Well, I was extremely excited to write something witty, whimsical and, dare I say, inspirational today. I was feeling hopeful, after three out of four of us in our household had the flu, the littlest having it twice. I was ready to tell you that it was a great time to get 2019 started with my promise of doing one, “random act of kindness” for myself each day. Why? Because I had been the person who was doing the random acts of kindness for others and never feeling recharged. Don’t get me wrong. Doing good for others is extremely important. It’s what makes many of us hopeful to get out there each day and have faith in humanity. I know I’m not the only mama out there who goes to bed each night feeling like the tank is empty. We are tired, hungry, no sense of humor left and just emotionally drained.

Then the perfect trifecta of “shitstorm” blows my way. My guy gets the man flu, my home computer crashes with little hope of backup, and my ex-husband sends me a “I like to play with your head” child support payment of $0.82. Not even enough to cover the cost for our son to hang his coat at daycare for the day.

I have been preparing all day to leave work and honestly throw myself a good old fashioned toddler-style tantrum. You all know what I’m talking about. The one where you throw your entire bodyweight into it and collapse on the floor, crawl half way across the floor while on your back and, for a bit of flare, do a few pinwheel spins while still on your back and top it off with waterworks?

I really, really, really, really wanted to do that. Really, really. Why not? I deserved to have the pity me moment. I got out of bed, not feeling 100% from the crud the took over our home. I went to work amidst day two of a new software program roll-out that was showing its flaws. I parented. I even sent out thoughtful texts to friends and family I hadn’t messaged in a few days. I showed up. I got stuff done.

Then I revisited the Plan A I had for the day. “Do one random act of kindness for yourself.” There it was. My response. My action. My act. And I allowed myself to breathe.

I told myself that in this moment, the only thing I should do was nothing at all. I could sit quiet and deny feeding the monster that feasts on anger and resentment. No more fuel fore his fiery belly.

My guy is still sick. But he’s quarantined to the basement. Far, far from the rest of us. Okay, two full flights down. My computer is still out of commission. Okay, this one I’m still quite anxious about. Fingers crossed that our IT Fix-it Dude can fix it at least one last time for me to throw all my storage onto a cloud or at least an external hard drive. And as for my ex? Well, as long as I have breath, my son will always have what he needs and I will let karma take its course. Karma, I have a feeling, can sometimes come across as a hangry, PMS-ing woman who wears steel-toed boots and loves to kick things. Hard.