Thoughts.com Blogs - My cup runneth over...

Have you ever noticed how when something bad happens it's inevitable that more bad things are to follow? It's like once you walk into a shit storm the rains just pound down with ridiculous ferocity and before you know it you find yourself utterly soaked and looking for refuge. Or maybe that's just me.
The other thing I've found is that once ONE good thing happens, once you find that refuge and step out of the storm, the bad stuff seems utterly incapable of getting at you until you step outside again sometime in the future. I'm honestly of the belief that we bring our own disappointments and happiness upon ourselves. We think our trials into existence.
When my bad things started happening I felt so beat down that I couldn't see everything else around me that was so beautiful. I surrounded myself with all that had gone wrong. I didn't really have much choice because the bad things were so horrific that I consumed myself with them, tried to find ways out of them, tried to make them better. I thought of nothing else, and in doing so I poisoned my mind. When all you see is darkness it's ever so hard to adjust your sight to the light. Of course I'm sure there was a way to better handle the situations at hand, but I did the best I could with what I had. I'm even thankful for the times I found so debilitating because I don't think I've ever been truly grateful for the things that I DO have... until I nearly lost it all.
Recently, my once empty cup was allowed a single drop of joy. And then another. And another... until the drops became a free-flowing faucet of happiness. Where once I thought I would die of despair I am now inundated with a different sort of trouble. My biggest worry at this point is job offers. I have been busting my hump to find a better job than the one I have now and all that hard work has paid off in that, where I didn't have a single one, now I have too many. I pore over offer letters, weighing pay against benefits... hours against time off... distance from my house to job security. Just when I think I've decided, I find something new to consider and my tummy twists into knots. I revel in those knots. They are not knots of worry and desperation, but rather pleasant knots of anticipation and hope. I haven't felt that particular kind of knot in ever so long.
My daughter, once angry and sick and hopeless, has morphed back into the beautiful person that I knew two years ago. The summer saw her careless and well... not a sign of her stress-asthma to be seen. The emergency room visits became a thing of the past. Her depression exploded into a love of the outdoors and life. She was excited to go back to school, and she began to talk of the future again. I missed that the most. She was always such a precocious child, forever "what iffing" me to death, forever dreaming of what tomorrow would bring. When that ceased, when she didn't care what might happen the next day, it broke my heart. It was like all her dreams had withered and she didn't care what happened to her anymore. No matter how many people loved and cherished her, she too was overcome by the bad things and couldn't fight her way out of the funk. She, too, has found shelter from the deluge and it is marvelous. I hope that her heart remains light, that the troubles that plagued her can be seen in a different way if they resume, and that she has become better aware that while her annoyances are terrible, the rest of her reality is joyful.
There are other things that have become lovely, but I find myself hesitant to share them with you. My dearest friends whom I have contact with outside this forum know already. The lovely people here who simply care because they are wonderful people with hearts of gold may someday know. The saying that "one bad apple spoils the bunch" is ever so true. One person leaves me wary to share because (s)he is fueled by the words I set forth here, constantly conniving to use these words against me to prove (s)he is good... and yet never does (s)he use his/her own words to prove worth. I'm constantly awed by people who have so little value (and are aware of it) that they avoid tooting their own horn and resort to dragging others down in the effort to appear viable to others. Personally, I can't imagine that sort of existence. I'm a good person and I can tell you why. I can't imagine hating myself so much that I would have to speak ill of others to convince myself that maybe I'm ok because someone else must be worse. *sigh*
Anyway, we are well. I thought some of you might be happy to hear it after our tribulations. There is nothing but good in our lives and we are thankful to finally be able to say it with honesty and certainty. To those of you who talked us through it, I love you. To those of you who merely listened in the shadows, I thank you for hearing us. To those of you who hate to see our joy.... tough crunchies!