Finding Grace
Memorial Day, for me, has traditionally signified the blissful start of summer. I look forward to it every year—the inauguration of long days at the local swimming pool and late nights playing four-square out on the street. That feeling has never left me over all the time I’ve been on this planet.
This year, up in the north country, we were treated to a dreary, wet, cloudy, and rainy start to the season of bliss. In short, Memorial Day was looking like it was going to be a bummer for me this year. It started out with a headache. As the day ground on, it evolved into an unexpected plumbing “situation” involving a very plugged drain.
Being the self-sufficient single gal that I think I am, I was determined to “fix” the situation. This involved a plunger, drain cleaner, and a “snake”—a long coiled cable that was going to drill down to the problem and solve it. I visited Menards in a rain storm to pick out my new snake. I settled for the twenty-five-footer…it sounded like a good in-between number. I then set to work.
Four hours later, I had plunged, snaked, and drain-cleaned myself into a frenzy of expectation. “Just one more plunge” would solve the problem! With each snake and plunge cycle my expectations grew, only to be dashed on the rocks by the sludgy water sitting there taunting me while not receding one iota. Finally, I gave up. I was done, summer was ruined (if it ever arrived at all), my plumbing was hopeless and would cost me a fortune to fix, if it could ever be salvaged, and I’d have to live in a rain-soaked, over saturated, cloudy planet that, to top it off, was burning up and flooding at the same time!
As I pondered my pathetic plight, I decided that despite the catastrophic state of my world, I could not go to bed smelling of drain cleaner and sludge. Even I have my limits.
It was then that I had one of those delightful moments of clarity. Out of the blue, on the first night of my summer, I decided to call a friend to see if I could shower at her house. Everything got better.
Of course she said “Come on over!” I did. I took my shower, socialized, laughed, went home, and slept well that night. The drain got fixed the next morning by a pro (referred to me by my friend). Then, the clouds cleared, the sun emerged, and the sky was suddenly blue. I could breathe again.
I believe that cultivating meaningful social connections may be my most important life task.
As I reflect on this experience I see how my expectations for a perfect start to summer generated an unhealthy stress response, which clouded my rational thinking and lead me to forget (or ignore) that plumbing is not my forte (and probably never will be).
I am reminded of the significance of social connection in our lives and how it can break through the stress vortex that we all find ourselves in from time-to-time. There is no question about it, we’re wired for social connection. We require it to stay healthy and without it, we, and the rest of the world, suffer (Holt-Lunstad, Smith, Baker, Harris, & Stephenson, 2015).
I believe that cultivating meaningful social connections may be my most important life task. By injecting this fundamental principle into my life I was able to break through my stress response and begin to celebrate the moment.
And that, my friends, is grace.
References
Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T. B., Baker, M., Harris, T., & Stephenson, D. (2015). Loneliness and Social Isolation as Risk Factors for Mortality: A Meta-Analytic Review. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10(2), 227–237. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691614568352