Sometimes that happens!

I use the phrase “Sometimes that happens” often enough that when the play-doh factory broke, one of the little boys I nanny for, who was 3 at the time, turned to me and asked, “Does that happen sometimes?” I answered in the affirmative and we went back to playing.

Side note: I’m thinking this might make for a great children’s book. I’d call it Sometimes That Happens, team up with a local artist, and include a variety of kid-related topics all ending with the catch phrase: Sometimes that happens!

Here are a couple of things I’ve experienced over the past week that happen sometimes:

– Your stint as Movie Captain with the online platform Gathr becomes more than you bargained for when you’re forced to field a wealth of confusion after they email your ticket holders about a change in venue to a theater located 2,500 miles away. Sometimes that happens!

– After finally deciding that no, you will not drive 4-hours south directly following a 4-day camping trip with friends in hopes of seeing the full solar eclipse and you’re perfectly happy to see the 90% visible from Missoula, you change your mind after listening to a NASA historian give a talk about the eclipse at your local library, where he offers the analogy that the difference between seeing a partial vs. a total solar eclipse is the difference between reading about chocolate and eating it. Sometimes that happens!

I find this phrase incredibly helpful and use it often throughout the day. It helps me to not get bogged down in my set expectations, plans, or attachments to how I think things “should” be. And it’s a work in progress, of course, too. Some things are easier to transition along with than others.

As I often say: The practice continues!