squirrel

In one of our former houses, we were replacing a light fixture in the kitchen.
We had taken out the old broken light fixture, and were waiting to get a replacement, but couldn’t find one that we liked for that space.
So there was an exposed electrical box in the ceiling.
We were working on it.

Around that time, I kept hearing scuffling noises in the attic.
Squirrels
We kept finding them, getting them out of the attic, but we could not find how they were getting in, so it took some time to fully get rid of them.
We were working on it.

But it was super annoying, and I was frustrated with the whole process.

One day I was cooking in the kitchen, hearing the scuffling above my head.
They were back.
*Eye roll*
‘Can we please get them out of our attic? Now, please?’
‘Who knows what wires they are gnawing at anyway? That could be dangerous. They could cause serious issues.’
Grumble, grumble inside my head…

I swear, at that very moment I was grumbling those words, little sticks and leaf remnants came floating down through an opening by the electrical box above me.
Onto my head.

Thanks a lot, squirrel!

I was not amused.

It was one of those moments, though, where you really are mad,
Yet you have to laugh because the whole situation is absolutely ridiculous.

It was almost as if it was a wake-up call saying that the things that I was so frustrated with at the time were really nothing to get that worked up about.
I mean, what was I going to do?
Go up in the attic and fight the squirrels?
Really?
(I kinda wanted to, honestly.  Let’s be real.)

Plenty of situations in life are frustrating.
And there always will be those situations.
Days will sometimes stink and things will go wrong.
Sometimes we can have some control over circumstances, and sometimes we simply won’t have any control over them.

But I have control over me and how I handle them.
I can do what I can do, have a good attitude about it.
Or
I can get angry and stew over the negative inside my head,
And have a squirrel drop sticks and leaves on me.

It’s one of those lessons that you try to teach your children,
Yet need to constantly work on as an adult
All the time.