Grateful

This is the word I would use to describe my current state of mind. Wednesday, just three short days ago, was a completely different story. Life is funny. A co-worker and friend (Miss M) says this all the time (she's very wise). Wednesday was a bad day for me. I found out that we would not be settling on our new house the next day and moving that weekend (which would be today). I found out that, in fact, we wouldn't be settling until after Christmas and that we'd have to move the next weekend. This threw me for a loop because I have off work the week between Christmas and New Year's, so moving this weekend would have given me tons of time to get settled. Now, we only have 4 short days. I cried at work. I was so embarrassed for doing that, but it just sort of came out. Then I found out some other bad news that just depressed me, but that I have absolutely no control over. So that was Wednesday... So on Thursday night, I was watching Wednesday's episode of Dr. Phil. It was so ironic that this particular episode aired on Wednesday in the midst of my bad day. The show was about kids with Autism. The first couple had an older son with Autism and he was a handful to say the least. The next segment was about kids with Autism coming home from school with bruises, but becuase of their affliction, they could not tell their parents what was happening at school. I cried and cried about these poor people in these horrible situations. I wanted to help them, but knew that I couldn't.

I kept rewinding the show to watch again and again. I wasn't sure why, but I figured I just wanted to torture myself some more. But then I realized that I wasn't doing it to torture myself. Each time I watched these people, I grew more and more grateful for my own situation. Yes, I had some bad news the day before. But truly, this was nothing compared to what these people go through day in and day out. As I was crying for these people, I was also crying because I realized how big of an ass I was being. It was at this point that I went into Charlie's room and just sat there watching him sleep (I could never do this to Elizabeth because just another person's presence in the room wakes her up and it's nearly impossible to get her back to sleep after that) feeling so grateful that he is who he is. Yes, he can be rambunctious, yes he is emotional, but I am now grateful for these eccentricities instead of viewing them as flaws.

Writing this made me think of a fabulous book that my good friend Bob lent to me (which I promise I will return as soon as I have 10 minutes to finish it). The book is called The Secret and tells the secret to getting everything you want. One of the main ideas in the book is how you really cannot receive anything until you are thankful and grateful for everything. I thought that I had been thankful, however, now, I realize that I was not truly grateful for the things in my life. I know that I have a lot to be so thankful for and that I would not trade my life for anything in this world.