Change of Focus

Yesterday was St Patrick’s Day. The annual day of green everything, celebrating a saint I know nothing about. This is the third occasion that I have been home alone this year. My husband Mark travels for work once a month and in the last two months he has been gone for my birthday, Super Bowl and now St Patrick’s Day. I realize to most super bowl might seem like a stretch, but I have always been a celebrator and any event qualifies in my book.

I spent the day doing my normal routine around my house and late in the afternoon I started making my dinner. I always make my grandmas boiled supper for St Patrick’s Day, boiling potatoes, carrots and cabbage along with corned beef if I’m in the right mood. Yesterday was just the vegetables since I’m not a huge corned beef eater and I had no one to share it with. I also always make a batch of corn muffins, mainly because I always have…no other reason.  As I went through the routine of preparing for my St Patrick’s dinner I was trying to focus on the process and not on the fact that I would be eating it alone. Honestly, why focus on the piece you cannot fix? What purpose would it serve for me to remind myself that I am alone?

Later in the evening I was texting back and forth with my youngest daughter and sharing how I had made my boiled supper and she shared that she had gone with friends to get a McDonalds Shamrock shake in celebration of St Patrick’s Day.  That’s when she texted me that “Holidays aren’t as fun away from home”. While I know firsthand how hard it is to be away from family during any holiday, I also know that there are worse things to get through and many times it just takes focusing on the positive. What can you do to make it better? I texted my daughter back and said, “You have to focus on the possible not the impossible”. Because I have been celebrating every little thing for so long my children have an expectation that the world does the same thing. The truth is some people just don’t care about holidays or celebrating. They were not raised by a woman who has plastic storage boxes full of every holiday decoration you can think of.

Too often we get caught up in what is wrong and push aside so much that is right. It’s like searching for a missing sock. You rummage through your drawer over and over again to no avail and then the next day you open the drawer and it is sitting right on top. You were focused on the fact that it was missing so intently your mind just stopped looking and focused on the hunt. All it takes is a change of focus. Stop searching for what you expect, want or need and focus on what is possible. Where you are right now is your starting point not where you were. It’s not easy but it is possible.