Emotionally drained

This past week has been exhausting. I feel like I’ve been pulled a million different directions.

Sometimes I wonder--what is more exhausting, physical exercise or emotional distress? I’d say emotional distress for sure.

Some people know how to drain the life out of you—if you let him.

I have to be careful to not allow myself to be drained. It’s hard when you want everyone to be happy and for things to not get out of control.

But then I have to ask myself—why should everyone be happy and what does out of control really mean?

I’ve learned the hard way that when I try to control things, I end up in utter chaos and completely wiped out emotionally. It’s hard to just let things go, but I have to remind myself that everyone is responsible for their own decisions and it’s not my job to make their life easier.

Also, just because someone is happy now, that doesn’t mean they will be happy later on. For example?

My daughter is now a teen and trying to find her independence and push the boundaries. Luckily it’s all pretty normal stuff, but it still requires punishment.

I understand that it’s okay to make her mad NOW in order to set her up for happiness LATER in life, but getting to that point is rough. It’s rough on all my relationships.

Just like all couples, I am the easy one and Robby is the strict one. I try hard to be strict, but it gets exhausting to always be “by the book.”

And just like all couples who want their children to grow up to be good adults, we fight over punishments and behaviors and how to co-parent in a world where there is another parent in the next town over who also gets a say-so in my daughter’s life.

And let’s not forget all the unsolicited, and some solicited, advice I get from grandparents, siblings, friends, co-workers, teachers, neighbors, etc.

While I need help, all the extra voices in my head tend to make decisions even harder. It’s like co-parenting with a village, but in the end, I am the one who has to make the ultimate decision. I am the one who has to make decisions that might make my children grow into productive adults or make them become larger children that suck the life out of me until I die.

I am the one who has to keep the ex in the loop while trying to maintain boundaries that don’t allow him to insult my parenting skills or make me feel like I need to defend the way I raise my children.

I am the one who feels the need to explain why I made a decision and why I think it was a good one.

Parenting comes with enough guilt and I’m not sure why I feel the need to constantly second guess my parenting skills.

At the end of the day, I have to depend on myself to come to terms with my ability to parent, my ability to be strong, my ability to maintain my boundaries and my knowledge that future happiness is something you have to work hard for and it doesn’t show up when you lie down and give up because things are tough.

I realized this week, I am a good parent. I’m not doing anything to hurt my children and I’m not going to let you make me think I am because you have insecurities and you would rather blame me than believe you have no idea what you are talking about.

I realize that things may seem black and white to some people, but I don’t see it that way and I don’t have to if I don’t want to. I have to make the ultimate decision so I have to make a choice I can live with.

I realized that there are always going to be people who want to make me doubt myself and there are some people who on some hidden level need me to doubt myself. It must be scary for them to encounter me—and if they aren’t scared, then they must not be living in reality.

It’s tough to be a mom—it’s tough to be a woman. It’s tough to be that person who is supposed to be everyone’s cheerleader and keep things moving smoothly but to also appear somewhat fragile so she doesn’t scare people away.

I interviewed a woman recently and she said, “My only downfall was that I was ‘before my time.’”

She said men didn’t know what to think about her because she was a good business person—she asked questions and called people out on their bullshit.

“If I was a man, I would have been applauded for being a great businessman, but I am a woman so I was the B-word,” she said.

Sometimes I wonder how I would be treated if I was a man and then I quickly realize there isn’t enough money in the world to make me ever want to be a man.

I’m not sure if it’s my quiet nature or if there is something else I am doing that makes people not take me seriously?

My husband always says, “Don’t mistake my politeness for weakness.”

I like that statement. I wanted to scream that phrase at the top of my lungs by the end of this week. To be honest, I wanted to just scream anything.

But most importantly, I just wanted to scream, “Give me a break!!!”

Seriously, give me a break.

I got this. I can do this. I’ve been doing this. I’m pretty damn good at it. But the constant second guessing coming from all angles is going to make me forget that I can do this.

Pretty sure that last sentence was written for me. I guess I need to be mad at myself for forgetting that. I guess I need to give myself a break, too.

Sometimes a near death experience is what you need.

I noticed I’ve started quite a few of these blog posts with the same, “well, it’s been a while since I’ve written…” so I’ll skip that part this time and get to what’s on my mind.

It’s been a while for so many reasons. Robby was in the hospital sick for about 5 days. He had been sick off and on for a while. It wasn’t anything alarming, so we both just thought he would shake it off and start feeling better.

Turns out he had a strep infection in his blood and it almost killed him.

He called me at work on a Thursday morning, the day before Valentine’s Day, and said he needed me to come get him at work and take him to the clinic because he almost passed out at school. By the time I got there, the ambulance was on its way and his heart rate was dangerously high.

The rest is a blur of little scenes of the crowded emergency room, so hearing him scream when they had to shock his heart with the paddles to being stuck in the hospital with lists of tests but little answers.

Robby had never been to the hospital with me and I’ve never been with him, so this was all new. He was surprised how prepared I was for his stay, how I knew the right questions to ask and I was able to handle the nurses and doctors. I guess all my training with Veronica has made me a handy person to have in the hospital.

Somehow through all the chaos I was able to get the kids to and from school every day with the lunches packed, homework done, and uniforms clean. I was able to balance work and life and stay caught up. I was able to get the kids packed up and off to their dad’s for the weekend with no drama.

I also found a way to hit Walgreens at 9:30 p.m. to get Jude’s Valentines for school and make sure he showed up on Friday morning with everything for his friends and teachers. Veronica was no different, and I’m not sure how I managed. I have this ability to go into autopilot in bad situations and this time was no different. 

I had help from a new and very dear friend, another friend I’ve inherited from Robby. And of course, Robby’s other friends showed up and checked in on him . Everyone called him and kept him company when I had to run an errand or go home to get a few hours of sleep and walk the dogs.

And just like everything else, Robby and I survived the madness. But just like everything else, the madness left us with issues to deal with.

While I can’t speak for Robby and what he has to come to terms with from the entire ordeal, I can speak for myself and reflect on anther stressful moment in my life.

I am grateful to the friends I have in Savannah—they are just as good as family in so many ways and I don’t want anything I’m about to write to take away from that. Especially since the one family member I have in town that I needed the most to support us, spent the time being angry at me and refusing to call my phone to ask questions.

While that isn’t a surprise to most people, it really hurt me for some reason and it was days before I could shake my anger. I still haven’t talked to that person, and I’m not sure if I’ll feel like speaking to her for a while.

The feelings that come after I reach out to someone with love and they reach back with petty anger and meanness are feelings that bring up past hurt and sometimes I find it really hard to shake that hurt and anger.

I also realized that for the first time in a long time, I’m really homesick for my real family. Even though I haven’t said anything, I guess Robby was picking up on that feeling.

He surprised me for my birthday with a visit from my sister. I can’t express how much I needed to see her. For the first time since everything had happened with Robby, I finally allowed myself to cry and admit my loneliness.

I haven’t been able to go back to Texas for several years now and I miss it. My parents still live in my childhood home and I miss being in my old room and sharing it with my children. I miss hanging out with my brothers and my sister and playing games and staying up late.

I really don’t understand what has happened to make me homesick. I guess I miss the familiarity. I guess I miss the bond that comes from being around family.

The friends I have now are great and I love them, but it’s just not the same and sometimes I just miss that feeling.

I miss the food in Texas. I miss seeing my old friends. I miss little things.

Then I think back to what happened with Robby in the emergency room. When the doctors couldn’t get his heart rate to level out and the monitors were beeping loudly.  The doctor asked me to leave the room so they could shock him.

I walked out in to the crowded hallway that was lined with gurneys of sick people. I thought, “This is it—he’s going to die of a heart attack just like his father. This just can’t be the end of it.”

Later that night, I thought about what I would do if something did happen with him.

Would I continue to stay in Savannah? Would I move to N.C. to be closer to my sister and the family I have there? Would I move back to Texas? Would the kids be okay?

I have no idea what I would do, and I’m so grateful that I wasn’t faced with that decision. I’m not ready for this life to end—I don’t want to be in a world that doesn’t include Robby.

Life is full of uncertainties. Just when we feel like we have everything figured out, we get hit with something that makes us re-think everything we thought was solid. We have to question ourselves and our motives.

We have to look at what is really important and wonder what is lacking in our lives that makes us homesick or makes us feel unsettled or unfulfilled.

I have to try to understand why I always feel the need to move around and go from place to place and why it’s hard to for me to establish roots.

What keeps me from being settled and why does staying in one place for too long make me feel stuck?

And why is it wrong to feel that way? Maybe it’s not.

Breaking old habits is hard

It’s quiet this morning and I have time to write a blog so I feel like I should do something creative. It’s only Sunday, but this has been a very long weekend already.

I’m not going to write about what all has happened these past few weeks. It’s too exhausting to even think about it at this point. But it’s nothing new…same song different day.

And I’m tired of that song.

While the song is the same—someone continues to disrupt my family—the way I listen to the tune has changed quite a bit.

I’ve been looking back at old journals and thinking back to how I used to handle my personal life, and I’ve discovered an unsettling habit I picked up along the way.  

Somehow I’ve always managed to keep my personal life from invading and ruining my professional life—I successfully finished a demanding grad program with high scores, made a living as a freelance writer who never missed a deadline and now I have my current job and so far I’ve managed to keep the personal stuff personal and not let it run over to missed deadlines or missed days.

I had to learn to compartmentalize things a long time ago. There was a time for crying and there was a time to put on a happy face and be happy mommy and make everyone think we were a happy little family. It was scary to me how good I got at that.

I still do it today. I get hit with a bomb late at night or early in the morning, and I still manage to stroll into work on time every day, handle my work with a smile and walk out without having the meltdown I want to have—you know, the kind of meltdown where you yell at someone who is an idiot and can’t follow simple instructions.

Sometimes I worry that compartmentalizing my private life to keep it from affecting my professional life will somehow shut down my ability to have normal reactions to things that are really sad.

And it makes it even harder that I work in a newsroom where we are constantly flooded with bad news and I find myself slowly growing accustomed to shutting down that part of me that is supposed to be sad.

This weekend, I allowed myself to have that full-blown meltdown where I cry and scream and allow myself to get really angry at people. And it felt really good to get that off my chest. If felt really good to be honest and say exactly how I feel.

I’m so worried about everyone’s feelings all the time that I forget about my own. I forget that sometimes I need to make things easier for myself—not just protect those around me from seeing me very angry or really sad.

I’ve also learned that the person who used to have the most effect on me, doesn’t have that affect any more.

They say the opposite of love or hate is indifference—I believe I have finally reached that point.

Indifference feels really nice. It’s nice to go toe-to-toe with someone who used to wind me up and now not feel anything except pity for that person. But even that pity doesn’t make me feel sorry for that person—just pity that he is his own worst enemy and always will be.

So what does all this mean? It means I realized that it’s time to start de-compartmentalizing my life and trying to figure out how all this fits together so I can’t stop keeping everyone at arm’s length all the time.

It’s sad to me to realize that I have only made a few close friends over these past several years. Sure, I have friends, but it’s not the same close relationships I used to make when I was much younger.

I can only think of about three people that I have made close friendships with over the past five years, and I really don’t see them much or talk often enough.

It’s hard for me to really trust people after what I have been through, but even more importantly, I carry such a huge burden of shame that I worry other women won’t want to be my friend if they knew what my life has been like—or who I really am.

It’s hard to undo the re-programing a bad ex-husband can do to you—always trying to change me and always pointing out my mistakes to show how people won’t like me if they knew I drank wine, watched rated-R movies or any of the other “non-Baptist” things I did.

It seems funny to think I haven’t shook that off yet, but that kind of programming can go deeper than you think and I realize I still haven’t fully shook it off.

So, I guess for me, 2014 will be that year where I reach really deep into my soul and find a way to be okay with myself—okay enough to stop keeping everyone at arm’s length. Okay enough to really believe that there isn’t anything wrong with me. Okay enough to be who I really am and not worry about what others think of me.

As easy as it sounds when I tell my children to just be themselves and not worry about what others think, we all know that is one of the hardest things to do—even as a grown adult.

Thank you for being honest

It’s funny that we feel the need to thank someone for being honest, but I understand why. It’s hard to be honest—with our friends, family, strangers, ourselves. I never really understood the power of truth until I saw how much damage one simple lie can cause.

It’s no secret I’ve had some rough patches in my life. I also think women tend to carry more guilt than men when it comes to life. And I tend to carry more guilt than most women—as least I feel that way sometimes.

I know there are things about my life that some people will never understand. I also know that most people understand more about my life than I give them credit. I never knew how common the problems that caused my divorce were until I started being honest. 

We all have our secrets. Some are bigger than others. Some have the power to destroy not just one life but many lives.

I had the chance to interview former reality show star RubyGettinger last week. She made me realize the important of honesty and how much power just one secret can have on our lives.

If you’re familiar with Ruby’s story, you know that she cannot remember her childhood. That’s the power of a secret. It can make you suppress memories, it can make you hurt yourself, it can make you hurt others.

Some of you know that I’ve been working on a memoir. I’ve been back and forth on it. I decided a few months ago to finish writing the memoir but publishing it as a novel.

Why? Because I worry about my children.  I worry about how they will handle the truth. I worry what the truth will do to others, too. What about my parents? What about other family members? What will people think about me as a person? The guilt and shame I still carry is almost disabling at times.

But then I see how much damage a secret can cause and realize that the truth may be painful for a little bit, but it won’t destroy anybody’s life. It cannot even hurt anyone unless they want to hide behind their secrets forever.

So, to everyone who has always been honest with me, “thank you for being honest.” And I hope you will say the same to me one day, too.

A letter to that hurt child inside most of us

A good friend of mine wrote to me last night and asked if I could help her out. She remembered that I had written a blog about the feelings I had toward my bio dad and his decision to not be a part of my life. She asked if I could send her links to those posts so she could give them to her college-age daughter to read—she’s having similar issues with feeling abandoned by her father and trying to figure out her feelings.

I was surprised when I sat down to write a letter to her daughter how much advice I felt I needed to give her to help her to deal with such a painful part of being a young woman who feels like her own father doesn’t want to be around her. I began to slowly see every male relationship in my own life and realize how much that hurt and abandonment affects those relationships.

It brought up a lot of feelings I didn’t realize I still had. And it really made me look at myself and see how that one painful relationship paved the way for years of self-torture and self-deprecation.  

Combine that with a healthy dose of other bad relationships and it’s no wonder I ended up where I was—rock bottom and hating myself, embarrassed of the person I became.

I realized that feeling “less than” as a young girl, defined every relationship I had or will have. That’s why that John Meyer song “Daughters” is so powerful to me even though I think Mayer is a DB. We all know the power a father has over his daughter, but we don’t always fully appreciate how much damage can be done with an unhealthy father/daughter relationship.

I worry about how my own daughter will navigate the world—how she will deal with the constant “here today” and “gone tomorrow” her own father seems to bring to her life.  I pray the good outweighs the bad and he can turn things around with her and make her realize she’s worthy of love from a man.  

I can only hope that I am providing the healthy mother/daughter relationship that my children need to become “normal” adults with “normal” love lives.  I’m sure I’ve done a few things to screw up my kiddos, but I’m doing the best I can.

See, not all bad fathers produce bad kiddos

Here is a bit of wrote I to my friend’s daughter—maybe it will make you realize something about yourself, too.

Dear Young Lady,
Sorry to hear you have to deal with so much. It’s not an uncommon issue really, but I know you probably feel like most people don’t understand.
I remember when your mom …
I understand why she allowed you to have a relationship with your dad despite his selfish nature. Her brain doesn’t work like your dads and it’s hard to understand how anyone wouldn’t drop everything to be with his kids. I know my brain doesn’t work that way either.
You have to realize that his actions have absolutely nothing to do with you. It’s hard to understand that until you have children of your own. I know you adore your brothers and feel a responsibility to them, but it pales in comparison to how you will feel about your own children.
I grew up thinking there was something wrong with me—why would my bio dad not want to be around me? What could I do to make him realize I was a good kid?
I finally started to figure things out when I was about your age, but it never really clicked until I held my daughter for the first time and I realized there isn’t anything in the world that could keep me away from her—not even for a day. That’s how normal people think. That’s how my brain works. That’s how your mom’s brain works, too.
My advice to you is to define your boundaries so that you don’t allow yourself to get hurt.
…If they wanted to see me or the children, I would gauge the situation and see if it was something that would cause me stress. If it was complicated and required me to jump through hoops or make myself feel stressed or uncomfortable, then I didn’t do it.
And when they just showed up or called and wanted to see me or do something, I learned to say, “Let me think about it.” That gave me time to look at the situation. If they said, “just give me an answer now,” then my answer would always be “no.”
Take time to set up your life and find your routine, then you can decide where your dad fits into your life—you don’t need to fit into his. He is a grown man and your father, and if he really wants to be a dad, he can figure it out. He’s a smart guy. It’s amazing what people are capable of when they really want something.
Just remember, if he really wanted to do what it takes to be a good father, he would already be doing it and you wouldn’t be in this situation.
Always be honest with yourself and don’t worry about hurting his feelings by saying “no” or “I’m busy, maybe we can do something later.” From here on out you have to protect yourself so that you can have healthy relationships with other people in your life.
Your relationship with him is going to affect all of your future relationships, so you need to find a way to give yourself some kind of peace. I highly recommend talking to a counselor or social worker who deals with family counseling.
A counselor can see things you cannot. They also offer great advice and will help you find a way to articulate your feelings and come up with a good plan for how to deal with this part of your life. You are going to have strong days and weak days, and a counselor can help you with that.
You don’t want to end up like me and afraid that everyone is going to leave you and that you are not good enough for anyone—that you are not worthy of true happiness and real love, or that you are unlovable and understand why people can’t love you. You have to understand your feelings are just as important as anyone else’s.
You may not even realize you have these feelings inside you—that’s why I suggest counseling.
Just remember, everyone deserves to be happy. You are worthy of real love. You have to redefine your relationship with people who don’t treat you with respect and real love.
Trust me, your life is full of people who truly love you. Most of the people I am closest with in my life are not blood related to me. I learned to redefine the term “family” and choose my own family based on three things—they have to love me for who I am, I have to love them in a healthy way, and they have to treat me with respect.
Focus on you future and getting yourself to where you want to be in life. It may be that you have to deal with this situation with your father before you can move forward. But once you clear out the bad, you will be able to make room for good. And as long as you carry around the bad, you have no room for good.
And once you start clearing out the bad, you will probably find yourself crying for no reason—that’s good, it means your body if finally letting go of those hurt feelings.
Take care and please feel free to contact me any time you need someone to talk to.
Kim

Escalades, Entourages and Me

I got my new insurance card in the mail Saturday. Robby, laughed and said, “Now you’re considered a real person in America.”

I haven’t had health insurance since I split with my ex four years ago. I’ve been lucky and only had a few minor trips to the ER and a few doctor visits during that dry spell. But what Robby said stuck a chord with me because I was treated differently when I didn’t have health insurance.

I couldn’t get a decent doctor to accept me as a patient even though I would offer to pay in advance—no insurance, no appointment. The doctor I did see was nuts, and I decided I was better off just hitting the urgent care office.

I don’t really understand what happened in our country when we felt it was okay to look down on people who can’t afford health insurance. As a matter of fact, I’ve realized this week how some people don’t think they have to treat other people with respect.

For example, I had to go to the T.I. concert in Savannah last week. I was the only media person invited and I was promised backstage interviews with all the talent—rapper T.I., EVE and Ashanti.

The EVE interview went great—she was very sweet and friendly and her handlers weren’t too bad.

Then with the Ashanti interview, I was turned away before the concert because they were running late. Then after the show, I had to wait for about 45 minutes and had to bully my way back into the dressing room. This is standard and I didn’t feel singled out—I just hate feeling like my time is not important.

Then, she wouldn’t turn to face me while I was talking to her—she was busy fixing her hair for photos. I said, “I guess I’ll just start asking questions and you’ll keep fixing your hair?”

Okay, I know I’m just a newspaper reporter, but come on now. Really?

I thought "she's one of those celebrities who refuses to make eye contact." I was relieved when she did finally turn around and look me in the eye while she was talking. I asked my three questions and left-- I realized I was getting tired and ready to go home.

T.I. still hadn’t shown up and I was really getting tired of being backstage. I started looking around and noticed that there are a couple of different groups of people backstage at a concert.

There was the entourage—of course that was the biggest group there since it was a hip-hop/rap concert. These are the people who don’t really have a purpose but find a way to seem important.

There are the people who are so star struck that every little glance at a celebrity makes them jump around and giggle—even grown men.

Then there are those of us who would just like to see the celebrities, ask a few questions, get a photo or two and go home, and if that doesn’t happen, then it’s no big deal.

I know there was definitely a time in my life when I used to look down on people. I didn’t understand that we have little control over our lives and the paths we may be forced to go down. I didn’t know that 

everything could change with the blink of an eye.

I never would have thought there would be a time when I was divorced with no health insurance and getting government assistance for my children’s health insurance. I never would have thought that I would have to start over financially and have to struggle so much. I mean, things like that don’t happen to good people who make good choices, right?

When you’re broke, it’s easy to envy people who have money. Sometimes I think, “If I just had a little more money in the bank, then life would be so much easier.”

I don’t doubt that’s true and I would be happy to try that experiment, but we all know life doesn’t work that way.

I would rather be broke than broken. I would rather be poor than treat people poorly. And I would much rather be right here where I am than back in my old life where I was miserable and not living the life I was meant to live—even though that life had a healthy monthly pay check, retirement fund and health insurance.

I never thought I would be backstage at a rap concert feeling sorry for the biggest star there—yes, I’m talking about T.I. who showed up very late and struggled to get out of his Escalade while everyone stood around staring at him in shock.  

Just because you pull up in a big shiny new Escalade doesn’t mean you have life figured out or that you are living it right. But, I’ll give T.I. and Tiny the benefit of the doubt and say maybe they were just exhausted from the tour.

I may not have much in my bank account, but at least I know I am a good person and I’m trying to live my life right.

But what’s more important, I now know that just because someone doesn’t seem that they are trying to live life right, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t trying. Maybe her downfall is not all her fault?

All I know is that you can keep your Escalades and the entourages. I’ll take my simple life and my little plastic insurance card. Of course, if money does happen to fall out of the sky, that would be okay, too.

It's time to celebrate

I realized this morning that I hadn’t done something I needed to do. I never stopped this week to celebrate another milestone in my new life—I finally have a full-time job!

I did my typical routine and kept on going, never stopping to let it all sink in. I don’t know why I always do that. I am truly grateful for all I have, but I fail to see the big picture sometimes.

It really is pretty amazing to look back at these past 4 years and see how far I have come. It’s amazing I never stopped moving forward and I didn’t give up even though I wanted to give up many, many times.

I went from trying to fix a troubled marriage to realizing the marriage was over to trying to find a way to take care of my children and finding a way to live the kind of life I knew we deserved.

But stepping back and looking at the big picture makes me realize that nothing happens overnight. I didn’t get into that mess overnight and I couldn’t fix it overnight. Those really bad days seemed endless and there were times when I had no idea how I would make things work.

The hardest thing for me to learn along the way is that I can’t control everything. I can’t know all the answers or know how things are going to work out. I find myself in bed at 4 a.m. in a panic—wondering how I am going to take care of everything.

One thing has been constant in all this madness these past years—everything always works out the way it is supposed to work out. In the end, I really have little control, and most times things work out better when I just have faith and step back.

About 4 years ago, I had to battle with my daughter’s school over a nurse who authorized a physical therapy evaluation in the foyer of the school without my permission—as a matter of fact, I had specifically told her not to do the evaluation. She thought she was smarter than me and did it anyway.

I scheduled a meeting with the principal to file a formal complaint against the school district. After days of planning what I would say at the meeting, I arrived at the school and realized I had left all my paperwork at home. All my notes were gone. All the planning and the script writing and the phone numbers with dates and times—everything was gone.

I started to panic and I thought I was going to lose my shit in the parking lot. My husband was leaving me to go back to Iraq and we were most likely going to divorce. My children were dependent on me to take care of them. I was broke. I had no nearby support. I was lonely. My life felt like it was falling apart and now I had forgotten my papers at home—it felt like the final straw for me mentally and physically.

For some reason, I caught my breath and closed my eyes and began to pray. I said, “God, please help me find the right words to say today. God, thank you for giving me a brain that works so that I can take care of my children. God, please take hold of me today and let the words that come out of my mouth be the right words to help my child. God, please help me.”

I calmed down and walked into the meeting. Everyone from the entire school district that had any interest in the case had already shown up and were waiting for me in a closed room.

I sat down and began to speak. The words never registered in my brain and for some reason they all came out perfectly. I said everything I wanted to say and more. I stood up for myself and my child. I had confidence and the more I spoke, the more I became sure of myself.

The meeting was a success for me and left the nurse and her counterparts in tears and apologetic.  

I realized that day that I don’t have control over most things in my life. I cannot control what others do around me. I cannot make things happen the way I want them to or when I need them to happen. I need to let others help and trust in a higher power.

I don’t know why it took so long for me to find this job—it’s actually the only job I didn’t apply for, it was offered to me.

I don’t know why I had to go to hell and back to find this life I have now. I don’t know why I have to keep 

learning the same lessons.

But I do know that I need to stop and smell the roses. I need to take in the victories and the blessings. I need to stop and take a deep breath and be thankful for what I do have whether it’s a brain that works (someone may question that fact) or hands that work so that I can write or having someone tell me “don’t worry, things will work out.”

So, today is going to be a day about celebrating the good and taking the focus off the negative. The negative will always be lurking. I choose not to acknowledge it today. If I’m smart, I will choose to ignore if more often and have faith that things seem to always work out so long as I don’t give up.