The Pebble & The Shoe

The pebble in the shoe. We've all heard this analogy before. We've used this example to try and prove a point. Last week my boss was having me pour over invoices/financials, trying to find $18.68. I have no idea how long I had been working on it when he laughed at his insistance & said, "I know ! That's about the price of lunch." I chuckled, let him know, "yes it's important, but he's kind of like a rock in my shoe". He looked surprised then said, "don't you mean a pebble?" To which I replied, "noooo...I'm pretty sure you feel like a ROCK right about now"..haha

I love this analogy because it speaks so much about life. Let me share a little about me. About 9 years ago I was diagnosed with Ocular Histoplasmosis Syndrone. You get this from bird and bat droppings in the air. You breathe it in through your lungs...and most people get it as a form of pneumonia..but for the wonderful 5% of the population like me, it goes to your eye. Surgery....then several dye treatments later(similar to chemotherapy where they put dye in your arm & as it passes through your eye..they zap the bad blood vessels) they finally got it under control, after about a year. By that time, I had lost all my center vision. The best way to describe it is, if I was looking at you and closed my right eye, I would see the outline of you, but it would look like someone took their thumb and "smudge out" your face. I can't tell you what it's like to loose the major use of an eye, after living with two for about 39 years. Basically...is sucks.

Today....my eye was MY pebble. I had to drive to work..in the dark (because of the lovely, NO TIME CHANGE YET. It's difficult to enough to drive at night...but add cars going 75 miles an hour...only headlights coming your way...no sense of depth perception (how far away they are, etc...), changing interstates 4 times...my pebble quickly became a ROCK !! I got mad..then sad...then frustrated...vulnerable...scared....pretty much every emotion you can feel in one 40 minute drive to work.

Then I realized on my way home how much we all have our own pebbles. Things that get in our shoe. First..it's just there. Then is starts to rub a little. It seems like the longer it's there..the sharper it becomes. It gets to the point where you can think of nothing else. Maybe it's the pebble of unforgiveness, pride, hurt, anger, doubt, fear..maybe you have your own "ailment". If it's something you can fix...sit down...take the time to figure it out and get the pebble out of your shoe so you can begin to enjoy life again. If it's something you can't remove...like me...do what I'm choosing to do. Be thankful for all the things you do have. Before long...that ROCK will turn back into a pebble in no time.