Life’s Earthquakes
by Adriana Persellin | Learning Experience Designer
I’m sitting across from Cindy at the nail salon as she paints my nails, and I think, “I wonder what will happen while my nails are this color.” This is something I think about at every monthly visit to the nail salon, for every color. I can still remember colors from past events, and I’ll never choose them again.
It might seem silly to think of life in three-week chunks like this, but we all know a lot can happen in that amount of time. Your life can change in a matter of seconds. You could fall in love, lose a loved one, win the lotto, get your heart broken. When it’s positive events, great! But what about when not-so-great things happen?
Most of us have experienced a broken heart at some point in our lives. If you’ve never experienced this pain before, then bless you and tell me your secret power. Those who have (raising both hands here) know there is no other pain like it.
When experiencing this pain, it’s hard to breathe, think, or care about anything else. It brings you to your knees on your kitchen floor or causes you to burst into tears when your neighbor catches you at the mailbox in your robe and comments on the weather. Pain like this shakes us to our core, like an earthquake.
I’ve been through my fair share of quakes. In 2016, while enrolled in grad school, I got engaged, lost a brother to suicide, got married, miscarried, had a baby, and sold my house, all within a year and a half while remaining a full-time student, without taking any semesters off, maintaining straight A’s, and finishing with a 4.0 GPA. Since then, I’ve gotten divorced, lost my children’s father to an alcoholic’s death, and have had my heart broken a couple more times since all of that.
Life’s earthquakes come with their scale of intensity. Cut your finger and need stitches? That stinks, but on a 10-point scale, that might be a 1 or 2. Divorce? Death of a loved one? That’s likely to be higher, probably closer to a 10. Your child’s school closes for ten days due to a covid outbreak, but you still have to work, and what the heck do you do with your kids for ten days? Also not ideal, but more of an inconvenience.
These inconveniences are the more minor scaled life earthquakes we deal with daily. They’re not as severe as other long-term, painful events, but they’re still a part of juggling daily life.
I think of myself as someone who can keep themselves together (generally) and get sh*t done (GSD) while also dealing with the daily grind. I mean, I have to. I’m a single mother with two children to care for and play with, bills to pay, kindergarten behavior folders to sign EVERY DAY, and snacks to label (yes, I know), and on top of all of that, I have a job to do.
I don’t have the luxury of boohooing in my cereal bowl all morning. (OK, fine. A good cry in the closet is necessary every once in a while, but you get the point.) When life gives you quakes (big and small) and shakes you to your foundation, you’ve got to hold tight or everything will fall apart, and you’ll lose your grasp altogether.
Would it have done any good when the school closed for ten days to lose my cool and shut down? Of course not. I made some calls and scrambled to find someone to watch my kids. I figured things out, and everything worked out just fine.
Getting sh*t done while also dealing with life’s earthquakes can be comparable to work life. At Studio 5, it means not giving up when we hit hard times. We evolve, learn, and find people who can complement and help us. In our personal lives, we sometimes call on friends or family for support when we hit hard times. Hopefully, as professionals, we also have supportive teammates to help when necessary. The job needs to be done in the end and needs to be done exceptionally.
So how can we take actionable steps in the direction of doing what needs to be done while also dealing with a tough situation? I like to think of it as making magic out of the mess. During difficult times, I need to feel what I’m feeling and sit with it for a hot second or two. After that, I can begin strategizing and thinking about what I can do to make the situation better and do what needs to be done.
Turning a mess into magic and getting sh*t done ain’t easy, but doing so has made me a stronger mother, daughter, sister, teammate, and person. I’m better able to empathize with others because of the difficult emotions and situations I’ve overcome.
I’d even go so far as to say that my emotional strength has helped make me a better designer by bringing awareness and resiliency into my work and using them as fuel to power learning design experiences. Turning mess into magic and getting sh*t done has also helped me approach situations and solve problems with our Thought Partners in a kind, caring, and empathetic manner.
Life’s earthquakes happen to us all. They show us what we’re made of, what we can handle, and what we can’t. Either way, at the end of the day, for ourselves, others, or both, we’ve still got to hold on and get sh*t done.
