“This was a terrible idea,” I said to my husband Rick.
The U-Haul that was backed up to our garage was filled with an entire bedroom set that we bought and picked up from a home in Buffalo, 75 miles away. It’s a gorgeous cherry ensemble – a sleigh bed, two nightstands, a double horizontal dresser, a vertical chest of drawers, and a huge framed mirror.
“It didn’t look this heavy in the photos,” I said.
When we first looked at the photos we saw how beautiful the set was, imagined how lovely it would look in our bedroom, and recognized how much money we would save by buying it from someone directly and then picking it up and moving it ourselves.
What we didn’t see in the photos was that the back end of the U-Haul was two feet off the ground. We didn’t notice the absence of a dolly or a ramp. We didn’t recognize the steep incline of the driveway leading to our garage. The photos didn’t reflect the unwieldy weight and shape of solid wood furniture.
But there we were, with a rented truck full of incredibly large pieces of cherry wood backed up to our house. We had no choice but to figure it out, so we employed ropes, blankets, bungees, our wits and prayers, and we got all the furniture off the truck and into the garage.
It wasn’t like we didn’t think it through first. We loved the idea of having that new furniture and we were willing to invest the time and money to get it. We just didn’t fully appreciate what the experience was actually going to be like when we went to live it.
It strikes me that this is what it’s like when we attempt to live out our deepest values. We like the idea of being virtuous… we love how we imagine it will feel to take the high road, or to accept hardship with good cheer, to show kindness to strangers, or to forgive someone who has wronged us.
Yet when it comes time to do the heavy lifting, we often find that we are ill-prepared. We don’t realize how difficult it will be to remain silent when we want to lash out at someone who pushes all of our buttons, to stay calm and positive when we are called upon to make sacrifices in an emergency, or to reach out in compassion to someone who has deeply hurt us.
When we imagine what kind of person we want to be, we are looking at photos of our desired character. When we decide which values are most important to us - the ones we really want to live out - we are renting the U-Haul. When we are called upon to exercise kindness, forgiveness, helpfulness, and love, it’s time for the heavy lifting, and it’s always harder to do than we think it will be.
But we can do it. We just need to remember how lovely the bedroom will look with that gorgeous cherry furniture in it, and then grab a clever friend, find some ropes and blankets and bungees and maybe pray a little until the heavy lifting is done.
Sending you strength and courage for the task…
🕊 & ❤️
Julie
Julie Scipioni is the co-author of the bestselling novel series for women, "Iris & Lily," and author of “downward facing dogs” also now available on Amazon. For more information, see Julie’s Amazon Author page.