Day 119: A Thankful and Joyful Heart

I had lunch with a friend the other day who congratulated me on my new sense of job satisfaction. She had read my post and was genuinely happy for me. Then she asked if I thought maybe it was due to the fact that spring is here, days are longer and it is warming up outside. I had to stop and think. I don't think it is actually due to spring's arrival but I am sure that aspect certainly helps. I told her that I would get back to her in the middle of the next winter with my verdict.

Am I happier overall? It does feel like my (blog) project is starting to pay off. I have more days now where I change my thought pattern, almost automatically, and try to see things in a more positive light when I find myself starting to think the worst about something. Granted it isn't every time. I still have bad days. Difficult days. Days of feeling an immense sadness that I cannot seem to get pregnant, but they are fewer and farther between.

I read something that someone quoted from Beyonce recently where Beyonce mentions that life with a child isn't necessarily a better life, it is just a different life. Another life. It isn't a good or bad thing, or a negative or positive thing, to have or not have children. And in all honesty there are a lot worse things in life that not being able to have a baby.

When I was in the beginning of my Swedish studies, there was a woman in my class who had moved to Sweden, not by choice, but because her country was at war. She was a refugee. Completely displaced in another culture. Another world from what she knew. She had not seen or spoken to her parents in over five years. I had a friend a few years ago who, at age forty-one, died of cancer. She had breast cancer that had metastasized into her brain. At the end she was wheelchair-bound, had lost much of her sight and was in pain most of the time.

Life does not owe us anything. Life is a gift that we are given to make the best of. Another friend of mine wrote me an email one day in response to my sadness and struggles with not being able to get pregnant. She said that she does not know why some people get to have children while others do not. Sometimes it seems incomprehensible but some of us just may have a different calling in life. We may not ever consciously be aware of that calling but we may be affecting someone's life in a positive way without even knowing it. The most important thing is to take each day and make it the best day that we possibly can. Live each day with a thankful and joyful heart that we got to experience life and touch the lives of those around us.

Happy today was in the form of a very small girl that I was privileged to watch walk around her yard, singing, talking to herself and interacting with her mother. Enjoying and witnessing the love between a mother and daughter filled my own heart with joy. I am thankful.