How to Let it Go!

With motherhood comes loads of emotions I never anticipated. Guilt being the number one! But what I've discovered as of late is frustration! I can go days, maybe even weeks without it, but then it washes over me out of the blue! And then I seem to carry it for days on end.

I wish I could be the kind of mama, or woman for that matter, that just lets things go. But I'm not and that's one of my many faults. I've had conversations with other friends who just let things roll right off their backs and they seem to have a life that's so easy breezy. Carefree. Laid back. How awesome would that feeling be? Instead, I carry this weight of disappointment, frustration, and sometimes anger and I don't like it.

I experienced it just this morning! Last night was trash night. My husband collected all the trash from around the house, mainly just bathroom trashcans, and dumped them in the kitchen one. Nothing new there. Now, I was out last night at a PTA meeting so I wasn't home to witness this act, but I know the drill. So you can understand my frustration when I went to throw something away this morning and there was NO trash bag in the trashcan. Why? Why I ask you was there no trash bag in the trashcan? You take a bag out, you put a bag back in, right? And let me tell you, this isn't the first time it's happened! Instead of just replacing the liner with a new bag and moving on, I was completely frustrated at the fact that there wasn't a trash bag in the can! I was angry about it. Fuming the entire time I made breakfast and packed McKinley's lunch. That was a full 20 minutes that I allowed myself to not just move on and find something happier to celebrate.

Just yesterday I lamented to my mom that I feel so under appreciated for my efforts around the house. I have found that Monday's are my straightening/cleaning the living room day. My son has a pretty nice playroom in the basement, but for whatever reason he chooses to bring up toys and play in the living room. It's not much roomier up there. There's more furniture and breakable things that we're constantly pointing out. "What your head on the dining room table." "Please don't kick that over. It will break." Things that you don't utter in the playroom because it's specific to him! Anyway, you should have seen my living room. The same living room I had just straightened not five days ago. It became a working farm. Tractors every where. Pens of animals scattered around the room. A hayride that carried people from one end of the farm to the other. And I love hearing him play. I love listening to him create this working farm and all the sites and sounds that go with it. What I don't love is that it never makes its way back to the playroom at the end of the day, let alone at the end of the weekend. And it didn't stop there. There was a crane, rocks, workmen, and construction signs shoved along side the couch, out of the way of the farm. There was a keyboard in the middle of the room where McKinley played us some tunes on Sunday morning. A keyboard that my husband stated he would take back down later that afternoon. Nope, it was still there come Monday morning and guess who cleaned it all up! That's right, and I fumed the entire time. Again, instead of just letting it go and focusing on how clean the room would be in the end, how much fun McKinley had had playing in the room while we roamed in and out, and the crazy music that came out of the keyboard, I focused on the fact that it was all in there in the first place and that I was the one to pick it all up. AGAIN! 

When reading about what causes frustration and how to deal with it, this statement rang out. "You will need to learn to distinguish between what you hope will happen, what will probably happen, and what actually happened." Well, this makes tons of sense and something I need to repeat to myself often! I hoped that the living room would have been picked up before we all went to bed on Sunday morning, but I knew that wouldn't happen. Had I been home last, I would have seen that I would probably end up putting the trash bag in the trashcan. And I totally know what's going to happen. I'm going to have to clean up the mess and put the trash bag in the trashcan. And instead of fretting about it, mumbling under my breath while I do it, just do it and move on! Day to day life isn't perfect. You have to expect the unexpected and sometimes that's not having a trash bag in the trashcan. Move on!

Am I going to say anything to anyone about it? No. What's the point? I don't know what happened here last night while I wasn't home. Things between McKinley and Joel could have been strained. A temper tantrum could have presented itself and Joel just never got back to the kitchen to replace the bag. Or he took the trash out, finished cleaning up the kitchen from dinner, prepped his lunch for the next day, and simply didn't even think about the trashcan. What I can positively focus on is that the living room is still clean, the playroom is free of toys all of the floor (after cleaning it up for about an hour yesterday as well), and that I can relax this morning while writing this post and sipping on coffee. And taking a deep breath in and letting the frustration go. It didn't go me any good to get so worked up, right? 

What do you do to combat frustration? Do you get frustrated? Are you one of those mama's that can just let things go? If so, share with us how you do it. Any tips or tricks for those of us who just can't seem to grasp the concept? I could really use your help!!

XO,

Andrea