I used to keep a gratitude journal on a nightly basis. I could always see, when looking back through the pages, when I had had a good day and been in a calm, spiritual place… and when it had been a bad day and I was withdrawn and dismissive.

On the good days, my gratitude list would include things like: my healthy children, my Higher Power, my home, my job, my intelligence, and my strength.

On a bad day, my list would say: pizza, this bed, being left alone.

I used to thumb through the pages and see how many days I had been truly grateful and how many days I had gone without gratitude.

I had to laugh at the days when all I could list was a piece of pizza but, at least it was something.

When I began to go through a really trying time during my divorce, I stopped keeping my gratitude journal.

I neglected my daily practice and I became more and more obsessed with my husband and what he was doing.

I was sure that his “new” life was so much better than mine… that he had everything that he had ever dreamed of and I had nothing.

I could not believe my lack of gratitude.

My sister reminded me one day that my situation could have been so much worse.

I snapped back, “Oh I see, life gives me lemons so I should make lemonade right?”

She paused a moment and then said, “No, that isn’t what I am saying. I am saying that you are a young, beautiful, talented woman. A woman who has an education and a job. A woman who has two beautiful children who love her and want to be with her. A woman who has a home, a car, and food on the table. A woman who has friends and family to support her in this troubled time. I’m just reminding you, that many people who walk through divorce, do not have these things. They lose their homes. They lose their children. They have no job, no education, no friends or family to help them through. You have a lot to be grateful for today.”

She was right.

I was so busy worrying about what my husband might have that I could not even see what I did have.

That night, I began to keep my gratitude journal again. It is a daily reminder of how much I have to be grateful for and it keeps me from losing sight of the miracles in my day-to-day life.

“Dear God, help me to keep an “attitude of gratitude.” When I feel that I have nothing to be grateful for, help me to take an inventory of my life and find the good in all that I do have.”

I was coming home from a trip. It would be the first time that my husband wouldn’t be there to pick me up. I hadn’t really thought about it until we pulled into the dock. I saw women on the boat start waving to their significant others. I saw their lovers, boyfriends, husbands smile and wave back.

I was so hurt.

Where was my husband?

Why had he chosen to leave?

Why couldn’t I have him here to pick me up?

My heart hurt just to think of it.

I was so terribly sad.

I started to pick up my luggage and walk down the ramp to the terminal. I hated that I felt so alone. I hated that I didn’t have a husband to pick me up anymore. I watched the other couples and then, I started to think…

I didn’t know what was going on in their marriages. Yes, they had husbands to pick them up. Yes, they might be a couple but that didn’t mean that they were happy. How many times had my husband come to pick me up and been angry that he had to do it? How many times had he been upset when the boat I was on was late? Or the plane?

We looked happy to everyone else who saw us but I knew, as soon as he had me alone, he would let me know how I had put him out by having him come to pick me up.

How many times had we argued in the car all the way home?

I was missing something I never truly had.

I was wanting what the other couples I saw had… not even knowing if they were truly happy.

Who knows what goes on in another person’s life?

Who knows what goes on in another couple’s marriage?

They have their own problems to work out and their own happiness to find.

I was feeling sorry for myself.

So I didn’t have a husband to pick me up. So I didn’t have something that someone else had. That didn’t mean that I was worse off for it. It wasn’t better or worse… It just was.

I needed to stop wanting what other people had and be happy with what I did have. Someday, maybe I would have a husband to pick me up from the boat, to wave and smile, and maybe we would be truly happy.

Today though, it is just me. I can choose to be miserable… to wallow in self-pity for what I don’t have… to believe that if I just had what others had that I would be truly happy or… I can choose to smile, to wave, to walk the ramp from the boat… alone… and be happy with what I do have; myself.

“Dear God, help me to appreciate what I have, instead of longing for what I want. Help me to remember that what I want may not be what I truly need.”

Photo Credit: Paul Bradley

https://www.flickr.com/photos/pcbradley/