This is what popped out from Ann Randolph’s writing prompt this morning: I love it when…
I love it when I wake up in the morning and you’re still breathing, and Shelby’s breathing, and I’m alive for another day.
We’ve been through so much the last few years—too much—and the challenges continue. I don’t ask for much. Another day gives me much to celebrate.
A favorite Haiku:
“Since my house burned down
I now own a better view of the rising sun”
This is how I live. Whether ashes are all that’s left around me, I seek out the one thing, the anything, the almost nothing, and say thank you. Gratitude is the only way I know to live.
I began my journey with gratitude decades ago, long before I ever saw a book written or heard a talk about the importance of gratitude. I was alone in a new town, newly separated from my husband of 12 years, and starting over. I took myself to a movie, my first time alone in a theater. And as I sat by myself, depression arrived with her seductive pull to sink down, down,down. I was desperate to not let her drag me into her quicksand of self-destruction.
Okay, I said to myself. Let’s find something, anything. I said, “I’m grateful I can see.”
The next voice said, “But you’re blind as a bat.”
I countered, “Then I’m grateful for glasses.”
And, so it started, my journey in finding happiness despite the storms.
I’m so glad I did because the storms kept on coming and depression was more than willing to seduce me into her womb of self-destruction.
Not long after my first time in a movie theater, I was a passenger in an SUV on Interstate 10. The car to our left slammed into the front of ours, sending us careening back and forth across lanes perpendicular to the way our car should have headed. When the car began to tilt to the left, I heard thisthought, “I could really be hurt.” That’s the last thing I recall until I was aware the car had stopped moving, we were upright, and all the windows had been blown out, and with them, the car’s contents. We also would have been thrown out had we not worn our seatbelts.
The first voice greeting us was not one of concern. Instead, a highway patrolman screamed through his bullhorn, "Pull your car to the side of the road."
The driver clicked on the engine and pulled our car over. I opened the door, and was astonished to find my classes on the ground next to us. A miracle. The gem of gratitude in the midst of what we’d just gone through. I later learned that our car had flipped into the air twice and slammed down to the ground twice.
An ambulance arrived and took us to the emergency room of Desert Regional Medical Center, the best trauma facility in the area. They offered me pain medication. I refused, certain that the pain I felt wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. The voice of my soon-to-be ex-husband was in my head saying he didn’t think I had much pain tolerance. Only after the X-rays showed three broken ribs in my back did I allow them to give me somethingfor the pain.
I returned home, battered and bruised, barely able to move. My new outfit filled was with holes. Within a few days, my body was black and blue, and I developed bronchitis. Every cough tortuous to my broken ribs. Maggie, my Golden Retriever, put her nose on mine and as her eyes widened, I swear I could hear her say, “Are you going to die?”
I was alone with my pain when depression, who’d been hanging around anyway, turned on her major seductive charms, enticing me with her bad advice destined to give her power. “Stay in bed all day. Don’t do anything for yourself. It’s okay to sleep. It’s okay to feel sorry for yourself. Make sure you eat lots of sugar, you don’t want to eat anything healthy. Don’t reach out to friends. Stay alone in bed in a darkened room.”
But I’d been depressed before, and I recognized her lies. I saw her for what she was— a seductress and a liar—and chose to do the opposite of everything she told me.
I dragged myself to the market for food, each step like walking through thick sludge and glue. But I kept walking. The pain allowed me to purchase only one or two small things. Most often, I called a local restaurant and picked up dinner. I called friends who loved me, read books that inspired me, and wrote uplifting messages to myself even when I wasn't in a place where I believed a word I said.
And eventually, I did believe. And ultimately, I began to heal. Never the same, but strengthened in new ways.
We never fully mend from our wounds. They always leavepieces of themselves. And they’re either lifelong challenges or gifts to remind us of what we’ve been through and how strong we are.
There have been many more challenges since that car accident. Some much worse. But even so, the foundation of gratitude I laid down decades ago gave me a roadmap to remember when I need to find my footing and forge a new path.
This is so heartfelt and thought provoking. I know you have been through so much and reading it like this is like taking a dose of inspiration. I’m so glad you had loving people and a beautiful dog and the courage to persevere through such challenging times. You are someone to be admired (so is your writing).
You have always been my teacher and my inspiration. You offered me support even when you needed some yourself. I love you!