8 Ways Life Rocks
Monday, February 8th, 2010In the comments of my recent “Life is a Struggle” post, Matt suggested I write a post about the good events in my life. What did I go and do after reading that comment? I wrote a post about peeing blood and ending up in the ER.
Matt must think that I’m an eternal negative thinker.
Which is probably not far from the truth.
I do love obsessing about and writing about the problems in my life, mostly because you all tell me that my every day train wrecks make you feel normal and help you to laugh. As a journalist, I was trained to believe that conflict was interesting and that happy, positive things were a yawn waiting to happen.
Yet, I do believe that Matt’s suggestion was a good one. My life is not 100 percent struggle. For every hard moment, there is often a surprise gift, too. And by cherishing the gifts in my life, it’s a lot easier to put up with the struggles. In the past couple of weeks, I’ve experienced the following gifts.
- A reporter from USA Today emailed me the other week and asked whether I would be interested in being interviewed for a Valentine’s Day story. Uh, do all toddlers have sticky fingers? Of course I was interested! I don’t know FOR SURE whether or not I got quoted, but the story is scheduled to run this Wednesday. I’ll post the link when it does.
- My most recent co-authored book Back to Life After a Heart Crisis debuted yesterday and instantly shot up to the Top 100 on amazon (for good reason, I might add. It’s a great book that deals with the emotional side of heart disease). The book’s main authors are scheduled to appear on 5 major TV shows this week. These things always make me happy, not just because I might eventually earn royalties off the book, but also because it reminds me that I actually do know what I’m doing when it comes to my career.
- I finally got home to Pennsylvania after getting stuck in Nashville for an extra day due to bad weather!
- My husband picked me up at the airport. When I saw him, I hugged him and it felt good. This feeling happy to see him has not always been the case, as my long time readers already know.
- During the drive home, my husband said, “Aren’t you going to ask me how my weekend was?” Whenever I ask my husband that question, he replies, “fine,” which is why I rarely ever remember to ask it anymore. So I asked, “So how was your weekend?” I learned that our daughter threw up all over her bed three different times Thursday night. After he washed all of her sheets and disinfected the bathroom, he started throwing up, too. Right around that time, it snowed 6 inches and he ended up having to alternate his trips to the bathroom with shoveling the walkway and doing the laundry. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to worry,” he said. Is he a keeper or what? More important, I have to say, it always makes me feel better when I learn that I did not have to deal with one of those parenting nightmares. Phew! Glad I was out of town for that one!
- My husband and I are in the midst of one of the worst cash-flow crises we’ve ever had. Our checking account is perilously close to zero and it’s going to go into negative digits when my daughter’s school takes it’s weekly $185 auto-payment. (And, yes, I truly can’t wait until she’s in public school next year!) I called our brokerage firm and recounted this sad news, asking my broker whether I should sell Apple or Amazon in order to get some emergency cash. If you know nothing about investing, you should know this: selling either of those companies would be a big, big ouch right now. They are both rated “strong holds” as their stock prices are both expected to climb in the coming year. Selling now is like buying a house right before the real estate implosion. My broker told me, “Do you know that you have $3000 in your money market?” I said, “Em, no. I didn’t know that.” He cut me a check for $2500 and now we are in the black without selling either stock. All I can say about that is this: God loves me, and I love my broker.
- I love my husband more than I love my broker, though. I love my friends, too. I also love what I do for a living. I have a gigantic support network—even if I don’t tap that network as often as I should. Not all of this was the case just a few years ago. For this, I am thankful.
- Whenever I think about my daughter, I smile.
I could go on, but I think what I’ve written so far will make Matt happy. Matt, is this true? How about the rest of you? How does your life rock? What blessings are you overlooking? What can you feel good about?
