Dealing With It (or Not)

So many factors affect the reactions, the emotions, we see exhibited.

My go to emotion is worry. I worry for everyone in my family so they don’t have to! Hahaha, at least if feels that way sometimes. So when the weather report for Sunday into Monday began calling for a lot of snow here in New Jersey, I began to worry. Not big worry, just my usual worry.

You see, snow never slows my husband down. Ok, I exaggerate, there have been blizzards that have kept him home from work. But on the whole a snowy forecast really just doesn’t faze him in the least. He gets up a little earlier, perhaps 3:00 instead of 3:30 am. Shovels out the driveway before he leaves. Gives me a call when he gets there, “Roads were a little slick, but I got here fine. It’s a beautiful morning!” or, “Pretty bad out, you will probably have a snow day.” Something to one or the other effect.

Meanwhile I have been hyperventilating the whole time.

My son, of course, has inherited or assimilated my husband’s skewed view of how to deal with bad roads. He works nights, and he works all over the place, New York City, New York State, south Jersey, Delaware, Phillie. You name it, he has driven to it for a night of work. But night work means I have to worry about him going to work and coming home. Twice the worry! His response is to just laugh. “I take it slow, Mom. I know what I’m doing,” his common reply.

Miraculously, this storm seemed to slow them both down. They both acknowledged that weather was coming and adjusted their work ethic accordingly. My son’s job cancelled, so no driving to Staten Island for him. My husband had nothing major going on so he slept in until 6:00, got up and ate, blew off the driveway and headed in, easy peasy.

Then the texts from my colleagues started. And one of them was all fired up. “Whoa,” I thought to myself, “Here’s an angry go to emotion!” The rants came across over the course of about an hour. We had a delay, you see, but were not closing for the day. I was elated since we had used up our snow days already. Glad to get the day in. But not my colleague. I stayed out of the conversation. Figured it was better to let her blow off steam. Then this, “Sorry, this is what snow blowing a 475 foot driveway alone does.”

Yeah, anger might be my go to emotion in that case too. But all is well, we are off to school. We are getting really good at delays and it’s good we are going in. All in all, NJ weathered another storm and off to work we all go. Stay safe everyone, manage your emotions because ultimately we all need to deal with our personalities and move on!

And anyway, look what greeted us when the sun came up! Lookin’ good Jersey!