Who made this mess?

For the past few years, I've been attending weekly meetings of a group for recovering control freaks, fixers and people pleasers. It's been a slow but steady path and from time to time I can look at a situation and see how much I've changed (and sometimes how far I still have to go).

Earlier this week, I made plans to go straight from work to the meeting. I arranged a ride home from school for Charlie and told Mike he would have to pick Robbie up from school. Annie had rehearsal and would be driving herself home. That's it. Easy peasy. Until...

We had a Thanksgiving pitch-in at lunch. Seriously some of the best southern cooking I've ever had (My contribution? Apples & caramel dip.) and there was plenty leftover, including home made mac and cheese. I knew the boys would love to be on the receiving end of those leftovers...and, if I'm really honest with myself, I didn't want Mike to order pizza for dinner because we are on a tight budget until payday.

So I told Mike that I would meet him at Robbie's school to hand off dinner. Then I would go on to my meeting. Only, when I got to the school, Mike wasn't there. He was still a good 15 minutes away. I went in, picked up Robbie and called Mike.

"I've got Rob. I'll just meet you at St. Luke's on 86th Street and then I'll go on to the meeting." He agreed.

Robbie and I arrived at the St. Luke's parking lot at 5:48pm. I had 12 minutes to get to the meeting on time, which was kind of important because I was supposed to lead the discussion.

5:50pm. No Mike.

5:51pm. My phone died so I could no longer track where my husband was using the "Find my iPhone" app.

I could feel my blood pressure rising and my jaw setting itself in "angry" mode. I took a deep breath and thought to myself "I cannot change this situation. There is no point in getting upset." I was pretty proud of myself for that.

Mike arrived somewhere around 5:56pm, although I don't know exactly what time it was because I'd given up staring down the clock. He took Robbie and the dinner and I sat in the parking lot trying to decide if it was worth showing up late to the meeting.

As I considered the option of arriving late, not totally happy with Mike for making me late, I heard a friend's voice in my head (not really, Mom), asking what was my part in this situation.

So I asked myself that. "What was my part in this debacle of a plan?"

It didn't take long to recognize that it was really all my part. There had been a plan in place that would have taken me directly from work to the meeting without having to stop for anything. Who changed that plan? Me.

Mike is completely capable of picking up Robbie and making dinner for himself and the boys. We could have eaten the yummy leftovers for dinner the next day. But I was both trying to be nice (hello, people pleasing fixer) and to control the situation (control freak!) by devising the leftover drop off/kid exchange plan. Mike teases that I am addicted to chaos. Looking at this situation, he might not be wrong.

I smiled to myself, even laughed a little, as I came to the realization that this mess was all my fault. So, I may not have come far enough to not create the situation in the first place, but I have grown enough to recognize how my actions led to the outcome. That gives me hope.

(And yes, I still went to the meeting and it was worth it.)

Wimping out

I called our cable provider to make some changes to our plan today. I dropped a second phone line and canceled one cable box in the basement that we never use. Then I tried to cancel the cable all together because I know my kids will waste half the summer away sitting mindlessly in front of the television.

The lady on the other end of the line was appalled. "You mean you want no TV at all?"

"Yes. That's what I mean."

"Even though on June 12th, you'll need cable to get even local channels?"

Crud. I hadn't thought of that. Now, I know all about the digital cable conversion and the converter boxes that you can get to pull in the local channels. But I started getting all wishy washy. What if the stores are sold out of the boxes? What if the box doesn't work and a tornado is headed right for us and we won't know it?

"Ok, well, then I want to go down to the basic cable."

"That will be only channels 76 below, ma'am."

"Yes, I know. That's what I want."

"Well, if you do that, you'll be disrupting your phone/internet/cable bundle, so your pricing will be affected."

To make a long, wimpy story short, I ended up hanging up the phone with the same cable arrangement I had when I called in the first place.

Then later in the day, I went to pick up my prescriptions from Costco. I had intended to move the scripts to Walgreens for the next refills because I can use the pharmacy drive-through and because Walgreens pharmacy is open earlier and later than Costco's. The scripts I picked up tonight had been waiting for over a week because I never could get to Costco when the pharmacy was open.

So I went in, determined this would be my last Costco Rx pickup. But then the pharmacy tech walked up to me and said "I'll be right with you Ms. M..." Wow. She knows my name. Suddenly this big box pharmacy seemed a little smaller and more intimate.

"But the hours of the pharmacy here are not good," I told myself.

"Yes, but she knows my name. That's personal attention," I argued back, my resolve crumbling.

So I left there not letting them know we'd be changing pharmacies because of course, now I don't know. Maybe the hours aren't such a big deal?

I don't know why I have such a hard time standing my ground. I think it has to do with my role as a people-pleasing firstborn. I don't want anyone to think badly of me. I'm trying to toughen up a little bit. Someone at work recently told me "If it's not 100% yes, then it's a no."

Hmmm...that sounds 98% good.