When the Shit Hits the Fan (Literally)

This past week, the shit (literally) hit the fan. 

You know those moments when you are holding life together by a flimsy strand? You think: “This is tough, but I got this.”💪

The self-pep talk renders you akin to a duck on the water. Sure, you look smooth on the surface, but you are paddling furiously just below the shallow current.🦆

Still, if you could hold it together for a tad longer, you think you can make it through the day/week/month without imploding.🤯

And then, the shit hits the fan…

While the aphorism is apropos of anything negative happening on a grand scale (where no amount of duck paddling will work) in my case, 💩 floated through the first floor of my home, a river of it swimming through like a feces canal.🤢

The short version of this smelly (true) story: a broken sewer line pipe caused the issue, and it’s going to cost a year of college tuition to repair (Let’s not even speak about insurance…).

What’s In YOUR Plumbing?🤔

Remember that duck analogy? Yeah, my waddle was already quacking upstream when the R.O.P. (River of Stool) hit. 

A home’s pipes are like the arteries in a body: everything’s connected.

I thought about this idea of connection a lot. Each of us is connected to each other in this world, on a micro and macro level. And those arteries, while not always physical, either close or open and sometimes need to be replaced altogether.

It was when the R.O.P. hit that I started to become aware of the R.O.P in a close relationship. My heart would always ache when I spoke to this person. Invisible cracks would start to form. I’d Band-aid the pain up with rationalization and distraction.

I was regularly this person’s quasi-therapist — a sounding board for her to throw her deluge of negativity my way. I’d sop up her violin music with emotional pompoms that I’d shake until she felt better.

But there’s a price paid for being someone’s emotional tsunami and it’s much higher than any insurance deductible.

It took my literal (sewer) pipes breaking to realize the shitstorm I was accepting in my personal relationship.

Waddling upstream, I could remain in the comfort zone of rationalization for this person’s toxic behavior.

But when I was at ground zero, emotionally, physically, financially and could no longer waddle upstream, I needed a lifeline. I was drowning.

And what did she do? She continued to do what she always does: she took out her violins and made the moment all about herself. She pulled out the “one up” card: “You think you have it bad. Let me tell you what I’m going through.”🙈

I wasn’t looking for anything more than a lifeline. A simple handful of words like “I’m so sorry.” or “That must be tough.”

Nope. Instead, she regaled me with violin music about how tough she had it today, yesterday, and always. It was all about her. I couldn’t reach her over her whiny notes. I realized then that the crap in my home was nothing compared to the emotional crap she’d been dishing me for years.

I’m in pain — much more about this relationship than my home. A pipe can be replaced. A house can be rebuilt. Money can be replenished. 

But our personal relationships…those are spiritual fingerprints. They touch our soul.

The emotional pipes cannot always be replaced. But they can be examined and if needed, reshaped and recycled so that the heart doesn’t continue to get broken. We can shift our perspective, through the aperture of compassion — for ourselves and those we love — recognizing that some emotional pipes cannot provide the oxygen our heart needs to thrive.