I just realized that I’ve made a horrible and irreversible mistake. I’ve booked my entire family to drive a full day (with a toddler) to stay in an Airbnb for a full week, centered around an event that is actually happening the week before we arrive.
I realize that my ADHD probably played some role in this, but having an explanation doesn’t really stop me from calling myself every hurtful and inappropriate synonym of the word “stupid”. It’s only full blast inside of my head and it’s inescapable.
I can feel the absolute, white-hot, nuclear rage boiling up inside of me. I am seething with self-hatred right now…this realization has just ruined my entire summer, and rendered months of difficult preparations and thousands of dollars of travel plans completely pointless.
If anyone has some kind words, I could really use them right now as I’m definitely supplying myself with a fair amount of hateful, abusive, and violent self-talk.
I literally cannot believe how stupid I feel and how broken my brain is. I am drowning in shame and embarrassment right now.
I’m here to offer a small story that happend a few years ago.
On one summer day I was working at a hotel reception desk. It was the weekend of the Hungarian F1 championship, the hotel was booked to the brim, we couldn’t house an extra mouse, even if we wanted to.
The day before the event it was incredibly hectic, arrivals every minute, all the guests are tired and some are frustrated by the inconveniences of travel. Hard day for all involved.
In the afternoon a group of Greeks show up. We start checking them in, scanning passports, allocating rooms… wait a second, there’s more people in front of the desk than on the ledger. Well, that’s awkward. We find the guys not on the list and break the news. They swear they have a reservation, a friend of theirs said she’s found rooms when even a traveling agency couldn’t so they came. We believe them, but they are still not on the list. My partner expands the search on a hunch, and we find the reservation. So they made one. For the same day next year. Normally we’d just move the reservation and be done with it. But that day, we didn’t have an empty dining chair, nevermind a room. Neither did any of our nearby sister hotels. The entire city was booked for that weekend.
In that absolute rollercoster we could give them one ray of hope: we had an unconfirmed reservation, that may or may not show. So my manager made the decision to give the room to the Greeks if the other group didn’t show by 6pm. They didn’t, and thus we could house everyone.
Moral for me was that even when all has gone off the rails, usually there’s a solution. It may all seem fucked right now, but when you calm down, you might find ways to salvage the situation.