Don’t Make Me Bring Out the Ugly Cry!

I made it through the weekend without getting divorced, sent to prison, or checking into the looney bin. Sadly that’s an accomplishment most weekends since we can never all four be happy at once. I’m really proud that I can say I made it through this weekend without any of those things happening because I added hosting a fundraiser to the mix! 

In February when Nephew got his diagnosis, I did the obvious thing people do when they want to do something to help and decided to host a fundraiser. My first time. And with a  four month schedule! 

Mr. G. of course thought it was crazy talk and mmmhmmed and yes deared me for a few days until I started giving him assignments for people to talk to to get donations or sponsorships and started bringing my own prize scores home.

This fundraiser was my life, and gradually increased my stress level, for four months! I felt called to do it, so knew everything would be alright, and most things did fall into place easily.  There were some bumps and bruises along the way but I mostly remained positive and kept at it for Nephew’s sake. I wanted it to be successful for him. The only real problem was the lack of people signing up. 

But I couldn’t cancel. I told Nephew I was doing this. I didn’t want to say not enough people cared so I can’t help you. I didn’t want to fail. I was confused about what to do. My heart was telling me scrap on, but my brain was telling me scrap off.

Then the whole thing with Blast from the Past happened. Blast was talking about how he just happened to recognize me on Facebook and felt like now he could help me and apologize for how we ended and that would help him. He felt that things happen as they should when they should. Although I was hugely distracted and took a bath in a hot mess for awhile (ha! Read the comments), what he said actually helped me. Oh God now I went and told him he was right! 😛 I remembered that I had always felt called to do this and that with 10 people or 100, it was all for Nephew and whatever I raised was money he didn’t have before. I would not be discouraged and wouldn’t cancel though several people tried to persuade me to do just that. 

And then last week someone did a random act of kindness and left this on my desk. It was meant for my career position but came when I most needed it for my personal position.

I took off Friday to get the last 5 trillion details taken care of and it seemed like everything that could go wrong did. I ran out of time and couldn’t do everything I wanted to so I was beating myself up. It didn’t take much to send me into a crazy, blubbering, exhausted,  psychotic state of mind. Not the best mood to be in when the people helping you set up includes a man who doesn’t understand the attraction of scrapbooking and how I can sit all day looking at paper and what the hell do I need all this crap for, and a teenager who is generally mad at the world or at least the person who brought her into it 25 hours a day. Bird was smart enough to sit on the floor playing on his tablet and didn’t say a word to me so he was off my radar. 

Everything I directed them to do they questioned or argued with me. So finally Mr. G. made a very simple comment and the meltdown happened,  worse than any toddler after a full day at Disney World, complete with ugly crying. But it made him run away and leave me alone which is what I wanted in my bitchy stressed state anyway! But by then I was too tired to fight so left things as they wanted them.

I went to bed late, didn’t sleep much from nerves and got up early. We only had an hour to finish setting up and I was half a second from bursting into tears again when my friend who knew how the church’s coffeemaker worked arrived. She put her stuff out, made coffee, bustled around arranging things back to the way I had wanted, and then I asked her to pray for me to be calm.  And she hugged me and prayed for me and made me cry from her kindness even though I had asked for it.

And her prayer worked! I realized no one would know what I hadn’t done,  they only would know what I had done. It would be how it would be and it was too late to change it now. People got settled, I made announcements, I started walking around and talking and it was OK. People got their scrapbooking on.

Nephew stopped in to have lunch with us, and after I told everyone that his scan had come back clear and he does not need surgery right now, and hopefully never will,  they all clapped and cheered. That was the second best moment. The first was seeing how much it meant to Nephew that I had done this for him.

I did a few things wrong but I did a lot of things right. People had fun, got some pages done, visited with my in-laws, and supported my Nephew by supporting me and my event. I planned this event and didn’t give up on it, and met my goal. I did it!!!!!

I was told I have a year to plan the next one. If I can do such a good job in four months I can do an amazing job in 12. Gulp. No pressure! I can always bring on a full ugly cry meltdown so people leave me alone and I won’t need to get a divorce, go to jail, or commit myself to the looney bin. As long as I can keep my paper, I’ll keep calm and everything will be fine.