Daily Mood Quote
Day 198 – November 18, 2011
Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into glory.
~William Barclay
Endurance is nobler than strength, and patience than beauty.
~John Ruskin
Soooo, how does yesterday's story end? Well, like everything else in life, there is some good and some bad and a lot in the middle. Our situation was dire, but we thought manageable; after all we weren't a “one trick pony” and we did have other clients. Or at least we thought.... In short order the unthinkable happened; one suddenly decided they wouldn’t pay for over 180 days, another (a company with facilities on three continents) had their assets seized by their bank and yet another changed directorship and discontinued all existing vendors (without notice or payment) including us. Wow! I wish we were making this up, but it really happened and it was like living in a freakin' Greek tragedy. That was it, we had found our breaking point. With the economy in post election slide and many companies taking “the work” inside no new business could be found. We were stuck. I mean our options were zip and we had mouths to feed. Tough decisions and values judgments had to be made.
So, we helped our staff find other jobs and paid their health insurance until they did. Those were tearful goodbyes. We sold most of our possessions to pay the small vendors and freelancers and my husband took a 3rd shift job at the nearby yogurt plant, to help cover the mortgage. At least that paid something. But times were still too tight and we began to ponder the possibility of moving back home.
Enter the biggest mistake we ever made... Our families both promised to “be our support” while we gathered our wind and got our financial feet back under us. Yes, I know that’s a cliché. After all that's what family is for... right? After several months of agonizing, wrapping up affairs and doing what was necessary to try and make ends meet, the financial and family pressure got to us and we finally capitulated to the now daily calls from our families to “come home, it will be okay.” It sounded good, that siren song of respite from the “storms of life” (thanks, Randy Travis) sung by our families. It lulled us into a trance that would prove to be the biggest challenge yet. I can still clearly recall my husband's matter of fact remark, after we finally decided to sell the house and move back... “If we do this, they will hold it over our heads for the rest of our lives.” Again red lights should have flashed in our heads and sirens should have wailed. “Please, oh please stop! There must be another way, Have faith....” But only silence followed, as we began to pack up what was left of the life we had built together, brick by brick.
When we got home it was for the first week or so, in fact a rest. We had the children to tend to and introduce to everyone; everybody seemed happy to see us, at least we thought. Then it began, first slowly like a frog in a heating frying pan the demands began. You have to come up for dinner, you have to tend to your sister’s yard, you have to go and watch you niece open presents at 7am! (after our financial disaster this did not sit well),..... you have to divorce and give us the kids! “Wait, what!” (thank you Megamind with Will Ferrell). Letting our financial troubles decide our fate and usurp our better judgement had put us in a unimaginable, unfathomable nightmare. We fought and argued, were under constant critique and apparent surveillance. We couldn’t go to the bathroom without comment from both families. My in-laws even interrupted my husband at his part-time retail job to harangue him about divorce and to go on welfare, in front of customers! It was if everyone we trusted had suddenly gone completely insane. Again, I wish this was just a dream, but it was a living nightmare. We were stalked and sabotaged and yet we held out hope that it would pass. It was as if they all were in complete denial that we were adults, in love and married, with children that were our greatest concern and responsibility. Then, as if by divine intervention, a book mysteriously arrived on our doorstep. The book was Toxic In-laws by Dr. Susan Forward and both my husband’s and my eyes were opened. Thank you to whoever sent that book and to the divine power that inspired it.
Sadly, we both saw clearly that there was no chance for quiet resolution or compromise. If we were to remain there, our lives together would forever be misery. We certainly were not going to split from soul mates and the love of our lives, each other. That is a thing that heaven grants to far too few in this world, and we knew it. We were also in no position to just get up and move, or perhaps we were... What to do? (finale tomorrow).
Into our lives challenges come, sometimes from the least expected direction. Even though life can build walls that seem insurmountable and our courses must by necessity change for a while, we must endure and move forever forward; if we are to find and experience our best selves. When we meet a life block often we must pause, like a steam behind an dam, build strength and grow in depth before we can overcome it. The key is to endure and never surrender to the wall.
How will you “endure” life's walls today?
Tune in tomrorrow to read the daily mood quote
Thank you for reading
