My Tantrum

Yesterday I threw a great big monstrous enormous ugly gargantuan tantrum. I'm ashamed to admit it, but that's what I did.

It started with a cancelled 5K race. Army Man was going to run the 10k and I was going to try the 5k (my first) with the stroller. Army Man left to do the 10K but called and said that both races were cancelled. I already had the kids packed up in the stroller so we decided to run the 3.1 miles anyway, but run them together. I am not a fan of running, I never really have been. Army Man, on the other hand, is a Marathon runner who loves running 10 miles for the heck of it.

Since I would have been pushing the stroller in the race I decided that I wanted to push it the whole way, so I was pushing 100 lbs of kids, strollers, pillows, blankies, water, snacks, rain cover and toys.

We started running - er, um, well, jogging really, and immediately I was tired. After just five minutes my feet were sticking to the pavement and I started getting a little grumpy. Within the next five minutes I was all out furious that I felt so tired, knowing that this same type of run, with the same stroller, would be nothing to Army Man. In the insanity that was going on in my fatigue I was certain that the worse thing in the world was for Army Man to have to run as slow as me, when he could be flying off, miles down the road. He never did anything to make me feel that way. He was nothing but supportive, but I convinced myself that it was better to suffer alone than with anyone's help. I started yelling at him to just go, run ahead, run at the pace he's used to. It didn't work, I married a stubborn man and he stayed with my pace.

After throwing a tantrum through half of the route I was finally exhausted enough to give up on trying to get Army Man to run ahead of me and became quiet. We reached the 3.1 mile mark (the 5k mark) when all of a sudden all of the anger and frustration melted away and I made the decision to start enjoying the run and we kept going. We started talking, and joking around. I was laughing so hard that between the laughter and inability to breath I ended up making strange grunting noises. Before I knew it we'd reached the 4 mile mark. We stopped jogging and I gladly passed the stroller off to Army Man and we enjoyed the rest of the walk home.

I thought about the whole ordeal later and realized that my giant tantrum really stemmed straight from fear. I was afraid of feeling embarrassed, afraid of not being able to reach my goal that day. I have to admit that there was even a part of me that was afraid of succeeding. (how messed up is that?!)

I wonder how many times we (people in general) struggle with our finances out of fear. How many times do we avoid looking at the check book because we're afraid of the amount? How often do we avoid setting a budget because we're afraid of feeling constrained? How many fights do we get in because we're actually just really afraid of losing everything?

Courage is the ability to face our fears. Sometimes it looks really ugly, sometimes we throw tantrums, but sometimes we push through all of that and reach our goals and nothing can replace the satisfaction and peace that brings. I hope this blog can be a place of comfort and support to you when you're feeling fearful about your finances. Take heart, we've all been there, we've all had the shock when we've looked at our account balance, we've all felt the fear and dread when there's to much month left at the end of the money. Keep working through that fear, don't let it stop you from reaching your goals. It is possible to achieve financial freedom.