Acting, Not Reacting

I just had a "moment" that could have ended very badly.

I'm at the neighborhood coffee shop. Worked late last night, got up late this morning, no time for breakfast. So I grab a coffee just before a stressful meeting with my boss. She leaves, I look around for a place to plug in my laptop and work. Can't find one. I flop into an arm chair and return my mom's call. She does all the mailing for the ministry I work for, and some of letters I sent her last night didn't print correctly. Too many letters to resend them all, and the only way to figure it out is to pay for a car share for a couple of hours, go over there and sort it out. I REALLY can't afford to pay for a car today.

Just as I tell Mom that I'll think about it and call her back, I realize I'm flopped in a very unflattering position, and two girls at the counter (who look like they just came from a yoga class) are giving me the "can-you-believe-how-big-that-woman-is" stank eye.

If you're addicted to anything, you know how I felt at that moment. The swirly, helpless, overwhelmed, grasping, quitting feeling you get just before you reach for whatever's familiar and apparently helped you find your balance at some point in the past, whether it works now or not. Yeah. You know what I'm talking about.

A thought was forming that started with the words, "Oh, I'll just..." I'll just...what? Get the car all day and deal with the cost later? Eat something sugary and get a buzz going? Skip swimming today to deal with the effed up work situation?

Then something different happened. I realized that this was the worst possible time to make a decision. Any decision. I didn't need to do *anything*, at this moment, but deal with this feeling. Then I could make decisions for the rest of the day, or even for the next five minutes.

So I sat up in the arm chair, closed my eyes, said a quick prayer and breathed. I realized that I was hungry and thirsty and needed to take care of myself before I took care of anything else. I pushed the table on which I had put my computer over to another chair (closer to the yoga girls, which took a little courage), and plugged in (using a bit *more* courage to ask the cooler-than-cool guy on the couch to thread the cord behind his legs. I walked to the counter and bought a tofu-scramble whole-wheat breakfast burrito and a banana. Then I went back to my little table and let the yoga girls watch me eat. That's right, yoga girls -- fat chicks eat.

Within ten minutes, I was able to think clearly. Checked email, texted my boss with a great idea I'd forgotten during our meeting, checked into the car share, called Mom back. It will only cost five dollars to extend my car share an hour and go over to her place after my workout this afternoon.

Writing this blog was the next priority -- sharing epiphanies is important, too. Done and done. Time to go swimming, and tonight I'll be at my desk working -- but maybe not so late.