Gratitude

Not too long ago, I put on make-up for the first time in weeks. It doesn’t sound like a big deal but I hadn’t done it in so long that it was almost foreign. My hands were shaky. I had lost a lot of strength while in hospital so it was a tiny bit more difficult that usual.

A couple of days after I was discharged from the hospital, I drove my car for the first time in almost a month. I needed to go to some medical appointments during the week while everyone else was working so I needed to take myself there. I had terribly anxiety about it. I drive a manual transmission and having lost the strength in my legs made driving difficult too. It felt like I was driving a car for one of the first times after receiving your license.

The other day, I was crossing a busy road and to try and keep the traffic from waiting on me, I thought I would quickly jog across. My legs almost gave out and I almost fell. I’m still having issues walking up the stairs, opening bottles or jars and standing up from a seated position.

The point of telling you all of this isn’t to make you feel bad for me; it’s to tell you how quickly things can change. We never know what is going to happen from one moment to the next and we need to have gratitude for all that is good in our lives. Our circumstances can change in an instant. We need to appreciate the positive; our bodies for what they can do for us, the people we love and who love us back and the things in our lives that make us happy.

Choosing to be grateful for what we have rather than dwelling on what we don’t or what we wish we had can have such an amazing effect on our minds. I choose not to dwell on what’s happened to me with my health this year in a negative light. It sucks, but I choose to think of it as something that has helped me to grow. Yes, it’s harder some days than others. I would love to be a “healthy” person but if I can get through what I’ve been through and still come out on top, I’m a stronger person than I realized.

Our experiences, while not always considered positive, make us who we are. We are all different people because we have all had different experiences. The way we react to these experiences also shape us into the people we are.

While I’m still working to get my body back to where it was, I’m choosing to have gratitude for the difficulty I’m having with the tasks I used to take for granted. Once something has been taken away from you, you learn to appreciate it more. My strength will come back and I’ll hopefully be a better me than ever. I notice small improvements every day in my strength, my stamina and what my body is willing to allow me to do. I'm much further along than I was three week ago. For that, I am grateful. 

Choose gratitude. Choose positivity. Choose to sparkle.