The Little Things

The most frustrating thing for a writer is to have the need to write and to be unable to find the words. My head is literally brimming over with thoughts and yet I keep hitting that brick wall. Everything I write these days feels forced and very cliché. I am dealing with a virtual mountain of life changes, emotions, and challenges, and now is the time I need to write the most! And yet nothing comes to me. My main means of coping is failing me.
Everyone tells me to focus on the positive, and of course that is the most obvious tool to use when you are struggling. And yet when those alligators, as I have come to call my negative thinking, come nipping at my feet, positive thoughts only work for a very short time, and then they come swimming right back. I look at the obvious. I have healthy, amazing, beautiful children and they are my biggest cheerleaders. I have a job. I have friends who love me. I tell myself that those things should definitely outweigh the negative. No place to live that is my own, no car, etc. These are the things that swirl through my mind. Feeling like a stranger in my own life. I try to step back and focus on the positive, and then it eludes me once again.
Yesterday was a particularly bad day for this. And then I started receiving texts from my youngest daughter. They were lists of things to feel positive or happy about. Some were serious, some poignant, other downright hilarious. They are a mix of the big things and the little things. The little things popped out at me, because those are the things I forget to think about when the alligators come calling.
There were things like my children’s smiles, our dogs, the people that love me, the first day of summer, food, coffee, breathing, being alive, twerking, coffee, laughing at the stupid things people say, eating ice cream, our favorite tv shows, Chinese food, my nice butt, funny things we have experienced together, laughing until your stomach hurts, bacon, Mexican food, laughing until you cry, cooking pinterest recipes, long baths, thrift shopping, talking about the zombie apocolyse, McDonalds French fries, looking back at everything that seemed awful at the time and laughing…..
The list went on and on, all in all probably about a hundred things on her list! Little or big, poignant or downright silly they are all things that I need to never forget about. When my alligators come-a-calling I need to take them out and lob them like grenades. I need to keep them and add to the list. I copied and pasted them from text to email, and I think I will begin to add to them. To write them down, and to keep them fresh in my mind.
Many times when we are struggling we forget how very blessed we are and how amazing life can be. We search for the big things, at least I know I have been. Where will I live? What will I drive? When I graduate where will I work. I forget that those things, while they matter, are not the essential make up of our lives. Our lives are tapesties woven out of a thousand threads of the little things.
Thank God on that day words did not escape Sophia Rose. I will forever be grateful for the list, and the gentle but firm reminder that the positive is out there, that I am living it, and that my life is indeed rich beyond measure.

Winter Chill
By Karen

Outside the snow is falling at a steady pace. It has been snowing since last night, and there is at least 6 inches on the ground already. The wind is howling and blowing the snow that has already fallen. While it is a pretty scene, there is something haunting and barren about it, the feeling that everything is so still, and anything alive is buried under all that frozen whiteness. Watching from the window I feel so alone and unprotected. It is not just the weather affecting this mood, it is inside of me.
I have been working hard on changing my focus, on trying to make myself be positive and focused. I have so many goals right now; so many things I need to accomplish, overcome, and work through. The only way I am going to do it is to stay focused on being optimistic and to have a plan. But today my heart is just not listening.
Winter has never been easy for me, with the relentless string of dark days, but this one is even tougher. I am alone much of the time. I know that I need to learn how to face this alone time, and as my sister said to even embrace it. I can’t imagine a time that I will get to the point of embracing it, but I am sure it will come. I am a fish out of water right now. I have always been surrounded by people. Whether it was staying at home with my kids for 21 years, or taking in ballerinas, or living in a house with other people. I have never truly lived alone. House sitting for the next two months means I will be alone much of the time.
I know that I can do this, even though it seems insurmountable at times. I look back at the things I have accomplished, and the things that I have faced, and I know that I have it in me to face anything at all that may come my way. I just have to remind myself that I can. That underneath all the layers of struggle, like the snow blanketing the yard, there is life. There are roots that are still growing, flowers waiting to push their way through in the spring and embrace the sun. It is all in there, inside of me. I just have to trust- trust that winter does last forever. Trust that I have the tenacity and courage to face the alone-ness. Trust that even in the coldest, darkest days there is growth.
I am grateful to have this house to stay in. A warm fire going and soup simmering on the stove. I have a good book waiting by my side. I have so much. Winter can lock me in, or it can force me to just be open to what is coming next. All that is required is to sit and to face the fear and the quiet, and to show myself that inside of me is a strength that refuses to disappear.