THE BOLD: (Breakdown Ahead)

A breakdown is an interruption of your patterns, habits or expectations.  Sometimes they come unbidden.  Sometimes we provoke them ourselves.  While they can be disruptive, they invite renovation, reformation, and renewal.  Our choices are limited but powerful in the face of breakdowns—we can choose a project before an accident happens, we can choose how we will act to respond and we can choose how we will enter into the process.  We control a little of the what and a lot more of the how.

The Whisper: (Renovations, Improvements and Other Trials)

A Renovation Odessy:

Over a three-year period, through intention and accident, our home was subjected to project after project of improvement.  “Improvement” means “tearing everything out of place in order to help it find a new place either out of the house or in a more pleasing, functional arrangement.” Did you notice the part about tearing everything out of place?  I did.

We built a detached garage. It required the removal of some beautiful trees, the displacement of loads of dirt, the intrusion a soundtrack of distant but still somehow loud music from the construction workers’ small radio and the creative shuffling of vehicles in our yard.

We waterproofed the area under the deck.  It required pulling off all the deck boards, installing miles of a plastic sheeting system, attempting to reinstall the deck boards and then realizing that it needed to be done by someone else with a different material (and, hard is it is to admit, a different skill level).   Oh, and while we were at it, we decided a new railing would be nifty.  It also involved not being able to use the back door of the house for 7 months.  The path from the front door, beside the house to the garage became well worn. There may or may not have been a few tripping incidents as we navigated that less than even thoroughfare.

We had floors installed. Three times.  First, we installed a vinyl floor over the wood floor in the kitchen.  Then, a perfidious part in a new-ish dishwasher decided to create a persistent slow leak.  This part, designed to stop another part from failing, issued a tiny stream of water that created a mold laboratory under the cabinets in a spot unseen by us until it began to leak out into the dining nook floor.  The blackened parts of the floor were removed.  The new vinyl was torn up.  New wood was installed and half of the first floor was refinished.  Half.  Because it was only half, it was patently obvious how poorly it had been refinished. We evacuated for a second week at a hotel, a week not covered by the insurance or the company who had botched the job, and they did it all over again.

Then, one evening in January, as I sat in the family room peacefully reading a book and enjoying the fact that the house was spiffed up and ready for a house guest who would be arriving the next day, my gaze wandered around the room.  I smiled as I took in the adjacent, newly painted and refreshed dining room.  My restless husband had started the dining room project on Christmas day. Apparently, he holds deep misgivings about peace and a stable living environment.  He began pulling the furniture from the dining room before the wadded up wrapping paper had been removed from the family room hearth.  The transformation from fast food yellow to sophisticated grey was appreciated, even if his timing was suspect.

Finally, my gaze fell on the ceiling above me, of all places.

“Wait,” I thought idly, “When did the ceiling develop those unusual bubble shapes?”

The answer to that question ushered in the next phase of restoration.  A water pipe in the ceiling had failed and the space above the drywall had become an overhead subterranean lake.  This hidden stygian river cascaded down (onto the newly refinished floor, of course) the next day when the magical plumber arrived.  He was magical because, in a season of frozen pipes, he was willing and available to come to the house the very next morning.  He was less magical when he pronounced his diagnosis. Our pipes were a type known for failing, the subject of a long exhausted class-action payout.  All the pipes in the house would have to be replaced.

(Are you exhausted yet?)

The method for finding pipes to replace, apparently, is to take a ball-peen hammer and make random holes. Lots of random holes.  All over the house.  Therefore, the damage to be repaired in the drywall included giant swaths of missing ceilings, jagged sections of walls and the ever-present, random puncture wounds.  It took our amazing drywall mechanic two weeks to bring all the surfaces back. And then, the painting began. Mercifully, one of the only rooms that did not require new paint was the dining room.

Even before the list above, I was actually an old hat at this.  Since 2012, we have weathered other interesting events:

• A giant oak tree, home to 100,000 honeybees, fell into our old home. It crushed the utility room, smashed the family room roof and even dented my husband’s beloved car.  The branches pierced the ceiling 5 feet from where my husband was sitting. The 10-month renovation included flooring that took scratches from a plastic bucket but was defended by its manufacturer.
• We replaced all the internal doors in our old home together and did not get a divorce.This is a major accomplishment, I’m led to understand.
• We moved to this home. We renovated an attached garage into living space.  Renovation included a door cut into a wall by the Contractor’s son and installed without any internal support just inches from a heavy upper cabinet.
• We had all the windows replaced on the old house. And then we did the same with the new house.
• My husband hand built a shed, which filled with snow when the weather refused to wait for the roof.

These were our hardscape challenges and opportunities.  I won’t list the soft scape twists and turns in our personal and professional lives.

Lessons Emerge from Challenges and Opportunites

Through this succession of projects, I’ve learned that we sometimes have a small number of decisions to make about the type of crisis that arrives.

The deck, the garage, and the dining room were our choice.  The tree, the water damage (all the water damage) left only our choice of response.

I’ve learned that the learning sometimes does not come without the monumental lesson.  The tiny leak turns into a summer of disruption and even two weeks out of the house.  The unassuming tree becomes a missile.  The tiny bubble hides a house full of weak pipes.

I’ve learned that my choices are always there—even if they are hard to discern.  I’ve learned that I have a choice about the how, if not the what.

And I’ve learned that no matter how much you want your current state of affairs to persist—the child at the perfect age, the delightful work situation, the smooth routine—it will change.  An accident will happen.  You will become bored.  A better option will present itself.  If this is the fate of perfect things, what chance does the imperfect have? The only constant is change. (If that was true for Heraclitus somewhere between 535 and 475 BCE, what makes you think you’re immune?)

The Breakdown-A Mechanism for Change (Whether You Want It or Not)

Each challenge, each surprise, each project is a breakdown.

At my coach-training alma mater, Newfield Network, that is how we were taught to think of such interruptions to our assumptions, our routines, our hopes and our plans.  To understand breakdowns, we need only remember our morning commute.

I suspect that we have all had the mindless driving experience.  We get in the car, make our adjustments and pull out of the driveway. We flow through the neighborhood. We stop at the lights and make the turns and merge into the lanes that we need.  No extra thought is required.  We are where we usually are doing what we usually do.

Suddenly, the car in front of us makes an unexpected move.  It stops short without any apparent provocation.  We drag our brains back from the mental list we were constructing as we took advantage of all the space routine opens up in our heads.  The whole world compresses to the bumper, the red lights of warning, the swiftly closing gap.  We slam the breaks and narrowly avoid missing the bumper of the offending car.

That is a breakdown. Not every breakdown acts only as a reminder. Some involve auto body shops, insurance companies, or even hospitals.  Every break down causes us to pivot.  Every breakdown demands choices.

When a breakdown occurs, we make tactical choices about how we are going to respond. Will we comply or fight?  We seek efficient answers.  We take actions large and small.  We work to make it better.  We make mindset choices about how we will think, feel and behave under the stress provoked by the breakdown.  We choose to thank the break down for the opportunity or curse the break down (and it’s author, perhaps) for the interruption and the difficulty.

Now re-imagine that same morning, that same drive.  This time, no external obstacle presents itself.  The road is smooth, the weather is fine and the other drivers are well behaved. As you scan the familiar road, you begin to remember that you wanted something different.  The car is fine and the road is passable.  However, you remember that you wanted to take an adventure. At the next crossroads, you make a sharp right turn and open up the engine, accelerating away from the crowded commuter thoroughfare and out under your own sky.  You just provoked your own breakdown.

What Are We To Do? Accept the Challenge and Unwrap the Gift

If we do not provoke our own breakdowns, another interruption will probably occur anyway. Each breakdown—whether internal or external—will interrupt the flow of events and demand attention and action. Each breakdown will upset our apple cart.

What is the good news, then?  Sometimes we can exert our narrow but powerful choices to create projects before accidents happen.   We can always choose how we are going to respond—in action and in mindset.

The best news, though, is that each breakdown opens up the possibility for a renovation.   These tears in our seamless, often narrow and sometimes even blind view of our lives are the crack through which our future enters.

What future would you like to invite through the crack?

 

 

 

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