Have you ever been delayed and raged internally? Me too. It’s time to be thankful though. I’ll explain.
It started with my laptop the week before.
I accidentally closed the lid onto the charging cable connector. Result? Cracked screen.
A few days later, while my laptop was being repaired, I prepared for a trip to another town to visit my son, where he’s now living with his dad. He was starting his first year at his chosen college, so I wanted to be close by for his first week.
On Monday morning, I turned the car’s ignition on. Completely dead.
I swore. Loudly. I opened the bonnet, having no idea what I was looking at. I’m as skilled at car mechanics as Stevie Wonder is at painting the Sistine Chapel.
Roadside assistance diagnosed a battery drain and advised me to take it to my local garage. They could fix it in three days. My trip was off.
I’d been there for all my son’s firsts growing up. Now I wasn’t going to be there.
After ten minutes and a cup of tea, I remembered I’d left a key behind my concrete Buddha for my builder. I gently slid Buddha by his shoulder and his head fell off!
WTF?
This concrete Buddha had peacefully faced east for about three years but now decided, “On Monday, I will lose my head.”
Exasperated, I then decided to hoover. Afterwards, the power button didn’t work! Eventually, I had to remove the rechargeable battery to turn it off.
Later that evening, I switched on my orange retro lamp. Both bulbs blew!
I replaced them. Still dead.
I spoke to the ceiling.
“Universe! What?!”
At 11pm, I finally went up to bed and switched on the hallway ceiling light. The bulb blew.
YOU’VE GOT TO BE JOKING!!!
I grabbed my teenager’s bedside lamp temporarily. The bulb blew.
I’m not making this up.
I sighed. Tomorrow is another day. However, Tuesday had also “got the memo”.
At about 3:30am I woke and reached for my phone to check the time. Dead.
I tried the charger. Nothing. Checked the cable. Nothing. Tried turning it on and off. Nothing.
I panicked. No contact!
Universe! Why!?
And Tuesday’s memo involved “Tsunami Rain”.
Later, I pulled on my boots, rainmac and big Australian hat and walked twenty minutes into town. I arrived at the phone shop looking like I’d just swum the English Channel!
After two hours, my phone was sent away for repairs. I had to buy a cheap temporary phone.
As I walked home, the sun slid out. A full-on, cornea-blinding, summer sun!
I reflected on the ridiculousness of the previous twenty-four hours. And then I thought:
Burnt Toast.
The Burnt Toast Theory:
Every time you burn your toast, miss an exit, miss your flight, or get stuck in traffic, you’re actually being delayed for a reason.
You are being redirected to a different path. What feels like an inconvenience is actually protecting you from something unseen. Even if you don’t get where you wanted to go, you will always end up where you are meant to be. Trust the process.
So, what was I being protected from?
The three lightbulbs blowing, the Hoover having a menopausal breakdown, Buddha’s head falling off, my laptop breaking and my phone dying hadn’t delayed my journey.
So, what was going on?
I felt guilty about not being there for my son, as though I’d let him down. I would have spent the day working from home while catastrophising about his new independence.
Instead, everything started breaking around me.
I had a Hoover to try to fix, light bulbs to replace, a Buddha’s head to stick back on, my phone to get repaired and work to do.
The comedic chaos gave me something to focus on. And, while I was distracted by everything going wrong, my son was busy, coping fantastically in his new life.
My ex-husband was driving him into college each morning before work, but I was worried about him getting the train home alone. He is neurodiverse and had been home educated since 2020, so he’s basically lived in his bedroom for the past six years!
In the evening he told me, “I’m not a baby. It was all good!”
And perhaps that was the Burnt Toast.
I was asking, what was I being protected from?
But perhaps I wasn’t being protected. Perhaps I was being shown!
My son is becoming independent. I’ve spent all his 16 years protecting him, helping him, consoling him, teaching him life lessons and looking after him when he was ill.
But this was his new independence. Without me. And he was fine!! My son didn’t need me there with him.
Perhaps the universe was saying to me: “He’s capable.” And he is. He’s always been a wise old man living inside a child’s head.
So I realised, Burnt Toast isn’t always about delays or missing a disaster. Maybe sometimes we’re being forced to see something instead.
He’s a big, hairy, deep-voiced, opinionated young man.
And he’s going to be alright.
As parents, we have to accept that our children grow up and we have to hope that we’ve taught them enough to survive life’s adventures. It’s hard.
But this was my Burnt Toast.
A delay, that helped me realise something very important about my son’s new chapter in life.
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