I complain a lot. I whine and bitch and moan about all the bad things in my life. The other day, I saw a wonderful comment about turning this around. It was along the lines of, “Rather than mourn that roses have thorns, we can rejoice that thornbushes have roses.” With that in mind, here are some of the things in my life that I love, that I would not have if it weren’t for the bad parts.
- I have a whole crew of babysitters, instead of just one. This makes babysitting easier for them and more comforting for me, as I know that if whoever I leave in charge misses something, chances are somebody else will catch it. I wouldn’t have this if it weren’t for having triplets.
- I have a wonderful social net now. I have never in my life had this many friends. I have never been able to reach out for help, knowing that somebody will probably be able to step up. I have never been able to have a party or plan to go out and have people show up. Now I have these. I’ve got on a girls’ night out to the movies for the first time ever. I’ve had a birthday party that people showed up for. I’ve had people try to cheer me up when I’m sad, invite me and include me, welcome me. I would not have this if it weren’t for moving so far away from my warm and cozy homestate of Texas to this cold and snowy state of Michigan.
- I may never have learned to slow down and appreciate the joy of playing with a small child if I hadn’t had a child with autism and blindness, so delayed that his toddlerhood has extended for extra years. Having only one, and that one needing so much focus and extra attention, has torn my eyes away from busier things and onto his smaller, slower world, with his simple joys and laughter.
- If I hadn’t gone through with the running program that ended up so badly injuring my feet, I wouldn’t have found out about the hypermobility syndrome and all the ways it affects me, I wouldn’t have gotten the pain treated like I have so I can get back to what I feel like is normal, I wouldn’t have gotten Liam’s pain treated so well so that I could have my happy Liam back, and I wouldn’t have been able to warn my kids about this so that I could help prevent them landing in my boat when they grow up.
You know what? When you start looking at your life from this perspective, suddenly there are a lot fewer thornbushes around.