Despite the normal stressors as well as the not-so-normal stressors I would have to say life is actually pretty great. I’ve got TONS to be grateful for, especially my children. I’ve got a handful of amazingly weird and chaotic and beautiful and straight up REAL friends. I’m blessed with a supportive and loving family. I have a job I enjoy. I have a home decorated in art and love and music. I have strength and passion and curiosity. I have self-respect (which, as it turns out, is a very rare quality) and self-love. I have everything I need and most of what I want.

If you asked me 2.5 years ago, I would have told the a different story. I was in a bad place. It was the first Thanksgiving separated from my husband with our family split apart for the first time in 8 years. It was foreign, and empty, and terrifying. I was on my own with 3 young boys and not a clue how I was going to do it. They spent Thanksgiving Day with him. That was the first Thanksgiving in my life that I spent completely alone (aside from the bottle of red wine that accompanied me on the couch) crying in the dark.

I felt so alone. So wrecked. The one thing I valued most in life…my precious family…was completely torn apart. All my perfect dreams of the life my children were going to have were shattered. With that, so was my heart. “Nothing,” I thought, “would ever be good again.”

I thought then that day-to-day life was a challenge to cope with. The holidays…way worse to cope with. The traditions I had worked so hard over the years to build for my children…completely destroyed. Yup, nothing was ever going to be the same.

I struggled for months and months and months. I changed jobs. Took a significant pay cut. Gave up all of my hobbies and dreams. I went from a healthy 2-income household to half of a 1-income household, on my own, with 3 kids. I was learning how to juggle full time work, any semblance of a normal social life I could find, shopping, cooking, cleaning, homework, showering regularly, praying, meditating, paying bills on time, and laundry. Ugh…the laundry. I was exhausted. Running on fumes. Frightened of how much time I had before I couldn’t keep going anymore. It was pretty bad.

I went through a relationship during that time. The not-so-good kind. I realized later it was simply a distraction from the reality I faced. Something to get lost in for awhile. Another excuse. Another mistake. Another massive heartbreak. Another delusion.

I drank. A lot. I thought about running away. A lot. I cried alone on my bedroom floor. A lot. Life was looking pretty unpromising.

Then one day I got pissed off and tired of feeling like life was going to always be an awful mess. I came to realize that shit happens. It always has, and it’s always going to. Then I realized that what had happened to my life wasn’t the problem. The problem was my perception of my life. I was so stuck in a swamp of grief and fear and anger and resentment and loss that I failed to see the opportunities for all that my life could now become had I stayed in an abusive marriage that I knew I never should have entered into in the first place. That, in and of itself, is a lot to accept.

I spent a good portion of 2019 self-reflecting. Analyzing my decisions. Not just recent ones…the ones I’ve made my entire life. And I got to know myself. Like, REALLY know myself. I figured out my personal habits and where they stem from. I realized some of my major character flaws and worked on them avidly. I identified all of the negative mindsets that had been programmed into me. I gave up most of the things that were never good for me. I replaced those things with things that brought me joy and peace. I replaced self-loathing with self-love. I replaced entitlement with gratitude. I replaced resentment with acceptance. I replaced hate with (in the very least) understanding. And you know what…life became GREAT again!

It took a lot of work. A lot of pain. But I got there.

In retrospect, I’ve always had a great life. I’ve always had a loving and supportive family. I’ve always had a handful of extraordinary friends. I’ve always had strength and passion and curiosity. I’ve always had a comfortable place to live. I literally have had NOTHING in my life worth complaining about. But my perspective was so wrong for so long that I never truly realized how blessed I’ve been in this world. And because of my perspective I never even gave myself a chance to know what it feels like to be truly grateful.

So I guess the moral to this long rambling story is this: Perspective is EVERYTHING! Shit happens. Things change. People come and go. Nothing is forever. Accept it. Own it. Appreciate it. Deal with it. Laugh. Cry. Dance. Sing. Explore. Do your best. But NEVER allow circumstances and unfavorable outcomes take you to a place so low that your entire mindset changes. Because it’s easy to get stuck there. And incredibly challenging to get out.

So if you’re feeling some kind of way in life right now and wondering if things will ever be good again, I challenge you to change your perspective. I’m willing to bet that if you do miraculous things will start happening for you. Actually, I promise they will! ❤