well ain't that a sonuvabitch...

saturday morning i awoke to the sound of dripping water... and lots of it. a flurry of kitchen sink activity from the upstairs neighbors bubbled up through our sink due to a clog somewhere down the line. my guy and i are not early risers. our neighbors are. by the time we woke up, there was an inch of water covering the kitchen floor, and the counters were completely drenched.

needless to say it wasn't the best way to start the weekend. i admit that i was a little shellshocked from waking so abruptly. and from the aegean sea which manifested itself on my kitchen floor. but i was also undone by the size of the task at hand. call a plumber? call the landlord? turn the water off? where? for the building? talk to the neighbor? how do we even clean up this much water?? is this a hepatitis breeding ground??

fortunately, the overflow ceased shortly after our discovery. not only was there water EVERYWHERE, but since it was sink water, there were little bits of food and sink mung covering everything, too. SO FREAKING GROSS. i was paralyzed by the situation. i had all these questions and what-ifs crowding my mind. my guy only added to the swirling confusion in my head with his own questions, "should we go buy a mop? should we throw towels on this? does our lease cover this situation?" i was overwhelmed. the clean up task looked insurmountable.

i waded out of the kitchen and walked back to the office. i sat in front of the computer and just stared. my guy followed me in and asked what was going on. it was bad enough that the flood gates had released themselves in my kitchen, but now my internal river of emotions surged forth. i started whining about all my worries, all the questions that the kitchen situation brought forth. my voice sounded like a worried little kid as the concerns tumbled out of me. but here's the thing - as soon as they were out of me, as soon as i had released all the worry, i felt totally fine. describing the cloud of question and worry in my head seemed to deflate it. it dissipated and sanity started shining through.

i headed back to the kitchen to survey the situation. "you go get the mop. i'll stay here in case the sink starts overflowing again," i directed my guy. we took turns wading across the river to empty off the counter tops. we also cleared out the cupboard under the sink. once my guy left to find reinforcements, i tackled the standing water. i crafted a tool out of a 1 liter plastic bottle to help me bail the water out of the kitchen. it was slow going. scooping and dumping, scooping and dumping. as i sat there, in the middle of the drowned kitchen floor, something unexpected happened to me. i was overcome with peacefulness. i started thinking about how bailing out a flooded kitchen was an appropriate analogy to my weight loss journey. discovering the situation was just horrifying. in november of last year, when i finally hopped on the scale after so many years, i was dreading the little digital number. and yes, the reality was jarring. but once i committed myself to a newfound relationship with my body and weight loss, the situation didn't seem insurmountable. i recognized that there was a lot of hard, often 'yucky' work ahead of me, but it needed to happen. if for no other reason than for longevity of life and health reasons, it needed to happen. so here i am, in the midst of this weight loss journey, riding the highs and holding on through the lows. just bailing myself out. and for as much heartache as it can cause sometimes, i find that i am truly happy with the distance i've come thus far. i'm getting to know me. in the same way that i had to pull the fridge and the stove away from the wall to clean up the standing water (and the wet under-fridge-chud), i've had to pull metaphysical obstacles out of the path of my heart and mind. my first emotion this floody morning was shock, followed by dread. somewhere along the way i encountered grateful. i was actually grateful for an opportunity to so thoroughly clean my kitchen. i am grateful that i have an opportunity to clean out my body and mind.

by the time my guy got back with the mop, i not only scooped all the water off the kitchen floor, but i scrubbed down the bathroom, too... i was a woman on a mission! despite the day starting out in the shitter, it ended up quite nice.

it's nice to know that others are also appreciating similar journies, too.