Complication? I Prefer Temporary Setback…

I’ve been sitting for a minute imagining a world without complications. Probably because my world is about to get very annoyingly complicated. I’ll elaborate in a hot minute…But FIRST–let’s just imagine together. A world without complications.

For instance, let’s say cleaning elves really do exist. If they really did come in the middle of the night, dust away the fingerprints on every piece of furniture, scrub the unexplainable stains on the floors, fold all the laundry and manage to find a match for every elusive sock, I would purchase every over-priced Elf-on-A-Shelf I could get my little hands on.

Let’s just revel in the thought of compliant toddlers. Toddlers who nod in agreement at every yes, no, maybe so parents can throw at them. Toddlers who really believe there is a place for everything and everything in its place.

And for just one minute, can we imagine a land that overflows with coffee and wine, where chocolate is the new trendy health food, where the world’s default mode is productivity and cooperation, where we really can lose weight by standing while we eat…

Thanks for indulging me; I needed a short little escape to Never Never Land, because elves did visit me last night, but the only thing they left was a pile of 37 different toys strategically placed to booby trap me in my 17^th trek across the house…in the dark…on my way to tend to a toddler’s list of bedtime demands. I’ll admit, it was an impressive arrangement aimed at making sure I would hit something bigger, harder, and much more painful as I tried to readjust after each step on some awkwardly shaped noise maker. It worked.

Oh and I think the elves’ rebellious disposition rubbed off on my toddler. I do not like the elves.

So back to complications. My husband comes home to tell me that flight school is going to be moving a lot faster than we originally planned, which in Army terms means we are going to be moving a lot faster than planned. If he had come home and said, “Pack your bags, we are going to Fort Belvoir!” I would’ve had the entire house packed, cleaned, and sold within a week. But since he came home with a much more ambiguous outlook on where we might be heading in the next 4-5 months, my excitement is…well…it’s contained at this point.

Annoying, right? An understatement perhaps. I should know by now that the second I steal a kid’s playroom and turn it into an office, the second I find the right preschool, the second I join a Chamber of Commerce, it’s going to be time to flip the universe upside down and start over.

I’m not going to complain about it because I’ve spent too much time perfecting the fit of my big girl panties and preaching for others to do the same, especially when it comes to life in the military. However, I will go ahead and enter a state of overwhelming worry.

Sitting around everyday continuing to work, but asking “what the heck am I going to do, what the heck should I do, and what the heck am I supposed to do,” and knowing the exact physical location of my future won’t even be finalized until a couple of weeks out could force the toughest adult into the fetal position begging for their mommy. Maybe I’ve been there with a couple of bottles of wine once or twice…Maybe I’ve been calm, cool, and collected about the whole thing…

Regardless, mapping a career path without a GPS is complicated and not for the faint of heart. There’s a saving grace in knowing that I have enough OCD sense about me to write out what I want in life, so I at least have a flip chart to consult.

And there’s also that really cool trait that most women share; we are masters of adapting and overcoming, we are flexible, we have the unique ability to keep things in a forward motion. And for the most part, if we clear our heads using whatever vice we deem acceptable– i.e., shoes, wine, or a combination of both– we can accept almost any “complication” as just a temporary setback.

Now if we can could just get those elves to do what we want….

Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/25802865@N08/3106128994/in/photostream/

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