Lessons from a Flooded Basement - 2

Our basement flooded this spring. The day that Marc left for four days. The day that we started two weeks of standardized tests for homeschool. Flooded. We've had dampness before, a little bit of water. But these were small lakes.

I'm determined to not miss the lessons that that this experience is continuing to teach me. It is costing too much emotionally and financially to not get some squeezed benefit. Over the next few months, this will be an occasional (and my very first) blog series: Lessons from a Flooded Basement.

We have options in these unexpected life crises. We can cry. We can deny. OR, we can blog. 

************************************************

There is little in a flooded basement to be thankful for. You really have to dig to find it. Or maybe it is more correct to say you have to dig really deep to feel it. Within hours of each revelation of how bad this flood and basement mess was becoming I was able to THINK of why I could be thankful. I am still not able to FEEL thankful.

I FEEL disappointed, angry, tired, sickofthishouse. I FEEL put out. I FEEL afraid of the time and money this might take from other projects I had appointed for this spring and summer. I FEEL betrayed.

But I THINK about how if this had happened in any of the 7 years we lived here before this, there is a good chance it would have been an extreme financial disaster, not a financial inconvenience.  I THINK about the amazing people that I never knew before that have been in my home and have been kind, compassionate, and helpful. I THINK about how much safer (and sell-able) this crisis is making our home. I THINK about how I have become stronger (and tireder - but stronger) I have had to become.

Lesson 2 from a flooded basement - THANKFULNESS ISN'T ALWAYS A FEELING. In fact, THANFKULNESS CAN BE AN EXHAUSTING WORKOUT - one you might not see (or feel) the benefit of for a long time.