My calendar showed a lunch meeting at noon today. I expected it. The project I’m working on has a timeline that can’t be met without it, so I was counting on it. I needed it. Then I opened the blinds this morning. Heavy snowfall overnight and into today means cancellations all around. Damn that snow. My car can’t even make it up the steep driveway in the snow, and I didn’t plan ahead, so I guess it’s tuna sandwiches for dinner tonight. It’s been two hours and I’m still pouty.
Then… something caught my ear. Is that laughter? That’s right, heavy snow means school buses can’t run, and the 10-year-old down the block gets to go sledding instead. I whizzed down the street with her last year and I was 10 again. Then, suddenly I remember the amazing snow horse that my teenage daughter and her grandpa sculpted in the front yard many years ago. Slowly my perspective shifts. I start to see the white landscape of my yard with new eyes. Isn’t the snow beautiful. If I stand outside and look up, falling snowflakes makes me feel like the Star Ship Enterprise, navigating through some kind of space debris. Since this little attitude adjustment, I don’t feel angry and disappointed anymore or, quite frankly, like kicking something. As soon as my expectations of the day changed, my anxiety about the work delay seemed to fade away. My life just got better.