Finding Hope

The other night as I was moving laundry from the washer to the dryer, I had the idol thought that the third laundry basket I bought a few weeks ago makes this process easier.  After I carried the laundry upstairs, I went to my journal and made note of that basket.  That seems like a small thing and I guess it is, but it reflects a very big deal for me.

Eight years ago my world blew up and I started life as a single mama.  Happiness seemed like it was in painfully short supply.  In the midst of the sadness and the heartache that followed I decided that I had better be on the look out for the small blessings in my life.  My plan was simple: each day I would find one blessing and honor it.  Some days, that blessing seemed damned hard to find.  But find it I did.  One of things that grew out of my search for blessings was the monthly “About Me” notation to the right on this blog.  Regular readers may know that “About Me” changes at the start of every month.  The things that I note that “I love” are a list of some of the blessings that make up my life and my world in the last month.  They aren’t the only blessings in my life; some are small while others are big.  Some are shared, others are mine alone.

What they have in common is the fact that they are things that help me to find and embrace happiness.  There are no rules for these blessings; they simply are.  While I try not to list the same blessings each month, there are some repeats.  Some are silly and some are serious.  All of them help remind me to look for hope in my world.  And when hope seems hard to locate, I have a look at my list and feel just a bit better.

In my mind, happiness is a journey, not a destination.  Like other valuable things in this world, it must be cultivated and sustained.  There are certainly times in life when happiness feels like it is in short supply.  When that happens, I have my little list of blessings.  They bring me hope and remind me to take hold of it and keep trying.