I just came across a journal I had started about three years ago.. my problem is... I start many journals and don't keep a day to day record..and sometimes (as is in this case) it is a few years until I pick them up again: That being said I want to share with you something I wrote about a few years before turning the big 50!
THE ROAD TO FIFTY (written about three to four years ago..)
"Every day a Friday" by Joel Osteen. I have only been through chapter one of that book and feel it will help me immensely. That is the book that is going to get me through this stage of my 40's.
After selling my car to get caught up on past due bills I feel like I am just in another chapter of this very trying time in my life, and also compelled to write a few things down. There are numerous things I have learned over the years and one major one is that someone is always worse off then you are. Whether it is the classmate who doesn't seem to have as much money as you do, or the lady in the grocery store who has slippers on and three babies in tow. These people, I have learned might just be one thousand times happier, and more at peace with themselves then you have ever been. Why do we automatically assume these people are not happy or that they wish they had more.. more money... more clothes.. more anything? In reverse to that though, when we ourselves are unhappy or depressed.. or struggling we seem to see only the happy looking couples walking hand in hand into stores, movie theaters and restaurants. We notice the ladies that are dressed to the nines whom seem to have it all together. These people we notice, or at least I did seem to have the perfect life.. no worries.. and a life full of happiness and no burdens. I come to realize that these people most likely do have problems and issues to face in their own lives but have just chosen to react to them in different ways. They have chosen joy over depression and anxiety, while I had been focusing too much on the negative and actually dwelling in my problems which of course in turn makes everything seem all that much more harder to bear. LESSON LEARNED
I remember two years ago on New Years Eve I had plans with two of my girlfriends for dinner and was feeling very sorry for myself for being divorced, living on my own, and also very broke. Instead of being thankful for what I did have, I was so focused on the fact that major things were missing from my life that I could not appreciate the things I did have to be thankful for, wonderful children.. amazing grandchildren, a warm house to live in, my health and like I said very good friends to have dinner with on New Years Eve. LESSON LEARNED
That New Years Eve was rainy and cold. On my way to dinner to meet up with my friends I passed a young man crossing the street with a large pizza box and immediately thought "Guess I don't have it that bad.. at least I wasn't walking through the rain to eat a pizza alone on this night" I shared this epiphany with my friends at dinner and they also confirmed this all over sense of thankfulness and we went on to have a wonderful dinner and some laughs. Almost two and a half years later the real epiphany hit me. Why did I automatically assume this man was alone, or even if he was alone,,, that he was lonely? There are so many more scenarios that could have been playing out in that one incident that now I feel ashamed for automatically thinking this man was in dire straights. I do realize now that alone and lonely are two different things entirely. For the last seven years of my marriage I wasn't alone. My kids were there, my husband was there physically, he came home every night and we ate dinner as a family, but yet I was lonely. The loneliest I had every been in my life. Yes the bodies were there, my days were filled, but I still had this overwhelming sense of loneliness. LESSON LEARNED
I will write more another day...from my journal if this helps anyone going through a hard time.. it will all be worth it.. :)
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