This question changed my life.
It was about a month or so before Rachel was born, and I had just crouched down in front of our armoire entertainment center so I could cram my kids' books into the two doors at the bottom. I was tired, uncomfortable, swollen, and it had just dawned on me that it was dinner time, and I had no idea what to feed my family.
Elon was sitting over in the armchair and I asked him what we should have for dinner. The conversation from that point on gets a little hazy, but somewhere in our brainstorm for dinner ideas, he asked me what we had for dinner last Thursday.
As I delved into the recesses of my brain to dig up last Thursday, I found nothing. I couldn't remember a single thing we did, let alone what we had for dinner. But the only thing I knew for sure that had happened on that day was that I had been miserable. I only knew this because every single day for the past two week stretch or so, I had been living in a bank of gloomy days, all laced together like a strand of dirty pearls. I had stressed tirelessly over the mundane tasks of each day, just trying to get through them one slow heavy foot after the other. Dinner had been a repetitive trial of each day at around the same time when I was reminded by the clock that it was time to make it and I hadn't planned a darn thing.
In that very moment, crouched in my kids' books, I realized something that was going to liberate my poor unfortunate soul forever. If Thursday truly was gone, then so were all the gloomy days prior to it, and this day too would soon vanish into thin air in a few days. Half of me was horrified as I pictured my kids' sweet faces, not believing that these days with them as young little people could possibly take a flying leap from my memory so fast. The other half of me had found a one way ticket to the kind of peace and serenity that would make true joy possible each and every normal day.
It doesn't matter.
The messes.
The never ending piles of laundry.
The unprepared-for dinners.
Dinner would have gotten done that Thursday whether I was happy about it or not. The only thing I could have changed was my attitude.
So why not be happy then?
I REPEAT....WHY NOT BE HAPPY THEN?!
Wow.
I'm so glad the planets aligned at just the right mili-second for my brain to make that kind of connection.
But all kidding aside, I felt higher than a kite. I felt like I had just found the key to my jail cell door and was ready to open that door over the threshold of a brand new outlook on life.
And it happened.
I was Loosey - Goosey.
I deflected all stress that would have normally snowballed into a depressing mass around my "aura". I felt like I was in the arms of complete health as I looked at toys that were strewn across my living room floor because they could only mean one thing; that I had children in my midst. I exited the bathroom and found that those very children had stripped the couch of every pillow (and cushion) it possessed and were jumping all over them in a couch-pillow frenzy. Instead of turning into my usual "Doberman Pincher", my heart filled with joy to see their joy. They were having a BLAST, and I went and grabbed my camera.
The pillows got picked up.
So did the toys on the floor.
Dinner was thought up, then made.
It was a xerox copy of pretty much all the normal days in the past year prior to this one, save one colossal adjustment - my attitude.
I attained the vehicle to "being of good cheer". I received the "how" embedded in that "Ah-ha" moment. And that's hard to find.
I think it found me. And believe me, I was asking for help.
It came.
Rachel was born and I got to enjoy every second of every minute surrounding her entrance into our family.
I found that I sincerely and more fully enjoyed the company of not just those in my immediate family but those extended as well. Love is a wonderful thing to feel.
I'm recording this in my blog because I need to keep it fresh. It's been four months now and this new-found "vehicle's" headlights are starting to dim. Changing human behavior is one of the absolute hardest things to do.
But just by typing it out, I already feel a renewal.
There is so much joy to be had. Have it.
Gee wiz am I ever glad Elon asked me what we had for dinner last Thursday.
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