Wednesday, Sept. 09, 2020 - 3:54 p.m.

Last Thursday, I broke one of my Corelle plates.

Now, it took me months to buy a Corelle plate set. I knew it was going to be Corelle, because I wanted dinnerware that could not break. I don't want a whole bunch of dishes in the kitchen. Just enough to host a couple people at a time. But they are more expensive than other dinnerwares. So I had to break through that thinking, EVEN THOUGH I specifically had money set aside to furnish my home, including dinnerware! LOL I kept looking for sales, I kept looking for discounts. Finally, I broke down and bought the doggone set - on sale, with a coupon. But the time I spent chasing a discount probably would have been better spent just buying what I wanted, which I could easily afford. Another story for another day.

So yes, last Thursday, I dropped a plate as I was trying to put it in the cabinet. It slipped out of my hand. I watched it fall and combust into a million pieces. A whole million. It fell directly next to my foot, so the first thing I did was check to see if any pieces were embedded in my skin. Thankfully, nothing pierced my skin - I was not hurt, thank God.

I broke the plate at 5pm. The key to all this was the handyman coming at 6pm to install the closet system in my bedroom.

The back story to that is the closet systems in the 3 bedrooms were supposed to be installed by the contractor. Of course, his raggedy butt didn't get it done. So I had been putting it off forever. First, under the false idea that I would do it myself. Then, I finally got the nerve to ask my uncle to do it. He can handle some stuff but not everything. I was worried that he would hang the closet and the whole thing would come crashing down, as had happened when he did my mom's house. *sigh* So he hung up one side, which took like 6 hours. LOL He went home and was supposed to come back and put up the other side. About a week or two later, he was sick with the coronavirus. So.... Yeah.

In the period in between, I couldn't bring myself to hang anything on that shelf due to the fear of it falling. So the family being sick lasted for over a month. Once everyone was in the clear and I finally had some clarity of mind, I was ready to tackle the closet. Well, actually, I was listening to a motivational speaker (who was speaking from her bed, days after her own emergency surgery). She pumped me up to the point that I jumped up and decided to tackle that closet. I got the hangers ready and put the clothes on them. Then, I started transporting clothes to the shelf.

Halfway through that process, the shelf started to fall. *CRIES* I literally feel like crying at that memory, because it was everything I feared, coming to pass. I HATE when that happens, because all it is, is the fruit of the manifestation of me thinking about the worst possible outcome. I willed it. I caused it! ME! I hate that. HATE IT. Gotta change it! Phew, gotta change it.

So I took the clothes off and put them back on the pile where they had been living since January. Dejected, defeated. Just... *sigh*

Few weeks back, I sat down and wrote out some things I wanted to start getting done around the house. I've had the house for a year and, at that point, had lived in it full-time for 8 months. Knew I had to stop acting like I just moved in and start getting stuff finished around the house. No more excuses. So I wrote my list. One of the items was getting my closet hung. Also the other two closets, but at least mine first since I had already bought the closet system for my bedroom. So I looked at the list and realized I didn't have to keep putting it off. Knew I wasn't going to do it myself, knew I didn't want my uncle to keep trying, knew I had a handyman who already knew about it (I'd talked to him about it when he re-did the roof on my shed in January). So I text the handyman and he agreed to come do it.

Back to the plate breaking...

So the plate broke at 5pm - probably more like 5:15pm. I was already tired and hungry. When the plate broke, I was just totally frustrated. By the time I cleaned up the pieces, it was 5:30pm. Got another plate, went to heat up my food - found out it had started spoiling. At this point, I was like, I'm finna cancel the handyman. All this is a sign! But then, I recognized that I was trying to stop myself from making progress. Knew if I canceled him then, it wouldn't get done for many more months. That would be many more months of looking at the clothes strewn about either my room or the other guest room, looking at the closet system hanging from the wall, wishing it wasn't and that I had gotten it done right, etc, etc. So I kept on moving, even though I didn't want to.

The man came and, in 2 hours, he had fixed the one side (raised it up some more, which I realized I wanted) and put up the other and was gone. I hung up the clothes I had hangers for and that was DONE. Like, just that easy. Done. Period.

I broke an unbreakable plate, did not get hurt and refused to stop.

A moment for me. A moment!

The next day, I had a therapy appointment. I was telling her how I recognized that I was trying to use the plate to stop my progress and had made the decision to not do that. She gave me a metaphor of a plate breaking as the end of something. Like, something bad has ended and is done; it's the start of something new. That really resonated with me. Because the moment that plate hit the floor, I felt something. Didn't put thought to it but I do remember feeling something other than shock.

I really do feel like something in me changed when I decided not to use that as my excuse. Not to keep making excuses. Not to keep excusing myself from progress - EXCUSING MYSELF FROM PROGRESS.

Something shifted.

These days, I'm taking one shift at a time. One step at a time. I'm happy for that, too.

Just wanted to document this breakthrough, however big or small it turns out to be. Don't want to forget it. One day, I know I will look back and see that this was the turning point.

the last - the next