My name likes to elude me...

Okay, so I admit, it has been more than a little bit difficult to find any gumption to open my laptop lately, after finishing a job which entailed thousands and thousands of hours of sitting in front of a computer screen. Yes, I have been writing the good ol’ fashioned way, computer lid closed, pen in hand. But in addition to writing, I have been busy surrounding myself with as much positivity as possible.
 
It is funny (not in the “ha ha” sense) how life has a way of knocking you down when you are finally just starting to buoy back to an upright position. I recently began a new journey to embrace life more fully again, and sadly, I am traversing this journey alone. My home is upsettingly empty, with only myself and my twenty-one-year-old son going about our days. Although very alive and well (thank God), my husband, my two stepchildren, and my puppies are no longer here, and I miss them tremendously. I am still trying my best to find some joy and love in life every day, but it has been really hard to do so while untangling knots of such sadness at the same time. Some days are downright awful.
 
One of the ways I decided to seek more joy and positive energy was to challenge my thoughts, which so easily skew to the negative, by reinforcing notions of encouragement. My sister-in-law once told me to use daily, positive affirmations to shape a more positive outlook on life. Since I am no longer required to work for what seemed like every single minute of every single day, I could finally put some time into building my scaffolding of daily affirmations. And if there is one thing I know for sure about myself, it is that the act of creating something new fosters a sense of balance somehow. As I very much feel precariously perched on a wilted tree branch right now, perhaps it is in my best interest to go on fueling my creativity as much as imaginable.
 
Until I thought about the daily affirmations project, I honestly did not give a hoot about what I made – I just really needed to live and breathe some positivity and creativity. It turns out that I merged my love of quotes (the English teacher in me), and my enjoyment of all-things-crafty, and ended up making a bunch of display art. Most of the quotes and pictures included are ones which I have gathered over the years. My main purpose for the crafty displays was to make it as utterly difficult as possible to not happen across some reassurance of positivity during each and every day, even if it meant displaying it where I clearly could not miss it. One collection of sayings is now staring back at me whenever I look up from my desk. (Pictures of the different items I made are posted on my Whatever Floats page.)
 
Even though my heart happened to be crushed (keepin’ it real) right as it was finally feeling whole again since my dad’s passing, I refuse to allow myself to completely veer off the map again by letting my hopes and dreams get trampled down to smithereens. All trails lead to somewhere… Isn’t that what they say (whomever “they” are)? Someone recently shared an expression with me that his mother has always said to him time and time again throughout the years:
 
               Everything we are given in life is either a gift or a lesson.
 
I am not sure which one represents my current struggle, but I sure do hope it brings brighter days in the end.