She Believed She Could

February 19, 2016

A few years ago my Mom gave me this awesome flip book Its called “She Believed She Could” and its filled with little reminders to dream big, laugh loud and never stop believing in yourself. I have, through the years flipped day after day, through the pages. Sometimes I forget and it gets stuck in one spot for a while… and sometimes I flip the page and smile.

My Mom is amazing. You have no idea. I could not possibly have made it this far in my life without a strong, compassionate, independent, loving, caring woman as a role model. She went from living 45 miles from me… to 842 miles away from me a few months ago, but I’ll tell you, she is no further away from me mentally than ever. The last few weeks have been rough on me. February often is. Its cold, its dark when I go to work and dark I  get home, everyone seems to be sick or sniffling and my hands are dry and cracked from washing 50,000 times a day. Humidifiers are running at the house, the electric bill is high from our insane electric heat, it is impossible to open windows and exchange air… its really quite depressing.

I am one of my own biggest enemies. I know this. Once I start to get into the negative space in my head, things start to spiral out of control and the next thing I know, I am upset because I dropped a Tupperware when I am putting it away from the dishwasher… or I missed the trash when I toss something across the room into it. I then start to analyze everything and suddenly the things that sit in the back of my mind start to come forward. Suddenly, I am upset again that the market still sucks and we cant sell our condo, I am upset that Z is in daycare for a too long every week, I am upset I don’t have a muscle up, I am upset that Hubs works on Saturdays and we don’t have that time together, I am upset that we live month to month with our paychecks and are only slowly chipping away at the balance on our credit. All of these things that I/we are working on changing… they feel like they need to change right now or I am going to lose my mind. I get all worked up… and honestly, if you know me, you know when I get worked up… its bad news.  

Then it happens… I talk to my Mom.  She helps me to turn these mundane temporary things into exactly what they are… temporary. She reminds me that I am doing all I can to be the best Mama to my little man that I can be… regardless of having to send him to daycare 4 days a week for 10 hour days. He is very loved, he is squeezed and kissed and played with and very aware that I will be there for him for the rest of my life.  She reminds me that I have worked really hard for my job and that even on the most frustrating days, I need to remember how I got where I am, what I have been through to get here and be confident in myself. Hold my head high. She reminds me that we are not going to be in our condo forever, in time, we will get out. We will get to where we want to be. Wherever that ends up being. She reminds me that I am ME… that I don’t give up… that I work hard, I am confident, I am strong and as she likes to say “this too shall pass.”

Today I flipped the book, this is what it says:

“Its often the bend in the road that makes life worth the drive.”

Life is not easy. Life is crazy, full of ups, downs, lefts and rights. There will always be happy times, sad times and everything in between. That is what is so exciting. It is all a matter of how you deal with or look at each situation. I talk about being confident. I talk about strength in positive thinking. I talk about mind over matter and changing things that you can change to make your life what you want it to be. Sometimes, I need to be reminded of how to do these things. It could be a story I read on the web, it could be from re-reading my own blog, my very own words, it could be from a little flip book that was given to me years ago… it could be just a simple talk with my Mom.

Sit back and take a look at your life if you are unhappy with something. Really look at it. Then think of all the amazing things you have versus all the things you don’t have or want. I know when I look at my own life, even though there have been lots of “bends” in the road (and sometimes traffic jams, speed traps and fender benders)… it is 150% “worth the drive.”