I am constantly amazed at my children's power to bounce back from a disappointment so quickly.  Just today my 18 year old daughter broke up with her boyfriend of 13 months (yes, a lifetime in teen years, dontcha know) and spent a total of 90 minutes bawling her eyes out.  It was like she went through the 5 stages of grief in fast forward.  What seemed like the end of the world at lunch time is a thing of the past by dinner time.  This made me wonder.  Why, as adults, do we tend to hold on to things for so much longer.  Are our disappointments bigger?  Do they have a greater impact?  Or are we just so jaded by numerous episodes of having things go totally wrong that we are unable to deal with them?

I had such a day today.  Started off with waking up to a continuing snowstorm and no school cancellation (darned City of London!!!).  It proceeded with my youngest daughter (8) dashing from her bedroom to the bathroom.  This raised the red flag for me as she is NEVER up early...always has to be dragged out of bed in the morning.  Turns out she had stomach flu and would be home with me for the rest of the day.  At this point, I know the weather is crappy and I am not going anywhere so I let my son stay home for the morning until the roads were plowed.  I was supposed to spend the morning with my Stager/Designer friend Isabel Gomes.  By lunch time, my youngest has visited the porcelain god numerous times, my son is bored because his sister won't play with him and then my older daughter came home in tears.  Her boyfriend was being a jerk and didn't seem to care.  By the time she decided she needed to break up with him, it was too late for me to take my son to school for the afternoon and she was too upset to go to her co op placement.  Now my afternoon appointment with a realtor will need to be rescheduled.  My day of wheeling and dealing turned into a Sunday with sick kids.  Just as I was on the verge of exploding, I watched my daughter recover from her heartbreak in an amazing fashion and realized there was more to life than trying to control it.  Like the saying goes:  Man plans and God laughs.  He got a good chuckle at my expense today, I am sure.  

 How do you deal with situations gone horribly wrong?  Is the disappointment something you hold onto for a long time or do you just 'let it go'?  Share your stories with me so I won't feel like such a total loser!  LOL