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My eldest son is growing too tall for his current snowsuit.  In an effort to secure something for him before he has to bare his stomach in the winter weather, I posted a ‘want ad’ on kijiji (an online garage sale of sorts) asking if anyone had a snowsuit in the correct size that they no longer needed.  I received a reply straight away with the exact thing I was looking for.  The following day, I packed all three children into the van to head into the city to pick it up.  I tried it on my son, and found that it was too large.  Apparently there is another size between his current jacket, and the one I had placed the ad for.  In an effort not to offend the person I was purchasing from, I bought it and brought it home.  The whole way home, I was so disappointed with myself for buying it anyway.  We were not in need of it yet.  Not only that, but when I got home, I found I had another coat already on my basement rack that is about the same size!  I was embarrassed at my haste, and how I hadn’t prepared myself by visualizing beforehand what I would do if it wasn’t the right thing, which I do to help myself avoid making unnecessary purchases.

I posted another ad, this time with the correct size listing.  I received two replies to my new ad, both telling me of stores that have snowsuits on clearance at this time of year in the price range of what I was willing to pay for a used one.  Upon hearing of these ‘deals’ that were quick to disappear, I decided that getting the snowsuit purchased and sorted out would be the best choice.  So, I headed to the shops.  I looked.  There was nothing left.  So I headed to another location…still nothing.  Everything closed for the evening, so I went home with a wall hook to hang the children’s brooms.   Disappointed and frustrated, I became a bit obsessed, shall we say, about the snowsuit.

The following day, we decided to take the family to see a local professional clarinet quartet performance of “The Three Musical Pigs and the Wolf.”  The production was on the other side of the city, just before lunch.  I packed the boys each a ‘bento box’ for them to eat in the car on the way home, and shoved some chopped avocado and cheese in a cup for the baby.  In my mind, I had decided that we should leave early to stop at yet another location of this store which happened to be near where we would be for the concert, in search of ‘the snowsuit.’  As I saw it, it was a case of stacking functions!

My husband is extremely busy right now getting ready for an upcoming four day organic conference where he will be a vendor.  Needless to say, adding one more thing to our already heaping to do list was not a great way to be supportive of his need to get work done at home.  After raising my idea of one last chance at the snowsuit, and having it ill received (for what are now obvious reasons), we entered into an emotionally charged conversation.  After I lost my ability to think straight and shouted, “I know I’m not being rational,” we calmed ourselves down and went through a bunch of reasons why the snowsuit was such an important issue for me.  The list went something like this:

I wanted to get the ‘right thing’ for my son and felt guilty that he doesn’t have what he needs, I felt guilty for purchasing the wrong size the previous week, I felt anxiety over not wanting to miss the ‘deal’ and pressure to rush out to buy ‘the last one,’ and I felt a strong urge of selfishness to have a bit of time to pursue (what I falsely perceived to be) my own desires.

Usually my issues of inner transition are not at all logical!  They are wrought with emotion and carry with them a lot of baggage from my past.  It is for this very reason that they are my issues of transition; they cannot be easily solved.  I had not realized just how many issues I would need to confront in order to give up the idea of stopping at the store.  Sometimes it’s just so much easier to avoid holding up a mirror to our darker side, opting instead to blindly carry on with the ‘business as usual’ mentality.  After some fretting and much teary discussion (from my end), we headed out to the concert with the idea that perhaps we could stop on the way home depending on time.  I feel so blessed to have a partner who fully supports and cares for the wildly swinging pendulum I call my life.

We ended up going to the store after the concert.  Everyone waited in the car eating their food while I ran inside.  There were no snowsuits.