Life

Epiphanies.

I’m a big believer in the idea that a flash of insight can happen when you’re doing the most simple things. Today, I was answering a comment on my last post, and I realized that my life is better because I believe it to be better. In actuality, nothing much has changed around here.

Really thinking about it for a moment, my children are behaving much as they always have - I’m just more apt to view their behavior with more tolerance. My need for them to be perfect to prove that I’m a good mom is gone. My children are their own people with their own ideas. Sometimes, they’ll make good choices; sometimes, they won’t. I know that I’m doing what I can do to raise them “right,” and that’s enough.

My husband hasn’t changed significantly, either. He hasn’t lost twenty pounds or gotten buff or started being kinder to me or started complimenting me more or anything else. (As if he could be kinder to me.) I simply have a renewed appreciation for him and all that he is and does. I look at him with eyes that want to see him in a positive light, rather than eyes just desperate to find flaws in him to make me feel worthier of him.

The drama that is Stepford sometimes has lessened, but maybe that, too, is my own choice to try and view people in a kinder, gentler light than I have previously. Or maybe it’s that I don’t have to tear someone else down to make myself feel good these days. (Although I admit I still speak my mind on things that do go on around here. I think positive view or not, I’ll always have a finely-tuned bullshit meter and no filter to prevent me speaking my mind.)

Shoot, Bill lost his job a couple of weeks ago, and a few months ago, that would have had me in a panic. Today? I see it as: first, time I get to spend with my wicked cool husband; and second, a chance for us to move back to the Midwest or for him to find a job in an industry more stable than textiles. At this point, we’re still okay financially and will be for some time to come. Even if it should come to the worst, we have a couple of different backup plans, so we’ll be alright. (I genuinely don’t believe it’ll come to that. I think he’ll find a job relatively quickly. He’s already got recruiters calling.)

So really? It’s not that my life has changed in any way. It hasn’t. What’s changed is me. A black cloud of negativity that’s hung over me for a long, long time is dissipating, my friends, and man alive! does it feel good.

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