I had a total meltdown two days ago. It was precipitated by a situation that came up two weeks ago, so it had been brewing for a while. My Rx4JOY website crashed during a hosting upgrade to a Linux platform. I immediately contacted my designer, only to find out that she had moved on to other things and was no longer available. It just made sense to migrate to a platform that I could manage on my own. There was just one little thing standing in my way.
FEAR!
I had taken a web design course in college. I have a rudimentary understanding of HTML. I was building three other websites in WordPress (my offering is diverse; this was part of the plan to simplify) so I already had the basics down. I just didn’t want to touch that Rx4JOY site, for FEAR I would lose something, break something, or otherwise foul it so badly that I couldn’t retrieve it.
Let me state here, FEAR is not a rational operating system! I had already done overkill on backups & downloads, and knew that my designer still had a full copy of my site in storage. None of those rational thoughts could ease the grip of FEAR.
Then I had a BGO (Blinding Glimpse of the Obvious): my site was already broken! It was not usable as it was, and would not be. I sat for a few minutes while my ego digested this bit of information. “Ok,” it seemed to say, “If you’re sure I won’t get in trouble for messing it up…” Childhood issues were obviously at play, but now was not the time to get under them; I just needed to get around them for the moment.
I began the process in baby steps, shifting my existing Rx4JOY WordPress blog into a prebuilt theme. All went smoothly, the links came back up (they had been broken in the hosting change) and the sailing seemed pretty smooth. What is that saying? “Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water.” ::Cue Jaws theme::
I began the process to shift the blog to the main URL. And, completely crashed the site. The blog wouldn’t come up, the site wouldn’t come up, and I couldn’t get back into the WordPress control panel! Everywhere I went, error messages popped up. There was no sign of a remnant of all that hard work. Horrors!
Thank All that is Wonderful for Google. I put in what I had done, and a solution popped up. I was able to get into my files through that window and fix what I’d fouled. But, my work was not done. I still had to get the blog migrated to the main URL.
I Googled that, too. Beware the lure of Google! There may be three wrong answers before the right one. Or, I just misunderstood the directions. Anyway, I crashed it all again. This time, I wasn’t so upset. I’d fixed the last one in twenty minutes.
Four hours later, I was still in front of my computer, still trying to find the answer. I had tried so many solutions that I was losing track of what I had & hadn’t tried. I invite you, just for a moment, to imagine my frustration. It was in this moment that my darling, Greg, interrupted (for what seemed like the 53rd time) to bring me a bite of flan… and dropped it square in the middle of my keyboard. Final Straw & Instant Meltdown!
I pounded my fists on my desk (he had never seen me do that; it’s been years since I’ve had a meltdown like that.) I sobbed, wailed, banned him from my office. His response? A calm, “I’m disappointed in you.” Which set off a stream of expletives. Yes, I’m human. I do, on occasion, melt down.
I also do course corrections. I sent myself to my room to think about it. Greg is a very playful soul, and food is one of his comforts. He was attempting to coax me out of my frustration. He may have been a little misguided in his efforts, but he certainly did not deserve my reaction.
It provided the perfect fodder for a beautiful lesson (so many of life’s lessons begin as Ugly Ducklings!) I had spent several hours agonizing over something that I could submit a help ticket for. Yes, I learn best when I figure it out for myself, but sometimes asking for help is key. Taking a break can be extraordinarily helpful, too.
After apologizing to Greg, I put the problem, and myself, to bed. The next day, I had a great breakfast & took a Yoga class before addressing the issue again. Ironically, I found the answer and resolved it in twenty minutes.
And, the childhood issues got themselves addressed. No one is waiting to punish me if I do it wrong. As a matter of fact, there is no way I really can do it wrong. There are just lots of opportunities to learn and grow.
