Some days it just feels like you have been hit by a truck. Am I right?

In our case, or more specifically in the case of our house, it was, indeed, hit by a truck.

I have with no level of certainty the origin of the phrase, nonetheless, it seems pretty self explanatory. To figuratively say you feel like you were hit by a truck would mean you feel a negative force or strong negative energy directed at you that creates or sustains discomfort.

In a more literal sense, or more specifically with our house, it means, a roll off dumpster truck without the e-brake on, rolls off another property, through your driveway and yard, aimlessly and without a driver, where your kids were playing 20 minutes earlier, crashes into the foundation of your home, a sizable chunk is blown off and your well head ripped out of the ground, until said truck finally stopped, because it runs into a tree in your backyard. Phew, that was a mouthful.

It seems that many of us are having these difficult days, where we feel that figurative truck crashing into us and leaving us uncomfortable or quite possibly, even damaged. Maybe I just think that way because I’m in mental health and thus, my perspective could be professionally skewed. Or maybe, there is something to it and I/we need to acknowledge that life is hard right now and dodging figurative dumpster trucks is getting to be more and more difficult.

I’m guilty in my line of work offering the ever frustrating feedback that, even when days are difficult or times are tough, how can we find the silver lining, because it’s fundamentally a bad idea to foster a continued sense of hopelessness, right? So, in the aforementioned example, the silver lining is…no one was hurt. It could have been worse. Both of which are so incredibly true. Instead of calling our insurance company and navigating the world of finding a contractor willing to fix our house, I could be navigating hospital visits or God forbid, even worse.

The very busy contractor that found time to visit with us let us know that an engineer would need to provide feedback on ways to complete the repair in order to preserve the integrity of the foundation, which he is able to do, but indicated to us that the repair inevitably would not look like the original foundation. In his words, it would look like a “patch job.”

I’m going to admit something. I was mad at first. I was really mad. I believe my narrative went something like, “Why us? Why in the hell would something so freaking random happen to us? What did we do to deserve this?”

…but then something strange happened to change that narrative. When you either literally or figuratively get hit by a truck, it is the people around you that change that narrative and that is certainly the case for us. Do you know how hard it is to stay mad or stay in a place of anger and self pity, when you have multiple neighbors and friends and family, offer for you to stay in their homes? It is besides the point that the interior of our home was actually fine, but they were aware of the inconvenience of not having access to water due to the damaged well, and offered up their own homes. We were able to take showers and do our laundry because so many were willing to help.

Sometimes the process of going through something really does allow you to see the silver lining and helps to take you from a place of pity to a place of appreciation. To go from being consumed with our own entitled experience to understanding and reflecting on the way in which we were rallied around.

Our foundation took a hit and it will get fixed, just as we, as people, take figurative “hits” every single day. It is as though we are in a constant state of repair and although we also won’t look the same, the foundation of who we are is indeed, still the same. After all, aren’t we all just a “patch job” in human form, with remnants of our historical “hits” throughout our lives?

So, if you are feeling like you’ve been hit by a truck, you can feel angry for a bit, but don't lose the ability to see the silver lining AND be sure to let someone know, because it is the people around you that can soften the blow.