A reminder to myself

You know those moments when you are silently slipping into your child's room in the middle of the night to check on them...check their blood sugar...watch their chest rise and fall...kiss their forehead and pull the blanket back up to tuck them in? The moments when you are exhausted and feeling sorry for yourself. Those moments when you feel like if you didn't have bad luck, you would have no luck at all. The car breaks down...on a Sunday...it has to be towed and two days later your pockets are $900 lighter. The red tape insanity that comes along with renewing a passport that has expired...when you live in a different country now...and have a different last name now...and are 10 years older now and you are trying to just make enough money to be able to take your kid to visit her grandparents that live in the States and she only gets to see once a year....she needs that grandparent relationship...she needs it and when you look at her eyes and know in your heart that you can't NOT make this happen...you HAVE to find a way to get there to visit. It seems like the high blood sugars will never stop...you will never figure it out...you will be stuck in this craziness forever...wandering around like a zombie. The heat outside is unbearable some days and you have run out of things to entertain your kid with to keep her indoors and prevent her from getting heat stroke and you feel like if she tells you she is bored one more time you might just wind up in the corner rocking back and forth. You get annoyed with the fact that there is never enough money...never enough to make it easy...you get jealous of the rest of the world that seems to never have to struggle...never has to make it work paycheck to paycheck. You are annoyed with the little things. You are letting them build up and build up and they seem to be consuming you.
...........and then you read a post on the old world wide webby from someone. Someone that you don't know. Someone that you've never met...but you have read many things she has written...so you feel like you know her if even only a tiny bit...you have a small glimpse into her world by reading her words. You are feeling overwhelmed by your own life, and you come across a post of hers....and it smacks you so hard that you sort of slump in your chair...the wind knocked out of you....the tears falling from your eyes...the realization that you really don't have it that bad. You really don't have only bad luck. You really don't need to be focusing on the money problems, the car, the high blood sugars that FINALLY went down by the way. You don't need to focus on those things. You don't need to let them consume you and make you feel like there is nothing good in your life.
You have plenty to feel greatful for. You have a happy healthy child (yes, she has Type 1...but she is healthy). She is perhaps the funniest person you have ever met...and you get to spend every day with her. You have a roof over your head and food in your cupboards. You have a husband that tells you he loves you daily and whose face lights up when he is sitting on the porch and you pull the car into the driveway as you arrive home. He tells you that you are beautiful even when you don't feel like you are and brings you a coffee and kisses you in the morning even though you have morning breath and your hair is whacky. You have a cat that is always there to snuggle with you and purr and look at you adoringly. Little does she know that she is comforting you more than you could ever comfort her. You have friends that love you...friends that love your kid too...friends that get you and know that you are a dork and have a wicked sense of humor and still love you anyway. You have friends that invite you over for beer and cheesecake...and you spend the majority of the time laughing...and not caring what time it is.

You have a lot. You have more than many people have. You have love.