(Slow Drive) Back to School

"But when I get stressed, I tend to default to worry mode: if you give a mouse a cookie style. I'm going to work on not falling into that mode and continuing to find the kind and happy things in life, even in stressful situations."

Famous last words.


Yesterday was my first day back to school after winter break. I had big plans of going to school early, getting a bunch of stuff ready, and starting back on a productive note.

The universe had other plans.

I had a really hard time falling asleep the night before. Not too big of deal- I figured it would happen since I've been staying up later. I woke up early, got ready quickly, and left for school about a half hour  before I usual. Most days I get to school a half hour before I'm supposed to be there- I was going to have so much time to get things done! Dan called me about 5 minutes into my drive and said, "If you haven't left yet, you should. Traffic is down to one lane." He leaves for work around 5 am and said there was an accident. There were a bunch of police cars at the scene still. I thought maybe it would be cleaned up/cleared out by the time I hit the area. It turned out that it was a really bad accident :( and traffic was even more backed up for my drive. It took me an hour and 45 minutes to get to school! Not only did I not get to school early, I was a half hour late! This definitely qualifies as a stressful situation for me.

I really did my best to not burst into if you give a mouse a cookie worry mode. I was going to either be on time (which is late for me) or late (which is super stressful for me). There was nothing I could do about it. I texted my assistant- don't worry, traffic was at a standstill- and let her know I probably wouldn't get to school on time. And then I reminded myself that I was lucky to have an assistant, there was nothing I could do about being late, school would not fall apart without me, and most importantly I was not the person in the accident. I also did my best to not watch the clock. It kind of helped.

I got to school, rushed up to my room, and found everyone quietly coloring while they waited for me.


It was a stressful start but the rest of the day turned out just fine. Everyone was happy to be back at school and I didn't let rough start totally throw off my day- it was a good start to keeping/continuing my resolution!