Gratitude...

Yesterday I received an email from a friend that said:

I’m feeling really in a good place today, Lizzy Lou.  I am trying not to let any outside stuff influence my mood.  I like feeling like this!!

I went on to ask what specifically (if there was a reason) made them feel this way.

They named several small and simple reasons why... the kind that most people don't give much thought to.  I wish I could write exactly what they said, but it was a personal email to me and I don't feel comfortable publishing any more than what I already did above.

However, I did tell them that everything they'd just told me reminded me of my gratitude journal.

So, I went rummaging through my the books I keep by the side of my bed...

... and found it... hasn't been written in in years.

I was talking to my wonderful sister-in-law the other night (who's also 3 years younger than me and, I might add, one of the most pleasant, easy-going, happy people around, AND going through the change... yes... THAT change)... she told me this time for her has been awful... she doesn't know how she's going to feel about things from day-to-day/month-to-month.  She feels like she has no control.

I was so relieved because very few of my friends have started through this phase... some have started the whole hot-flash loveliness that I went through years ago... but not the roller coaster of emotions.  It's crazy, as I sit here typing this, my eyes are welling up and I'm starting to shake and I can barely type.  Sometimes I honestly feel (another thing my sil said) as if I'm completely going out of my mind.

There are only two other times in my life that I've felt this way... after I had Ally and after I lost a baby.  And I'd forgotten that one of the things that helped get me through was my gratitude journal...

A page from January, 1998...