I have realized that I need to be more thankful for the blessings in my life rather than allowing myself to wallow in pity parties. I’ve been reading Life Without Limits by Nick Vujicic. If a man with no arms and no legs can be thankful, I should be able to be thankful also. Yesterday morning, I was looking forward to the day. I was having a nice, relaxing morning as I did some stretches and then read my Bible. Everything went downhill from there.
If you’ve never experienced construction in your building, then there’s really no way to describe it, but I will try. At 8:34 a.m., as I was reading, my heart stopped for a moment because the drilling started. At first, it wasn’t so bad. I put in my noise-canceling headphones, turned on some music, and I could barely hear it.
At the beginning, I always think that perhaps I can handle the noise. I never can. The more I hope I can handle it, the more likely I am to feel like I am actually losing my mind when the noise becomes unbearable.
To understand what it means to have construction in your building, you need to understand a bit about how Chinese apartments are made. They are made of concrete and the floors are covered in tiles. Every time someone wants to renovate their apartment, they need to first gut the place. That means bringing in a jackhammer to break up the tiles and then scoop them out in order to put in new everything.
Perhaps you have seen a jackhammer on the road, breaking up the cement. That’s not so bad, you say. Of course it’s not—that’s outside, and you only need to endure the sound for a short while before you move on. Imagine that sound in your apartment, drilling unceasingly for hours.
The drilling isn’t the kind of thing that you can tune out or get used to. The longer that I hear the sound, the more it feels like they are actually drilling into my skull. Yesterday, after about 30 minutes, I could feel my body vibrating with the noise as the entire apartment shook—not visibly, but I could feel it.
The worst part was perhaps the suddenness of the noise. No one had mentioned anything about the construction, and no signs had been posted. We were just suddenly thrust into the feeling that the building was falling down around us. I was supposed to call a friend, and without the headphones, I could barely hear her. With the headphones, we could communicate, but I could feel myself starting to lose my mind.
Usually when I realize that there is construction in my building, I try to get out as soon as possible and stay out all day. Sometimes I will crash at a friend’s house. The trouble is, I work from home. I am currently having my winter holiday, but since I have a new course next semester, I have a lot of studying to do. I prefer to use my apartment because the temperature is comfortable, and I don’t have to carry everything to a coffee shop and then buy a drink that I don’t really want (I don’t drink coffee).
But construction leaves me with no other choice. Since I was talking to my friend, I decided to climb the mountain while we talked—not the most relaxing way to spend the morning, but I do love my mountain.
On my way out, I stopped at the apartment that was currently getting the renovation. I saw a man inside, and I waved him over. Someone else was still drilling, so I had to shout the conversation.
“It’s pretty rude to start something that’s going to affect all of our lives so drastically without telling us ahead of time!” I tried to speak kindly, but I also wanted them to know that a little heads up would have been nice.
“I’m sorry about that!” The man replied, and I was surprised and grateful that he had responded with an apology rather than just a defense.
“How long are you going to be working?”
“From 8:30 a.m. until 12, then 2 p.m. until 6 p.m.” I was hoping that they would stop at 5 p.m., but at least I would be able to come home for dinner since I had some leftovers I wanted to finish before I left for my trip.
“Ok, and how many days will it last?”
“We have four apartments in this building—”
“Four apartments?!” I was shocked. Sometimes one apartment could take several weeks, how long would it take them to completely tear apart four?
“Yes, four apartments.” He repeated. “So it will take five days.”
“Five days for each apartment?” I asked. The conversation was challenging with all of the background noise, but I really wanted to get this information straight so I could know what to expect. Since I would be leaving in a couple of days, my main hope was that they would be finished by the time I returned.
“Five days!”
“Five days total?”
The man sort of nodded.
“Ok, thanks!”
I spent the day outside except for returning home at lunch. Since I’m trying to focus on thankfulness, I have several things I can be thankful for. First, I’m thankful that I have my own office not far from my apartment. The office is clean and quiet. I share it with another colleague, but he almost never comes, so I have it to myself. I have a window next to my favorite tree-lined road and I can listen to the birds twittering in the trees.
Another thing I’m thankful for is the weather recently. Last week was very cold, but this week is pleasant, and when my office gets chilly, I can take a nice walk outside in the sunshine.
I’m also thankful for some more focused work time. Over the past several days, I realized that my mornings have gotten longer and more relaxed which means I have less time for the work that I need to do on writing and preparing for my classes next semester. Being forced to be out of my house by 8:30 or 9 a.m. is helpful to give me more time for work.
The last thing that I can think of to be thankful for about this situation is that I got to have a nice conversation with my neighbor as we commiserated about the trial of having construction in our building. I ran into the older lady on the street near my house as I was going home at around 5:30 yesterday. She seemed a bit distraught which was understandable because she was coming from our building, so she had been enduring the torture for a while. Shared difficulties bring people together, and I was thankful for the chance to talk with her about this shared struggle.
I would never choose to have construction in my building, but I’m thankful for the good things that come from this challenge. We can always find things to be thankful for.
Note from my later self—I’m posting this a bit late, and I’m happy to report that now that I have returned from my trip, the construction (at least part one) is finished for now! I’m so thankful that I could wake up late and spend the morning in my apartment without unbearable noise.