Reminder for the new year

Our van door wouldn’t shut all the way the other day. It wouldn’t latch when it closed so the interior lights would stay on and the buzzing wouldn’t stop. It was annoying, frustrating, and a huge bummer! I really didn’t have time to get it into the shop and I had to cancel a couple of appointments because I was afraid of having a dead battery, not to mention it was probably unsafe.

My husband was more angry than I was. He focused on it and said something like “why can’t we catch a break?!” I looked at him and said “are you kidding me right now? We caught the biggest break of the year. Theodore is healthy!” (refer to “the waiting” blog)

The van door is just a door. It’s fixable. Yes, it’s inconvenient, but it’s manageable. I had already figured out how we would get by for a few days if we had to bring it to the shop, but thankfully we brought it to “grandpa’s fix it shop” and we haven’t had a problem since. As my husband sat there with his glass half empty and leaking…I sat there with a full glass.

Perspective.

I know that I have written about perspective before but as the new year is upon us I felt it was a good time to remind everyone that we DO have a choice.

We may not have a choice regarding what happens to us in our life but we DO have a choice on how we are going to react to it. I could have swore and marched around my house angry, but I didn’t. I could dwell on the fact that we have a child with a life threatening condition and how “unfair” that is. I could look around at all of the “perfect” families and let jealousy take over. For the record, I know that NO family is perfect. Behind that one perfect photo on social media is an entire camera roll of imperfections. We all have them, but some just hide it or choose not to be as transparent.

Sometimes life really does suck and some days are worse than others. I hate (and we don’t say hate) that I have to worry about how we are going to care for Christopher when we are older and can no longer carry him up and down the stairs. I hate that there is the possibility of someday walking out of the hospital without him. I hate that I have to worry about an illness spiraling out of control and taking his bright light from us. But I can’t dwell on that. Well, actually I could…but I choose not to. We weren’t given a choice on the life we are currently living, but we can choose on how to react.

I will always choose joy. I choose to find the positive. I choose to have a glass half full. I choose to find JOY in the JOurneY.