The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

It’s Thursday. Just Thursday. My email wasn’t blowing up at 6:00 a.m. with pipes bursting at the HOA. The kids got off to school on time. The computers at work are still working.

And while there are still balls in the air with the merger, and now the cultural and systems integrations, the dust is starting to settle (you know I love my mixed metaphors).

I’m not sure how your life works, but in my life either every area is blowing up at once, or everything is calm. It might look like pure insanity from the outside, and I get a lot of “I don’t know how you do its,” but my brain really functions well in those situations.

Basically, when it appears that I will never get through it, I know that I’ll get through it because I have always gotten through it. Time and again I have faced a “There’s no way this will get done by …” or a “I can’t handle this all …,” only to get it all done, and handle it all.

While in the midst of it all, I just remind my self time and again that I am just in the midst of it all. This is not “it.” This is just “now.” There will be another side. There will be another time.

What I do is just plug along with a “first things first” mentality: What needs to get done now? Today? Tomorrow? This week? And what can be put on the back burner, or handed off to someone else? My brain seems to just file things where they need to be filed. Do things ever fall through the cracks? Yes. In fact, on Tuesday we did have to scramble to get something done, but we met the deadline. Was I happy about that? No. But it does happen, and when it does you just do what you need to do to make it right, and then move on. Don’t blame others, or make excuses. Just get done what needs to get done and move on with no judgment. It happens.

For the most part, the past couple months have been a controlled environment of chaos.

Three weeks ago it was pure insanity. But it was a temporary insanity:

  • The “final” for my leadership class was coming up. I had two books to read and five homework assignments to prepare.
  • The merger date was fast approaching.
  • Girl Scouts was kicking off the year.
  • My HOA was suffering numerous crisis.
  • I have no time for my family.
  • Forget yoga.

Three weeks later:

  • Class is over.
  • The merger went live.
  • I have great Girl Scout moms who really carried the ball.
  • We just hired a phenomenal property management company for the HOA and they have already started to carry the burden.
  • I actually had a phone call with my sister today.
  • Back to yoga.

At work, right now, it’s about cleaning out the old, and making room for the new. So I’ll just shut my door, and turn on the music, and start to plug away at my email, the papers on my desk, the files that can be dumped. I need to clean up some things on the blogs. But for the most part, I will enjoy the peace today and tomorrow before I hit the road on Monday for some LMA meetings and to spend some time in the Chicago office learning the new systems, meeting new people, and finding my purpose moving forward.

Welcome to my new normal. I don’t have a 100% grasp on what that is right now, and that’s okay too. Because I know that will change soon enough.