But I'm On Vacation!

This week is school vacation week, but instead of hanging out on my back porch for hours on end, staring at the water that sometimes trickles off of what The Spouse and I refer to as our 'giant rock,' drinking tea, and reading one of the several books that I'm attempting to make progress on, I have instead found myself contending with job-related legal paperwork that must be dealt with this week, the fact that the bathroom needs cleaning, the kitchen needs cleaning, the floor needs vacuuming, and a few mice have made themselves all too welcome within our home.

While my brain understands that this is just part of life, I can't help but find myself annoyed.

There. I said it.

I stood in the trash can aisle at Target for way too long this afternoon, trying to decide on what cleaning products to buy, as well as whether or not to spend what I felt was a rather steep amount of money on trash cans with lids. I am tired of seeing and smelling the open trash can in the kitchen, I'm sure it's contributing to the mouse issue, and I've wanted one for a long time. I checked the price: $40.00. For a trash can? Sheesh. The New England miser in me came up, thinking about all of the other things I could spend $40.00 on. I found myself debating in the aisle about whether or not to buy the trash can. Would Josh be annoyed about this? Would I be annoyed if I didn't get the trash can? I paced back and forth. I looked for less expensive options, but could not find what I wanted. I sighed. I felt myself grow even more tense and agitated than I already was. I tried hard not to feel that way. I asked myself, rather unkindly, what is your problem? This is just a trash can.

As I lugged the trash can into my shopping cart under the watchful eyes of the nearby security guard, who probably thought I was some kind of lunatic (a person muttering to oneself for ten minutes in the trash can aisle at Target could be disturbing to some), it became clear that my irritation wasn't about the trash can. It couldn't have been, since it's been steadily growing since Saturday night, when I was notified by mail that I had urgent legal matters to attend to for work. The key was in what I thought in response to my own self-inquiry:

But I'm on VACATION! I shouldn't have to deal with this crap! My vacation is ruined!
All of a sudden, everything made sense. Of course I was angry! I kept on telling myself that all the stuff I was doing this week that I didn't really want to be doing was ruining my vacation! Instead of just letting myself be irritated and accept that this was what I had to do, I instead tried to get things done as quickly as possible, to make them all go away and to allow me to get back to what I really wanted to be doing with my time. As often happens for me when life decides to teach me something new about myself and I'm not quite getting it, I found events outside of me conspiring to point me toward my anger. I found myself stuck in traffic, being cut off by other vehicles on the road, in line behind the person paying with all pennies, and the irritation grew as the thought kept cycling around in my head: this is ruining my vacation. I don't want to be doing this.

Once I gave myself permission to feel angry, irritated, and helpless, and fully move into it, I had the freedom to discover what I was thinking that led to the feeling. And once I knew what I was thinking, it was clear that it was my own thinking -- rather than the events happening outside of me, as inconvenient as they were -- that was causing me to act like a cute, fluffy bunny had just stabbed me in the back.

So I've decided to do something called 'dropping the story' or 'reframing.' I stop telling myself that my vacation is ruined, dropping my crappy, anger-inducing story. I decide to shift my focus to the good things coming out of this vacation week: dinner with friends one day, brunch with another friend, bowling, guacamole, chocolate chip cookies, a clean kitchen and bathroom. I tell myself that my vacation has been productive, that I've been able to do a few things I really enjoy, and I still have plenty of time left -- three whole days! -- to hang out on the back porch and watch the water trickle across the rocks. This feels like a better story. It certainly helps me feel less pissed off. And maybe I'm starting to feel like I'm on vacation after all.