This morning I began painting a client’s fence and ended up spending all day–eight hours–completing the task. And whereas the project, which involved rolling and brushing two coats of sealant on the fence, went well, both the hot sun and the labor wore me out. Seriously, I can’t tell you how done I was when it was all over. In more ways than one.

I’ll explain.

Before I stained the fence, my client and I agreed on a price. No issues there. But we also agreed on another price for me to take down no small number of decorations that were on the fence (because they didn’t want to take them down, and I obviously couldn’t work around them). Anyway, that was the original question–“What would you charge me to take this stuff down?” Again, we agreed on a price. Well, today when I finished the fence, they said, “Now you just need to put the stuff back up, and I’ll give you a check.”

I paused then said, “Let me put my things in the car, and we can talk about that.”

On my way to the car, I talked to Jesus. By this I mean I thought about how I was going to respond. The old me would have sucked it up, put the shit back on the fence, and effectively cut my rate in half. But the new me knew that if I did the work without additional pay, I’d end up resenting this person I’m currently on good terms with. So when I got back from the car, I said, “We agreed on this price for the fence, and that price for taking the stuff down, but nothing was said about putting it back up.”

“Well I just assumed,” she said.

“That’s not a good thing to do,” I replied. “If you’d asked me to take the stuff down and put it back up, my quote would have been twice as much.” Then I added, “As things stand, I’ve done everything we discussed.”

For a moment they didn’t say anything, at which point I said, “Why don’t you think about this, and I’ll be right back.”

When I returned, we agreed–I’d put the stuff back up, and they’d pay me for my time.

Recently I blogged about checking in with yourself before having important conversations (especially about money), and I’m using this as a real-life example of how it can work. When I checked in with myself, I knew I needed to confront. Did I love doing it? No. My inner people pleaser was on the floor in the fetal position screaming, Don’t make them mad. But my inner business man, y’all, was online, ready and able to speak calmly and clearly, ready to let the chips fall where they may.

This evening my friend Justin helped me–how do I say this delicately?–put a dead dog in a trash bag. Obviously, for the dog’s owner, someone I care deeply about, this was a sad event. And whereas I admit it was sad for me when I got there, it was mostly another odd job. Get the dog out of the dog house and into the trash bag. Well, Justin propped his phone up and turned his flashlight on (don’t worry, I’m not going to go step-by-step through what happened), and I said, “I have a light in my car.” But damn if not one but both of my flashlights’ batteries were dead too. Ugh, today is seriously the day of death. This evening I found out a dear acquaintance is in hospice.

After Justin and I got the job done (in the semi-dark), we went back to his house and visited, and it was only after I got home (at two in the morning) that I realized the synchronicity of the dog dying and my batteries dying too. Anyway, I’ve been chewing on it, since the idea behind synchronicity isn’t that one thing causes another thing to happen, but that two related things happen at the same time–and here’s the important part–to convey meaning. So I’ve been thinking about the meaning of the dead batteries.

For me, flashlights help you through the dark. They help you see clearly. They show you the way. Batteries, however, are what charge flashlights–they are the source of power behind that which allows you to see clearly. Well, lately I’ve been talking about changing old patterns (old batteries) for new ones, and I think this is just another way of saying the same thing. Old batteries, old patterns can’t last forever. They weren’t designed to. Yesterday I talked about seeing clearly, and I think it’s important to say again–how clearly you see others is a direct result of how clearly you see yourself. That is to say, how clearly you see your patterns. For example, today my client didn’t choose to directly ask me to put their stuff back up, but rather assumed I would and conveyed this in their full-of-assumption statement about my coming back to do more work. Well, the only reason I could see this for what it was is because I used to assume constantly, especially when it came to money.

Consequently, I got screwed a lot.

And not in a good way.

While painting today I listened to a spiritual-type podcast in which a guest told the host she’d been working on not shaming herself and had just been asked to shame someone else as part of a politics-related job interview. “What should I do?” she said. “Is just makes me sick.” Well, the host said they thought her feeling sick was a good indicator of how she felt about the job offer. They also said that sometimes the universe tests us. Said another way, sometimes life gives us opportunities to step out of old patterns and into new ones. I’m not going to shame myself or others–period. I’m not going to let people walk all over me. Sometimes life gives you a chance to change your dead batteries for new ones.