Tapping those red shoes.....................

Pain can be our teacher....

Yesterday, Dempsey found a small purple velvet box in my sideboard drawer.  She wandered up to me very sheepishly with it behind her back and asked me if she could have what’s inside. 

“What is it Precious?”  I asked, wracking my brain to remember what was inside that box?

Dempsey smiled and slowly opened it, not taking her eyes off mine.  Inside was Peter’s mother’s ruby ring.

“Who’s is it Mummy?”  she asked.

I told her it was Daddy’s mother’s…..her grandmother’s, who died when she was only two.  Who we weren’t close with.

“What is it with me and Grandmother’s!!!  Why don’t I even have one?”  she asked.

I pulled her into me, wrapped my arms around her and kissed her head.  I told her that not everyone has a grandma, and that I know it’s not fair she doesn’t have any but that’s just the way it is.

It made me think how the school of hard knocks can certainly teaches us resilience….and some days acceptance of our ‘lot in life.’  But it is also a breeding ground for wishing for things we cant have…..impossible things, and that’s when some days can be torture and you want the sun to sink quickly so it’ll be a new day. 

Wanting things that will never be only gets you down and as difficult as it may be sometimes, you have to dig deep and look at what you DO have instead.  It’s a hard habit to nurture, but it IS possible….. 

Facebook is a great example of misreading other people lives and wishing for what they have!  It’s a platform that can easily trigger feelings of wanting what we can’t have, or wishing we had a different life. 

But is all that stuff that people carefully post an illusion?   

When I see my friends on Facebook posting pictures of their healthy kids Savannah’s age, or photos of them with their healthy mothers out lunching in the sunshine, it creates that perspective that everyone’s life is perfect, that other people have what I don’t.  And its difficult to try to change your way of thinking….but you have to, otherwise you find yourself spiraling into that place of pining for things that will never be.  And that’s detrimental to the soul…..

Everyone has the power within to change their way of thinking, to dig deep when you need to….

YOU have the ability to focus on the positives or accept what’s not to be, it’s how we interpret ‘our lives’ that matters….it’s those shitty days and shitty feelings that become our building blocks, stacking one block after another, after another, fostering strength and shaping our armor.    

And as my dad used to say, “There’s always someone worse off than you Diana!”  and it’s this mantra I quietly say to myself when all else fails…because there is!  And that, saying is sometimes my life raft…..it brings perspective and jolts me back into my reality of how lucky I am!

Yes, Demps doesn’t have any grandma’s and I don’t have my mother, sister or daughter here.  But I did!  And I DO have girlfriends and close people in my life who have stepped up and are there everyday, that call me and make me laugh.  That hug me and hug Dempsey….they are like my loved ones, even though they aren’t!     

Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz when she realizes she had the power all along to take her home, just by tapping her red shoes....she just had to discover herself!

We also have the capacity to realize we can change our way of thinking….it’s there…it’s been there all along……

So today, I’ve been down in the dumps, wishing for things I can’t have but trying to remember my mantras and remembering the Glinda the Good Witch from Wizard of Oz reminding Dorothy;

“You’ve always had the power my Dear, you just had to learn it yourself!” X  

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