I know there are many of you out there who probably feel the same way, like there is some cosmic force out there getting a really good laugh at your expense. Honestly though, what should we expect? Life isn't suppose to always go our way. If it did, how would we know what to appreciate? The bad things are almost as important as the good ones. The biggest thing that we can teach ourselves is how to handle those situations. What happened that got you to this point? How can we turn it into something we can benefit from? We can make the most out of even the very worst moments in our lives if we just show ourselves how to keep things in perspective.
Sometimes I sit down and I try to process who I was before I met my husband. It's in those moments that I see how truly unhealthy my life was. After meeting him it finally registered with me all of the things that I was doing wrong. How a bad attitude and a lack of effort can poison not only a relationship, but everything around you. I saw how important it was to pay attention to every moment, every word, every choice. It was my neglect to pay attention, my inability to see cause and effect, that caused me to fail. I was determined not to let that happen to me, to us, ever again. I decided that I would try to see the opportunity in every situation, to recognize why this was happening and how we could allow ourselves to see things from every possible angle.
For many years in the beginning of our marriage, most of our problems were financial. Nowadays, whose problems aren't? It was a horribly trying time and there were days when we felt so dejected it was all we could do to not breakdown. We learned a lot from each other in that time. In the midst of the struggle, we learned how to properly communicate to one another. We learned what things were worth fighting over and which things were just not that important on the grand scale. We learned to see how sometimes the other persons anger was really just frustration or pain and that instead of yelling back, we needed to soothe. The most important thing that we got from that time was that at the end of the day, this person is all you can really count on; they are your constant. No one in this world will ever be able to truly understand the things you are going through the way that they can. It is also the reason that makes them the easiest person to take it out on. I have seen that happen to so many couples. Couples who let their struggles and problems drive a wedge between them and the one person who can really help. Our struggles helped us define the foundation for our marriage. Cause and effect.
As the years passed, the problems came and went. We learned to roll with the punches, to understand that it was only for a short time, that good times would come again. After all, we always had each other. Then the worst thing possible happened, my husband got laid off. There was no warning, we didn't even see it coming. He was asked the previous day to report to a hotel in the morning, where he was then given his papers and severance package. It was all kind of surreal. We were suddenly faced with this mountain of a situation that we weren't sure that we could handle. We stayed firm though. We looked at our life and where it was heading and realized that maybe the whole thing was a blessing in disguise, maybe this was our chance to make a change. Unable to find a job where we were, my husband applied in NY, where I was from. He was offered the first job he applied for. So we went. We moved our lives 1300 miles away in the hopes that it would be a fresh start, that things would start to look up.
Three months after moving, I found out that I was pregnant. It was not planned and was, most definitely, the biggest surprise I have ever received. I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that had we not moved, we would never have had Bishop. Cause and effect. No matter what else happened after that point, I knew that was why we came here. To bring that beautiful, amazing, little boy into this world. When I was only several months pregnant, Paul started to hear rumors that he was (again) going to get laid off. This time he took matters into his own hands and ended up getting an even better job than the one he had. A job that he had actually applied for in Florida and was denied. Cause and effect. It's because of these and other smaller situations, that I started to not even be phased when something would go wrong. I decided to start riding things out and see where they lead us.
Once again (and not at all surprisingly), we are faced with another fork in the road. Nothing is for sure yet, but if it turns out that it is, we have to make some big choices. We have to look really hard at the life we are living, the road that we are on, and decide if it's the right one for us. Is this where we were meant to be? Or were we simply led here for this brief time, to have our son, for him to get this job? If it so happens that we decide it isn't, we need to trust ourselves to take another big step. To place ourselves on a path that we think will get us to where we have always dreamed of being. We need to, for second time, take a really crummy situation and spin it to our advantage. Create our own cause and effect.
Even as I sit here, I have no idea what's going to happen. I do know however, that I'm not going to let the situation control me. I will not let fear of the unknown dictate my choices. I will do what we have always done, and trust that no matter what we decide, we will be happy. We will have a home, we will have each other, we will have love and happiness. That is so much more than what other people have, so how can I be upset about anything else?
Marlin: "How do you know? How do you know something bad isn't going to happen?"
Dorie: "I don't."
No comments:
Post a Comment