{My Story} The Mouse & How I Realized I Need to Get my Act Together

I wrote the blog post that follows almost a year ago in the midst of a very difficult time. I was depressed, having anxiety attacks, and feeling totally out of control with every aspect of my life. I am just so happy to say how much the difference a year can make. I declared 2013 a year of growth and have been committed to coming out of that dark place. And it just feels so good to type these words...I have grown and continuing to change. I have learned so many valuable lessons that I'd love to share but I feel like I gotta back up a bit first. The story that follows was the beginning of me making changes all for the better...

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Some day I am going to look back on this day and laugh....but I have a feeling it's going to take a long time for that to happen. There has been a mouse in our house since Halloween at least. And it's created all sort of havoc...including provoking a near nervous breakdown in me. I'm not even kidding, I wish I was.

It all started around Halloween or some time after Brookie's 'Candyland' Birthday party. I had one of those huge bins of Red Vines sitting on the counter. Being a favorite of mine, I would snack on them periodically. I kept on noticing that the lid was frequently left off and then they started to decrease in size. Like someone tore them in half, just to eat a portion. Being that I'm not the only one in the house I didn't think anything of it. Until one day Dan pointed out that there was a collection of red vines in the bottom broiler drawer of the oven. I was like...."WHAT? How does that happen?" It was at that point, we discovered we had a critter living amongst us (or at least speculated). And it was also at that point that I realized "OH MY GAWD, I'VE BEEN EATING RED VINES THAT HAVE BEEN TOUCHED BY A RODENT?" Even just typing those words want to make me vomit and go do a freak out dance running down the street like a crazy person. Seriously disgusting. Morever, what about the potential for diseases? (I think the scene in El Norte with the girl crawling through the tunnel to get to the US has ruined me forever as she encountered a sleugh of rats on her journey....and she ultimately died from a disease spread by the rats too, I might add). Oh my gosh, I don't want to die. And certainly not by way of rodent disease.

Fast forward a week or so, I come home to my computer an odd glow. It was asleep from the night prior and I couldn't get the login menu to come on. I finally just force quit with the power button but it still would not turn on. I also happened to notice that my external hard drive had powered off (and I never turn it off). I started getting a little nervous (because as you know I am a wedding photographer and those images are preciously stored on my external hard drive). I crawled under my desk and yanked on the power cord....only to find a collection of empty candy wrappers (Reese's peanut butter cups, to be exact) and mouse droppings all around the power surge. I wish I could tell you what exactly happened in that moment...but it's a bit of a blur...because I FREAKED OUT! Holy hell, that damn mouse did not fry my external by tripping the power one too many times, right? Wrong. It most certainly had. I went into a flurry of action trying to figure out to see if my drive & computer were in fact damaged. All the while stressing that I may have lost thousands of images and hours, even days of work because of this damn mouse. (NOTE: my drive & data has since been recovered, all images were also backed up online, & my computer is back to working order).

At that point, I posted on Facebook "If I go missing, do not worry I'm going to have a nervous breakdown in private and will be back when I have my sh*t together." I got a lot of really sweet but concerned messages. After posting my status, I thought to myself....not such a bad idea to get out of town a few days, calm myself, and recollect my thoughts. So that's exactly what I did the next morning. I packed Brookie & I up and drove out to see my parents in Laughlin, where they snowbird for the winter. It was a nice 4+ hour drive out there listening to some good tunes to calm my nerves. And by the way, sometimes a mom can make everything feel better, it was the perfect solution even if it was just for the moment (and even if I am almost 38 years old). (as I still had no idea if I were able to retrieve the images or fix the equipment).

After having set several traps with no such luck of catching the little creeper (and more evidence appearing of his presence daily)...Dan finally went and bought the larger rat traps. That was tonight. He demonstrated the sound the trap would make if it was set off. It was startling loud. I kid you not...it was less than an hour later that I heard the trap snap. It made me jump! We both ran to the kitchen and sure enough, we got him! I know I shouldn't have looked but I did...and only saw his long disgusting tail. ACKKKKKKKKKKKK! Thank you lord.

So you may be asking yourself...why all the stress over a little mouse? Well, other than the fact that any type of creepy crawly rodent completly FREAKS me out....it was really just a metaphor for the many problems that should have been addressed the moment I realized them. But life got in the way, other responsibilities beckoned, and I all but forgot about the mouse until the computer incident. I have been living with my head just barely above water for the past year. I frequently feel as if I'm being pulled under and I have to fight & struggle to swim up for air. That may sound extreme...but there is no better way for me to describe it (drowning is a major fear of mine and I've been living in fear). Just when I feel like I'm putting out one fire, another one flurries even bigger than the last, and off I go to keep it all under control. Ha...that's where I really got it all wrong and learned some big lessons about my life and the way I've been living it. And how my issues with control or lack there of all but ruined me.

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By the way, I still can't laugh over the way that little rodent taunted me and created so much havoc in my home, even a year later. I am, however, happy that many of my struggles are behind me and I feel better equipped for future challenges.

I received an email from a fave blogger this eve and read these words that inspired me to share this blog.

When called, do it:

Before it hurts.
Before it frustrates the pants off you.
Before resistance shows up.
Before excuses.
Before fear.
Before it escalates from ‘needs attention’ to ‘pressing concern.’

Taking action BEFORE – not during, or after – things become inflamed means, you say Skip! to the struggle. And ultimately, life works better.

So get to it, friends...what needs attention in your life? I, for one, have easily tried to pretend that the problem does not exist...but it will not go away...it will only escalate. I'm all for JUST FREAKING DO IT now. Lesson learned.