thirty days with a grateful heart. day one. a new normal.

As much as I'd like to begin my thirty days with a curl your toes, feel good all over story of extreme gratefulness, I am afraid this first one is not going to be quite that.  So, please let this stand as fair warning - if you're looking for warm fuzzies or unicorns and rainbows, you probably won't find any of that here today.  Take a little breather and come on back tomorrow and I promise we'll get back on track.

So, here goes...

I'm certain I am not telling you anything you didn't already know but, bottom line, sometimes life sucks. 

Sometimes you put your heart and soul, everything you feel you have to give, into something, someone, you try and they try and then you both try some more, and it just doesn't work out.  Some days its your fault, as hard a pill as that is to swallow, but some days its not.  Some days its nobody's fault.  Some days, it just is what it is.

And in the end, it doesn't really matter who is to blame, anyway, does it?  The damage has been done.  The hurt too big.  The gap too wide.  The final chapter written. And at that point, the only thing you can do is to try to gather as many of the scattered pieces as you can and move forward.  One foot in front of the other.  One very slow step at a time.  Creating, as Big J has begun calling it... a new normal.

thirty days of gratitude - day one - a new normal

Wait. 

Don't react.  Step back, take a breath and listen for a moment.

Before you go getting your bad self all in a huff and start messaging Big J with...  Did you see what she said?  Can you believe she said she was grateful?  wtf?  Let me try to see if I can explain.

Bottom line?

Divorce... sucks.  For everybody.  Breaking up a family that has been together over eighteen years... sucks.  For everybody. Splitting time with your littles, dividing up stuff, choosing who goes where, wondering what the holidays will bring, hoping your friends don't think they can catch the dreaded d-disease, facing loneliness, realizing that your world is changing, sleeping alone... sucks.  For everybody.

Life sometimes sucks.

But. 

And you know with me, there is always a but... 

Through it all - through the anger and the depression and the confusion, through the sadness and the hurt - through it all... I suddenly find myself - grateful.

Yes, grateful.

I am grateful for all those who have reached out to us both during this time - for the emails, the phone calls, the texts and the shoulders to cry on when we needed them most.  You will never know how much those simple gestures can mean.

I am grateful for all that I have learned the past eighteen years about life, about love, about growth.  I am beyond grateful when I look at our littles and the incredible young people they have become and I realize what good parents Big J and I have been.  Really great parents, actually.

I am grateful because each day brings new hope that the friendship we shared might not be completely lost.  I'm grateful each and and every time I think about and speak to my family and friends, because they reinforce that I would never have become the woman I am today, the mother I am today, the person I am today, had Big J not been part of my life.

Yes, I am grateful.  And as much as life sometimes sucks, and as much as divorce sucks, because believe me it really, truly does suck, being grateful makes it suck just a teensy bit less today.

Grateful.

xoxo,
momo