Am I looking at the calendar correctly? It can't truly be February, can it? It certainly doesn't feel like it! The sun has been shining and the temperatures rising these past few days. My children spent the entire weekend outside playing in the fresh, warm air while I caught up on some outside work. Hard work and fresh air have to be some of the best soul medicine there is.
I like to think that my outlook on life is pretty optimistic. I accept the bad along with the good. (Kevin and I were just talking the other day about how the bad days are actually good. It all depends on how you look at it. They provide lessons for us and help us recognize the good in any situation.) Life is a beautiful gift and I want to cherish and show gratitude for every single second of it. Yet there are times when sadness takes over and I seem to forget all about that beautiful gift. Maybe it's my low self-esteem getting the best of me. Or maybe it's little things that build up and bring me down. Sometimes all it will take is one person saying something unkind, or in an attacking manner to send me into a tailspin. I have been this way for as long as I can remember. I need to find balance. I am highly sensitive so perhaps at times I let things get to me too easily and bring me down. Maybe I need tougher skin, but I am not sure I really want that.
We have been here over a year now and I haven't found my tribe, my community or even anyone with just a few things in common. Well, scratch that, we had a wonderful family a couple houses down from us but they moved out of state shortly after we moved in. Oh, the loneliness has been getting to me. Then at church today a woman that I spoke with in passing once came up to us and handed me a little box with a bow. With one of the brightest smiles I had ever seen, she said, "These are for your girls. They are butterfly barrettes. When I saw them I thought that they would look so nice on your girls." I barely had the chance to say thank you before she walked away. Does she know how much her act of kindness touched me? How accepted, welcome and loved she made me feel? She was the encouragement and glimmer of hope that I needed to find the courage to crawl back up out of this sadness that has been weighing so heavily on me. I hope I can do the same for others someday.
