When Life is a Roller Coaster

Have you ever felt like your day is just one catastrophe after another?

I had a day like that (or rather, a morning) last Wednesday.

I woke up at 5:30 AM, and all was well – until I discovered I had forgotten to turn a burner off the night before. Don’t freak out – nothing happened. But I was so exasperated with myself. First off, that was dangerous. Second, leaving it on all night isn’t the best thing to do when you’re trying to save money on your electric bill.

No matter. Just get ready, get to the train station, and go to work. This was my thought process as I fought (somewhat unsuccessfully at first) the urge to beat myself up inside.

I arrived at the train station with little difficulty, except I was a bit late. I parked my car, ran through the parking garage, through the ticketing station, and up the stairs just in time to catch my train.

Whew – this day was starting to go uphill again!

And that’s when I remembered I forgot to put my parking pass in my car window (a $70 fine).

Luckily, I was only one stop away from where my car was, but I still remember that horrible feeling I had when I got off that train and right back on another one going back. I was for sure going to be late for work, which was stressing me out (I like being on time).

After arriving back at my home station, I went through the ticketing gate and the machine charged me $6 to pretty much go nowhere. Awesome.

I was starting to feel a little better when I got to my car to put my parking pass on my rear-view mirror. After this, all would be well again, and I would only be about 15 minutes late.

That was unfortunately not going to be the case.

The feelings of frustration and disbelief when I saw the parking pass in its rightful spot were overwhelming. Apparently, I hadn’t forgotten. Ugh. I fought back tears of frustration – I was so overwhelmed and stressed out.

And it wasn’t even 7 AM.

On the bright side, the station attendant gave me a free pass to my work station (to make up for the $6 I lost), which was nice of her because she technically didn’t have to do that.

With my free pass in hand, I hopped on another train and headed into the city.

And then, the roller coaster went downhill again – There were so many delays for that train for some reason that 30ish minutes were added to my normal commute time of 40 minutes.

Once I finally arrived in San Francisco, I got a little lost because it was my only my second day walking to our new office, so I ended up getting to work at 8:25 AM – about 2 hours after leaving my house.

Why do I tell you all this? Just so ya’ll know, it’s not to complain (I’m really trying to work on not complaining about stuff I can’t control).

Honestly, the rest of the day was amazing. I got to collaborate and hang out with my awesome co-workers, talk to professors over the phone, and settle into getting stuff done.

One thing to note here – many times, these seasons of life can be longer than just one morning. Sometimes it’s a whole day, a week, a month, a year, or years.

The point I want to make is this:

Don’t go through stressful or trying situations alone.

While I was on the train, I was listening to my Bible app reading from Psalms, and it reminded me that no matter what happens to me, God is with me. He loves me, and he is the source of my joy.

The fact that my morning didn’t go well wasn’t a super big deal because it didn’t have to effect the rest of my day. You can’t let things that don’t matter in the long run to ruin your day in the short run.

Obviously, it’s easy for me to say this now. The frustration is over. It’s learning to figure this out in the middle of it all that’s hard.

In addition to praying and just giving my anxiety to God, I was texting a friend and my parents and asking for prayer. Part of not going through things alone is having a community to just be there for you through those times.

In summary, I’m a work in progress, but I’m learning. Hopefully, you can learn the following from my experience: