Sometimes life just isn’t that complicated

I have been at a loss…

The last few weeks after running the dishwasher upon opening it I was confronted with a dishwasher half full of sudsy bubbles! I was horrified. Stumped. I had no clue what was happening or what I was supposed to do. I imagined terrible problems requiring an expensive visit from a repairman.

I asked my friend Noni what I should do. She seems to know what to do about pretty much everything. I rely on Noni for this. I have confidence in her. She hadn’t a clue. She said I should Google it, or maybe there was something on YouTube.

I only run the dishwasher about once a week because it’s just me here and I don’t use many dishes so I kept hoping it would go away, magically, that it was just a fluke. Magical thinking is something I employ during the best and worst of times. But when I ran the dishwasher again there they were, all those bubbles. I imagined having to get a new dishwasher and I don’t have the money for that.

Then, yesterday, I sat here thinking. I really hadn’t had this problem before the last few weeks. What was different? I had purchased new dishwasher soap at Costco. It was right next to the Cascade dishwasher detergent but it was Costco’s brand, cheaper, which I usually buy. Hmmm…

For some reason I had the first bright idea I’d had in weeks. I went in and pulled the big plastic container of liquid soap out. It said, “Dishwashing Liquid — DO NOT PUT IN ELECTRIC DISHWASHERS.” Seriously? I have been running my dishwasher with the wrong kind of soap and I hadn’t a clue. This was no major malfunction requiring a repairman or endless Google searches. It was the wrong kind of soap. To say I felt like a nimbus is an understatement. I burst out laughing. I texted Noni and there were a flurry of crazy laughing emojis back and forth. Dishwashing liquid. Today, after therapy, I will get the right kind of soap for the dishwasher. I wish everything could be cleared up that easily.

Or can’t it?

I have nearly had a nervous breakdown this week over all this mess over the European Privacy Laws and the mailing list and whatnot. I’ve done what I can now and it will all be over tomorrow. It has seemed so complicated, and surely it has been because it has been made SUCH A BIG DEAL. And how many other things in life do we complicate, always expecting the worst possible outcome, the most difficult solution, when maybe we are just “using the wrong kind of soap.”

Starting today I am going to look for the simplest, easiest solution to my problems first. That doesn’t mean that sometimes more might not be required, but I think looking for the easier solution first might take us far. In my life I have been one who lived in so much fear, with so much anxiety, and a penchant toward catastrophizing, never imagining there could be a simple solution, that I have spent a good deal of my life in agony. I am going to take a new tact. I am going to try to remember that there might always be an easy solution. I’m going to assume that there is and not panic. I’m going to remember the soap. I think I might save myself a whole lot of trouble.