. As was mentioned before, it is common to move projects and tasks at the office from one day or week to the next. It is not something that I like to do but it happens, it is sometimes part of the job when you are juggling so many things at once.

There are things that I do my best to avoid pushing back but there are also other items that I don’t have control over. It actually reminds me of the scene in the movie “The Last Castle” when the punishment handed down to Robert Redford’s character was to move a pile of rocks with no real constructive purpose for the project. It would have been fine keeping it where is was but, due to some external influence, it had to be shifted to another day (and sometimes moved again).

And then there are the other piles that seem to be popping up all over the place as of late. It has gotten so bad that at times I feel as though I am trying to make my way across the 38^th parallel… one wrong step and you’re dealing with a whole new pile of BS for the week. Needless to say, these kinds of piles are sticky and stubborn to the point that it is sometimes best to just throw away your shoes and move on.

I guess both of these kinds of piles come down to the lack of control I have over what is going on around me. I can control much of what is happening at the office but I can’t control things on the other side of the phone. No matter how much we try or how meticulous the plan, it is never a guarantee that things will go smoothly.

On the personal side of things and all other situations where predominant component of the piles is in the form of BS, I really don’t have any control. I have tried to voice concerns, present some sort of reasonable action plan, and even attempted to simply ‘play nice’ but all of that has been pushed to the side so that stubbornness, anger, and stupidity could run rampant. Now additional opinions, no matter how good the intentions, are welcomed and I have no control over this situation. However, I can control the fact that my voice is heard and my concerns are aired but, in the end, everything remains steaming in a growing pile primarily occupying my weekends.

Finding The Strength

While I can’t disclose many of the details, yesterday was a horrible day. After hearing from one of my friends that he lost a grandson over the weekend, I thought the day was bad enough. I couldn't imagine such a loss. However, things seemed to drop off a cliff shortly after that when I got a call from someone in my own family. The news sounded bad and, what’s worse, we don’t really know all the details and don’t know what the future holds. With that said, let me be clear by letting you know that the baby is fine. A bit of a pain in the butt at times, but fine.

Again, I won’t get into the details, but the news really came as a shock to me and, more especially, my wife. It is a battle that the family has faced many times and now it seems as though we must keep fighting. We have seen it come into our lives in many guises and we know what it is capable of but that doesn’t mean that we are without hope. Thankfully we are all incredibly stubborn and we are ready to fight so there is a chance that the outcome will be better than expected. This has been beaten before and can be again.

Such is the balance, or should I say unbalance, of life. Just as things seem to be calming down and there is a little bit of breathing room to be found, something like this happens. While the pessimistic side of me is always preparing for something like this to happen (maybe that is why I am unable to fully relax most days) this is still shocking and leaves us feeling unprepared to deal with what lies on the horizon. These moments leave us to reassess our priorities and put the now unimportant things aside so that we can be in the present and do all that we can to get through today, tomorrow, and the next day.

At the same time, these moments bring back the memories that we have put to the backs of our minds. We remember the battles fought and we recall the strength of those people that we love. That might be why this post has taken so much time and energy to write. While moments like this are trying for everyone in the family, we will all come together with all the strength and love that we have and do whatever we can to help. Sometimes it may not be much but, in times like these, even those little things mean a lot when we put our hearts into them.