At least once a day, someone emails the NestStory help desk and leads with “I’ve got an easy fix I need your help with.”
One of three thoughts immediately comes to mind when this happens.
The first is, “Easy? Yeah, for you!”
The second is “Easy? I’ll be the judge of that!”
The third is “Easy? If it’s so easy, why do you need my help?”
Because even when a task seems simple in theory, life can tweak those tiny details that wind up making things so much harder than they needed to be.
You’ve surely had these experiences. Maybe you went to change a lightbulb “real quick” before dinner, only to discover the socket was corroded. You discovered this when you gave the bulb a good twist, which shattered it in your palm. An hour later, you’ve cleaned up the tiny shards of glass around your dinner table and stopped the bleeding in your palm enough to not pass out, but you’re still driving around trying to find a new light fixture. Only the one you want won’t be available until next week. Which is OK because you called your electrician, whose voicemail just told you he’s out with a new baby for the next few weeks.
Cut to two weeks later, and you’re still eating your dinner in the dark.
Jimin and Myrtle have just lost their first nest before it even hatched. It’s sad, but it also must be frustrating for them. This was supposed to be the easy part of the season. How hard could it be? You lay the eggs on the beach, sit on them for a month, and hatch the babies.
But Myrtle knows better. This spring is her eleventh season nesting in Barnegat Light. Her experience is astonishing and unmatched in the known history of Barnegat Light. She’s a legend who has seen it all. Not a single one of those seasons went as it was supposed to on paper for her in the past decade.
While that sounds traumatic, and it was, there is an upside to it for a wise old bird.
Myrtle’s experience has taught her a valuable lesson-having zero expectations.
Jimin is still angry, but Myrtle guides him quietly and patiently, just as great mates and mothers do.
It’s just two steps, she encourages him.
Step one: face towards the future. Step two: march forward.
And now I have to go. I needed to fix a typo in this reading, but the document wasn’t saved on the correct drive. When I finally found it, the app said it’s corrupted. When I tried to uncorrupt it, it said I needed to upgrade. When I tried to upgrade, it said my device was too old. I don’t expect that typo to be fixed for at least several days.
Thankfully, when we can leave the past behind us and forget how we might have expected things to go, starting over like Myrtle & Jimin is also an easy fix.
This is so sad!