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Married to Nick for 13 years, with 2 children; Sabrina - 12 and Dominic - 11. I am a girlfriend through and through in that I love girly things and anything that celebrates the essence of being a woman. I love vintage, shabby chic, the country and try my best to do my bit for the environment. SO yes...we have 3 bins in our house and try our best to recycle! I believe that with everything in life, the closer we stick to nature, the better off we'll be. I would love to have a balance in life, but have learnt that balance is not always possible, so strive for significance instead, in the hopes that that will be just as meaningful, and the rest will hopefully follow.

Friday, September 26, 2008

A personal story about closure.


The story that I’m about to share took place at my son’s birthday party. When I first contemplated posting it on my blog, the message was going to be about revenge, and how sweet and necessary it can sometimes be, but 4 hours turned into 24, and the message became about walking away from bad situations with the knowledge that the wheel turns. Since then, I’ve toyed with “an eye for an eye”, but always reminding myself that whichever way, I have to feel good about it afterwards. So I've finally come to rest on making it about “closure”.

Closure, because it’s such an important thing to have in ones life, to move on from the many things that eat away at us and make us physically and mentally sick, and then also because it really resonates with me, in that it’s where I’m at right now. And whilst revisiting a wonderful self help programme I've always enjoyed, called ‘the Sedona method’ these last few days, I’ve realized that closure is what helps us with the ‘letting go’ of the stuff that doesn’t serve us, in our daily lives. And allows us to do whatever it is we need to, to forgive, or see a situation differently in order to walk away from it, in tact.

So to briefly outline the course of events that got me to this point - we were very badly let down by the person we had booked to provide the entertainment for our son’s party, which was originally scheduled for Saturday. On Saturday morning when it became apparent that the weather had set in for the day, we called and arranged with this person that the following day, late afternoon would be better, as the weather forecast had predicted a huge improvement. It was confirmed, and we were assured that they had no other plans. On Sunday afternoon, half an hour into the party(by which time I was extremely anxious), I was called and advised that, sorry but they wouldn’t be able to make it to the party, as they are now on their way to the Berg (to play in the snow I bet!). There seemed to be no remorse, even though they confirmed that yes they had understood it was for the following day, but had unfortunately entered the following Sunday into their cellphone??, so cearly there had been no mix-up on my part(I still can’t join the dots on that one, but anyway). Before we could conclude the conversation, we lost signal, and that put paid to the party as it should have been, which my 8 year old son had been dreaming and talking about since, like months ago! Well I probably don’t need to mention to mothers of small children what goes through your mind - disbelief and devastation soon turned into anger, which turned back into disbelief, which then turned to heartache and a lump in my throat as I sat my boy down (who by now was dancing with excitement) and told him that mistakes happen all the time, and sometimes people let us down, but that we can’t let those people GET US DOWN, and that when things don’t turn out the way we want them to in life, we just have to accept it, and somehow find a way to get around it and move on. No jokes…this is the talk he was given at his 8th birthday party, just after we sang happy birthday and blew out his candles (on his rapidly melting ice cream cake!!). I was devastated, and so was he, but we both put on our brave, happy faces, and he said “Ok Mom”. And I was thinking....EISH. I was proud of him and his friends, and eternally grateful to the parents and my husband who then, with very little available to us, at a very remote venue, did the best they could, and at the end of the day, the kids had a great time, but they never forgot for a minute, that there was no paintball!!!

By Monday I was still flabbergasted by what had happened, turning things over in my head, trying to get to a place where I could move on and let it go!!!!!! - especially since my motto is often “As long as no one’s died, it’s ok”, but an injury to son is an injury to all hey, so I was battling with this. I decided I would walk away, close the door and let the wheel turn, as it always does, but then my friend Cindy said, “Beryldene, you’re crazy! Have your say, let them know how you feel, and take action - don't let them get away with this!!!!” And I realized that being the person I am, walking away from this the ‘better person’ wasn’t going to bring me closure. Too often in life, we allow people to get away with things, and this just makes it easy for them to think it’s ok and do it again. Anyway, I sent a VERY stern (not personally slating), but fair sms to the person, who by this stage still had not contacted me, and I cannot tell you the relief I felt as I pressed “send”, and the door “closed”. Game over. This experience has made me realise that closure comes in different forms, depending on the person, the situation and the severity of it.

4 comments:

  1. well done my precious friend - oh what a strong powerfull woman you truly are - i grew from your experience - you ARE the better person - you have handled this correctly. so thats it hey - full stop - we all wont allow him ownership of our feelings - he has no right to affect our daily happiness.......case closed.The wheel does turn my friend ...and sometimes it even goes into a river and drowns or goes into fire and burns or or or goes into cow poo - or or ....ok maybe i should breathe and release, breathe and release.....aaaaah thats better.

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  2. You are most certainly the better person.

    Sometimes we can deal with things like that, but I get upset when it affects my children as they don't always understand.

    I have now started to let things go too and I must say it has been hard, but the feeling is oh, soo good!!

    Believe me, the wheel certain does turn.

    Keep well

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  3. Good for you gf, I certainly think the way he handled it was truly unprofessional. If they wanted to chase the snow, his wife and kids could have gone without him, i know your and my business ethics are obviously of a much higher standard, as we either would've said we couldn't make sunday, or alternatively stuck to our arrangement without making lame excuses. In these economic times, too many slip ups like that, and your business can face ruin. You can't buy advertising better than good word of mouth - unfortunately for him the opposite also applies...

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  4. Way to go, Beryldene - you did really well - getting "rid" of all the anger, etc is the only way to find closure. Like you I often do not allow others to dictate my life in that I do not allow them into my daily life via my thoughts - I choose to rather move forward, mostly even without confrontation, and this works so well for me.

    I have a favourite mantra - "nobody needs any help to shoot themselves in the foot - they can do it quite well on their own" - the wheel turns ...

    Love, Tracy

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