Chapter 27

ROME WASN’T BUILT IN A DAY

If cleaning Jim’s apartment that day created a monster, I spent the next fifteen years cultivating the monster and maybe inadvertently spawning five additional mini monsters. I took it upon myself to handle everything: the logistics with the kids and household as well as juggling all the productions for our company. And I didn’t stop there. If there was not a project to be done, I created one. My executing the never-ending to-do list was not because Jim was dumping all the work on me, or my kids were lazy, or that no one else could do it. It actually gave me a false sense of fulfillment to be needed. Maybe that was the subconscious reason I cleaned Jim’s apartment in the first place. When everyone had to take over for me, I saw that doing everything for people might not help them at all and could actually hurt them. Was I acting on impulses to take care of people just to feed my own ego?

Watching Jim and my family and friends take care of the important things (the well-being and safety of my children, my health and recovery), while the unimportant things fell apart (the house was messy and disorganized, there was way too much food in the fridge, and it was—gasp—unlabeled), showed me that my priorities had been a bit out of whack. My being too weak and incapable of running my house like a well-oiled machine showed me that the machine may not have needed that much oil to work. Many times when my kids asked me to lie down with them and tell them one of our great stories, I would say, “Later, I’m busy right now. I have to finish cleaning the kitchen and make the menu for tomorrow.” By the time I showed up in their bedroom, they were already sound asleep. I was taking so much time to make sure my garden looked perfect that I was missing my chance to smell the flowers. This was what God was trying to tell me in the ICU. That, and how I made myself so busy I almost missed a diagnosis that saved my life and was almost killed by a giant pear. That would have really sucked.

Many times I am asked, “How has this experience changed you?” I wish I could say that when I got some of my strength back I was a changed woman. I recall being asked this question during a radio show interview shortly after I knew I was out of the woods. My answer at the time was, “Above all, I learned, don’t sweat the small stuff and always take time to smell the flowers!” Several months later the same radio host, Jen Fulwiler (also a crazy busy mom but with six kids), was doing a recap of the year’s stories, and I was invited back via call-in to be on the 2017 wrap-up show. It was in the middle of the holiday rush, and though I was participating in life fully, I was still feeling like a shadow of my former self. I was absolutely buried in to-do madness. On the air, Jen asked me how I was doing and I admitted, “I’m sweating the small stuff and forgetting to smell the flowers.”

As Weezie always says, “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” and I realize that I will have to learn and relearn my new perspective on life for a long, long time. I felt my recovery from brain surgery dragged on endlessly, but recovery from needing to be busy all the time was going to last a lifetime. My ability to let go was going to require assistance from a higher power.