Gratitude

I am grateful.

Do you ever pray for something or wish for something and think it will never come true?

And then you realize, that it’s never going to happen the way you WANT it to, but it IS coming true.

I tend to build a narrative in my mind of what I hope the future will look like. Mine looked something like this: My husband and I have babies and his two children love me and love the babies and we are all one big happy family. Doesn’t that sound nice? So nice! Except it never happened. I grieved that loss for a decade. A decade! Now that I’m older and wiser (ha!), I see things differently.

Accept the fact that the future you were wishing for so many years, is right in front of you. In the past decade, I have accomplished a master’s degree and an education specialist degree in Elementary principalship, we adopted a sibling group of three, raised my husband’s daughter, watched his son graduate college, loved and accepted several of their significant others and friends, and now we love on his niece and her two young boys, and his nephew and his baby girl and her sweet mama.

Holy cow!!! My cuppeth runneth overeth (totally not how you say it). So why am I so stressed out and overwhelmed?! I prayed for this! I prayed for babies harder than I prayed for my husband to propose! And it appears that the last 10 years have been well filled with accomplishments and plenty of joy.

But I am stressed because, in a blink of an eye, one decision can change everything. A decision to wear a seatbelt. A decision to stay or run. A decision to love or hate. In the week’s time that it took me to write this, Thanksgiving was canceled because two of my sisters had influenza, my youngest son ran away for the 9823792487293874 time, and my sweet niece lost one of her very good friends in a tragic car accident.

Yes, my friends, that was all in one week. Oh and somewhere in there, I turned 37. By the way, I have never felt more loved in my entire life. All the loved ones I pour my heart and soul into made sure I felt loved and appreciated.

My students, current and former, along with my school family made sure I felt loved with lunch and a hand-made-with-love birthday cake. My husband and kids all showed they loved me in their own little ways. Each one was special and sincere. My niece and her boys showered me with flowers and heartfelt words. My best friend since 2nd grade took me to lunch and listened to it all. And so many more heartfelt words on social media that I still haven’t finished reading.

I suppose that’s my point (I’ll get to it eventually). Even though my week was tough, and friends it’s only Saturday morning, I felt so much love. That’s what it’s all about.

My life, my year, my week, nor my day went as I planned them to, BUT, I still came out of the week feeling so much love. That’s gratitude, my friends.

I sincerely hope you, too find joy and love despite the darkness all around out there and experience gratitude.

Hang in there.

Love, jes