Last night we were invited to visit with some friends that we had been on the Mexico trip with. We had not seen each other since we had been back and it was good to catch up with them and look at pictures. We also chatted about things that happened on the trip and it was fun to see things through someone else's eyes. The most interesting part of our conversation came when our husbands left for a few minutes to pick up Avery and her friend who had gone to see Aly in her play.
As my friend talked last night, I learned that while I was having my long frustrating overwhelming week, so was she. She shared how, on top of her job, she had a ton of laundry that had been dumped in her laundry room, and she shared how her lawn mower had been broken and she had wondered if it would ever be fixed so the lawn could be mowed. Everything she mentioned as a frustration I had felt too. On Friday night when I went with my girlfriend (that has just lost her Mom) to see Aly in the play, she mentioned how swamped she was because she had been with her Mom the week before our trip, and then went with us on our trip to Mexico, then once back had a week of visitation and then the funeral. My friend also works at a very high pressure job and she shared with me that she had over 600 emails when she finally got back to work.
While every day of my life has not been a bed of roses, I have been able to learn how to make lemonade out of lemons and how to look for the positive in almost any negative. I have also learned to live my life believing that everything happens for a reason (negative and positive) and that it is my job to discover the reasons. I am happy I realized how easy it is to get caught up in your own life and frustrations and forget about the people around you. I also realized that instead of focusing on me and whining about my frustrations, it might have been better to reach out to my friends and talk openly about what we were all going through, so noone was going through these times alone. I guess you could say it was an AH HA moment. Perhaps if I had not been so shut down and focused on me, I would not have been as frustrated.
Suddenly, I realized how easy it is for me to get so wrapped up in my world and my own frustrations and pressures that I forget that others are feeling these same things, sometimes even more so. I was also ashamed of myself. I have a great life and I sometimes forget that everyone has troubles, not just me, and for everything that happens that I think is upsetting, someone else is living through far worse.
I will continue to contemplate the irony of these conversations with my friends. I will take this life lesson along with me and hopefully use it. Welcome to life's buffet, grab a plate and help yourself to some reality!
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