Glimpse of a moment in the middle of the over-full week

Earlier this week, the second Tuesday in my two-week hurricane, I let the busyness get to me. It was 4 o'clock – actually, 4:07, – and one of the six people who were supposed to be in our meeting had just come into the meeting, and yet people were still talking about random college gossip.  The slow-motion replay that keeps running over and over in my head repeats these two lines:

Me: I have a meeting at 5 o'clock tonight and another meeting at 6, and another event at 8, so can we get started on our agenda?

Organizer: [Bristling] Why, yes; that's what I was getting ready to do. I was just about to start the meeting. If other people want to lead the meeting besides me, they can do so. I was just waiting for George, to start the meeting.

I keep searching back in my head, wondering if what I said was actually so rude as the organizer's response indicated.  Maybe it was, I don't know.  But it certainly wasn't gracious, and it clearly frazzled the organizer, a person who's taking a lot on this semester, reluctantly, even though they are organizationally the the person in line to take on this job.  

Coming back to not being gracious: I also know that came from a place inside of me that is feeling a little bit overwhelmed by the wave-after-wave of events coming at me this week. They're mostly very good events – some of which I planned myself long ago, and others of which I'm very grateful to be part of. The grand coincidence of timing brings them all together at once, and I'm freaking out (I guess) about dropping a ball, missing important details, embarrassing myself. Tuesday, I didn't mess up on catering or on running a class or on doing all the required reading – the things I have been worried about – but I did mess up on being kind to somebody who is doing a lot of work.  

It's a good lesson for me to remember for the future: that the pitfalls of a busy week lie in my head (and in how they come out of my mouth), even more than in the calendar details that rain down through all the holes in my schedule.