Ariana Carruth's Blog, page 5

You Decide....

What word will you allow to describe your day today? As we wake, we have a choice in the narrative we create for ourselves. Will it be “grief”, “contentment”, “anger”, “love”, “peace”, “jealously”? Will we allow our day to be defined by the worst in us or by the very best? And when we are faltering in big ways will we be able to pull ourselves back into a lighter, healthier mindset? 
Throughout the years of unexplainable affliction, I’ve struggled with staying the course. Whether the struggles were internal from my own insecurities, doubt, grief, path of enlightenment or whether they originated from external circumstances such as loss; I’ve had to constantly decide if I was going to put one foot in front of the other with a smile or with a frown on my face. 
Years have passed since I experienced the first few chapters of my book, but the challenges I’ve learned from continue to present themselves in new forms. That’s life. It continues and within every ten incredible moments lies one that challenges us to carry on with optimism. 
My own challenges of today are much to do with raising our daughter with special needs. She is aging physically, but seemingly regressing cognitively. I am often overwhelmed, isolated and afraid with anger percolating the surface. Finding a personal balance is increasingly difficult. Her condition, her life and her future are disappointingly not in my control— but what is in my grasp of control is my outlook, perception, reaction and remembrance of perspective. Often, that is really all we have, and it can be a powerful tool of survival. 
In the dim light of today are the shadows of yesterday’s affliction and the hope of tomorrow’s gifts. May each of us allow only the best narrative for ourselves. 

Be an Ignitor for Your Change....

“There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth: not going all the way and not starting.” — Buddha 
I saw this sentiment shared on social media this morning, and it sent shivers down my spine. 
Listening to our inner voice or even some times the glaring truths in front of us is undeniably difficult, but if we don’t start or continue towards the truth than what are we left with? Where are we, and are we really going anywhere?
“Are you…? Have you….?”
My own words to my own husband, and the text eventually written in my book, “Love For Our Afflictions” were gut wrenching to verbalize (and to share). Equally difficult was continuing on that path of truth. But if I hadn’t…. where would I be today? Where would we as a family be at this moment—nine years later? 
Similarly, taking a leap towards the truth with an amniocentesis was a moment to decide if we were going to walk towards our own reality or hide away from it. 
Staring the truth dead on is terrifying, heart breaking, and easily overwhelming—- but it is our greatest mistake to shy away, to convince ourselves otherwise, and to live in a holding pattern of really never going anywhere or improving our lives. 
We can’t grow. We can’t change our path. We can’t really live fully. We are paralyzed by our denial and by our unwillingness to become the ignitor to the flame of change. 
The path forward is a little scary, but we don’t have to do it alone. Discover your truths today. Dig deep, rip open the wounds that are just beneath the surface— the ones that you shush and put aside for another day. Today is that day… go all the way. Listen to your inner voice, and take the road to truth—start the journey and continue the journey. None of us will regret it. 

For Her, For Me, For Tomorrow

I work out not for today, but for tomorrow. 
There is a little girl who sits right of me. Wheelchair bound and frail by appearance, yet strong in spirit, she looks over to me with want in her eyes. She wants to run, play, swim, and talk with the other children. She’s trapped in a body that doesn’t work properly, and with a brain that can’t formulate the words she wants to express. 
I am her mother. I am the body she cannot have. I am her legs that cannot walk, her arms that cannot lift, and her brain that cannot speak. 
I work out for her. 
42 pounds, 28 inches, 14.9% body fat, and 9 months ago is when I finally woke. I woke from my sedentary complacency that I was already enough for my children. I woke when I finally started to listen again to my inner voice that was urging me… urging me to move… to phone help… to become a better version of myself so that I could be the body and brain my daughter needs me to be. 
Fourteen years of marriage, six pregnancies, five months of strict bedrest and years of emotional eating from deeply felt afflictions, had not just changed my appearance but it stole my strength, endurance and cardio health. It left me struggling to physically care for our daughter today and tragically fearful of how I would be able to cope with the physical struggles of our daughter’s adulthood. 
With insecurities and anxiety, I scheduled an evaluation with a personal trainer. I knew I needed help. As much as I needed help after each previous affliction, I needed a professional now to guide me on a new path of better living. 
My first session with my personal trainer was reminiscent in a way to that of my first session with a therapist. I was in a place of raw desperation and afraid of what the journey ahead was going to look like. I was not fit. I was overweight. I had no endurance, and it had been nine years since I had last been inside a gym. 
Sitting down with a trainer that was ten years my freshman and more physically tone that I have ever imagined being myself was a raw exposure. It was an emotional disrobing, dripping with vulnerability. The pretenses were down. The numbers don’t lie. 
Letting myself into a place of vulnerability and trust was the only path towards a healthier lifestyle, and I knew deep within that it would pay off. I began to see my trainer a few times a week in hopes that having her hold me accountable would keep me on track.
There were tears, moments of self doubt, painful recoveries, and a scale that didn’t move for a long time. With every negative and with every moment that I wanted to throw in the towel, there was my trainer, my will, and my daughter that needed me to succeed.  
As the months carried on I began to notice the absent of inches, fat, and the gain of muscle, strength and cardio. In the middle of shaping myself into a new person, I found a love for running. 
Running became my only alone moments in the day. It was my time for just me— to think, to breathe, to run my worries aground. At first, I couldn’t run for sixty-seconds at a time, but one’s determination can accomplish almost anything and less than three months later I was running ten miles without stopping. 
Running and sessions with my trainer were changing my life, and after several months I had finally reached a place of independence. While I had started for my daughter, I was continuing not just for her, but for me as well. 
I needed a daily workout as much as I needed oxygen to breathe, and with that independence, desire and love; I sought out an additional gym. 
Some say, “follow the yellow brick road” but I say “follow the orange lights.” Inside the orange glow and beat of the music, I found a new workout obsession and a continued path to fitness. Heart rate monitor strapped on and in my “orange” heart zone, I am finding new levels of endurance with an all-body cardio strength training class at Orange Theory Fitness. With accountability, one-hour trainer instructed classes, and infectious energy; OTF became the perfect addition. As I continue with OTF, it becomes an extended family and place of support. There is a sense of teamwork, family and friendship within the orange glow and that encouragement keeps me on track outside of class. 

Working out isn’t a temporary phase of my life, it is a lifestyle change— a journey and not just a destination to a goal. This weekend as I prep to run a half marathon next week, I can’t recognize the person I was nine months ago nor do I wish to look backwards— because I don’t workout for today, as much as I workout for tomorrow. 
You can read more about our family’s journey, our daughter and her life and triumphs of survival in my book, Love For Our Afflictions . It’s raw honesty will inspire as it shapes your perception of the worst (and best) days of your life. 

'Dementors' in Prada

Occasionally, dark plumes of negativity waft into our lives. These friends/acquaintances/co-workers/relatives are emotional vampires, and they feed off our own contentment and confidence twisting and churning it into insecurity. Some times we can spot these 'dementors' from miles away, and other times they are wolves in sheep’s clothing. 
For the most part, I’ve viewed these individuals with sympathy. They are in turmoil with their own existence— an existence with which we don’t wish to intertwine. If we do, they will consume us and our positivity and self-assuredness along with it. 
They successfully warp our impression so that we feel apologetic for their lives. Our altruistic nature makes us ripe for a guilt trip, and our positive spirit is so easily drained by negative people that we in part just give up from emotional exhaustion. 
We’ve all been there. We’ve all been wholly drained inside and out by spending the afternoon with a person like this. It isn’t that they’ve wronged us in any particular way (yet), but they are a billowing plume of negativity sucking our energy with every bit of gossip, self-delusion, complaint, and insult (playful or direct). 
They simply are not positive influences, yet we are held captive by our own inability to say no, to turn away from a friend, and by our own delusions that we can save them from their own negativity (as if they want to be saved from it). 
This morning after devouring fresh warm crepes from my favorite creperie, I took a long walk with one of my dearest and wisest friends. Along the walk we continued to catch up while we worked off the scrumptious crepes and lattes. I adore this friend for a thousand reasons, but mostly I adore her because our conversations are often soul fulfilling introspections in between laughter. My mind is always at work during our talks, and I always leave more centered and aware than when I arrived. She’s been the person I phone first, and I try to always reciprocate with a good listening ear. It was while I was listening that she relayed one of the clearest analogies for these type of people that I’ve ever heard. 

Everyone is living in the same high-rise, but not everyone has the same view. Some people are on the highest floor and their view of the outside world is expansive. Some people, more negative people I believe, are living on the lowest levels with a very limited viewpoint. 

This analogy makes it clear that your view of the world shapes your happiness within it. These emotional vampires are bound and shackled by their view from their building floor of spiritual residence. 
How much or how little we allow these emotional vampires to take from us is our own learning process. 

Not So Much!

”I was pregnant… 17-18 weeks pregnant…”
The story often starts the same way. It’s not so much rehearsed as it is well worn. It always
begins where our lives changed… pain cloaked in a myriad of medical history. 
Being asked how we found out about our daughter’s diagnosis has become part of our family story. It is as common to us as someone being asked where they work, how they met or where are they from. 
The tragic circumstances by which we found out about her diagnosis and grim prognosis have been replayed so often in the last eight years that the depth and sorrow we felt during those months have been nullified. 
The pain, the concern, the paralyzing feelings of hopelessness and helplessness are absent from my answer. Does the person asking really want to know the truthful details of how we received the news?
Not so much! 
Not so much do ‘most’ people want to dive into the depths of the unspoken realities of life, marriage and pregnancy over a cup of coffee. 
We hide. We hide our fears— to others and to ourselves. We live in a world of comfortable denial. It is easier to stay above the fray and to chat about nonsensical drama, potty training, eating habits, the weather…. anything, anything at all other than something that might strike a chord with our own insecurities. 
It’s not that we are shallow or self-absorbed. It isn’t that we don’t care about other people.
It is because we are afraid. We are afraid their story might become our own. We are afraid to overstep the boundaries of conversational niceties. We are afraid to veer too much off of our comfortable track. We are afraid to offend. We are afraid to inquire. We are simply afraid to feel— too much. 
I’ve been there. I am sometimes still there. It’s a comfortable place for a visit. I certainly rarely discuss my own personal history, unless I am genuinely asked (and not casually so). I don’t self edit out of shame. I do it because most people just don’t want to really know, or maybe they want to know, but they don’t want to discuss it. 
The later, is in part why I continue to urge people to read my book. Life happens, and as it changes (or unravels) you go from not wanting to know, not wanting to discuss it, to feeling utterly alone because these unspoken realities are just that— unspoken. And even if life isn’t unraveling for you, it probably is for one of your dearest friends or it has in the past for you, for someone you know, or it will in the future. That is the essence of life— it is always changing, sometimes for the better and sometimes for opportunities for growth. 
My story might not be your story, but at it’s core it is a story of surviving “the suck of the day”. It is about surviving the diagnosis of an unborn baby and so much more. 
If you haven’t already, I encourage you to pick up a copy of the book— for today, tomorrow or for the moment you need it. Within its covers lie uncomfortable truths, but they are realities. They are realities that I am not ashamed by, defined by or realities from which I hide. 
And afterwards, if you want to really ask questions seeking honest answers— I am here. 

Success & How We Define It...

Are you successful? Do you feel successful? Does society view you as a success?
Me, not so much. 
I am a stay-at-home mother.
I am a stay-at-home mother post the feminist movement. Yeah, I said it. . . 
As grateful as I am to have the choice to be a successful professional in a man’s world, I am equally frustrated that my choice to stay at home isn’t viewed as a success. More frustrating is that I internalize society’s viewpoint, and believe that I am unsuccessful without professional acclaim. 
There are no promotions, medals, raises or awards in motherhood. Stay-at-home mothers never leave the office, they never clock out, and truthfully they are very rarely alone. There isn’t a solo commute into work, there isn’t a private bathroom stall to pee in peace, there isn’t a lunch break.  There are no vacation days, and even if there were, we would choose to spend them with our children. 
We are the stay-at-home moms: under appreciated and under paid. We are the least “successful” women of our generation. We spend countless hours raising our children to become good people in the very same society that views us as failures. We are made to feel guilty that we do not employ degreed “professionals” to care for our children so we ourselves may become successful “professionals”. 
As much as the women’s movement has awarded women in the workplace, it has devalued the importance of a stay-at-home mother. It has shaped our opinions about success and what that means for women, mothers. 
There isn’t anywhere I rather be than at home with my children. It isn’t for everyone, but it is important to me. All the while, I feel like a failure. I long for professional acclaim, professional independence, and an identity that is separate from being a mother. I devalue my own role in my children’s lives as a stay-at-home parent because I, like society, view success as something that exists in the workplace. I, like society, wonder if my children aren’t better off in the hands of someone with a professional degree in childhood development, psychology, education, etc. 
Stay-at-home mothers are often the glue that holds together the entire household. We run a daycare, a school, a medical facility, a laundry service, a cleaning service, and so on. We are cooks, drivers, organizers, volunteers. We are 24/7. Yet, we don’t share in success, and we struggle for an identity beyond our duties at home. 

Not only are we the glue that holds our own households together, we also play an important role in society. Society needs stay-at-home mothers. We are a powerful group that can 'not so silently' get things done in our schools and communities. It takes a village and those that can be stay-at-home mothers are often looking out for not just their children, but all children. 
When a stay-at-home mother does reach for personal successes beyond home, those attempts are often demeaned. Direct sale avenues such as those to sell candles, jewelry, etc. become the but of a joke. Frankly, when the label “work-at-home” is tied to any mother, even six figure income earners are viewed as less successful than a mother working outside the home. They aren’t real professionals. They are stay-at-moms with a “hobby”. 
I wish I could say this viewpoint originated because no one could imagine being a stay-at-home mom and having another job because the job of stay-at-home mom is so demanding and endless. Sadly, that isn't the case. 
Instead we view one of ‘the’ most important roles anyone can establish as being the “easy” option. It’s a position for women who can’t do anything else. And that is the thought that often wiggles it’s way into my subconscious exasperating my own personal insecurities. "I can't do anything else. I am a failure." I should go and "get a job." 
Society rarely says to stay-at-home mothers that they are already employed at a very important "job."

This societal shift is illuminated in pop culture as well. Recently, one of my favorite sitcoms made a joke that if their daughter became a “stay-at-home mom” it would be the worst thing to happen, the worst failure and a complete waste of her talents. With each comedic diatribe, my heart sank deeper.
We’ve come so far, yet we still have so much further to go. Melanie Griffith rocked her roll in Working Girl. It was one of my favorite movies growing up (yeah, children watched all sorts of inappropriateness in the 80s ;). As a child, I wanted to be a CEO… of any company. I just wanted to be the boss with a corner office in the clouds. I wanted to rock the righteous 80's pant suit and be just like my own mother, who was wildly successful professionally in her hip suits and double stacked shoulder pads.
Thirty years later, I am not that person. And it was every woman before me who fought for their role in the workplace, that should have also paved the way for women to still be valued at home too. 
It is my hope that when my own daughter becomes an adult, a mother, that she will feel and be viewed as a success— if she chooses to be the scientist her eleven-year-old self wants to be or if she chooses to be a stay-at-home mother, like her own mom. It's not a waste. It isn't a waste of an education or of talents... in fact it is an opportunity to share these lessons and gifts with the next generation. 

Now finding a personal identity in which I feel successful in beyond the home is still a challenge I'm working on.... It is after all a sacrifice of the job, "mom". 

Are You Strong?

What makes someone strong? Does an incredible strength lie within us all, only to be called to the surface when life requires it? Or are some individuals just born with a stronger spirit? 
The saying, “God only gives you what you can handle.” is a popular one, but is it really true? 
I live in a circle of special needs parents. I witness unbelievable strength every day. I see families living apart from one other while their child fights for survival or recovery in a hospital far away from home. I see parents learning new medical procedures they must perform on their own children. I see parents struggle with the day-to-day care of a severely disabled child while compartmentalizing the unknown future of their child’s life expectancy. I see some parents even cope with the overwhelming grief of a child's death.
It is simply a different plane of existence, but one that becomes so normal for special needs parents that this intense level of stress is self-viewed as an ordinary life. 
I, myself, can’t really remember what life was truly like with a different level of stress. Overtime you acclimate to living with life and death realities, and your endurance improves exponentially. 
Does this make us stronger than anyone else? Although, we deal with seemingly ‘big issues’ day-to-day, we have marginalized them into normalcy. It is a mix of our increased threshold for stress, and a coping mechanism of survival that we are able to do this so well.

Back to the saying, “God only gives you what you can handle,” it would seem that everyone’s level of stress is perhaps just what “they can handle” and no more. The stress of taking care of healthy children, running errands, etc. might at first appear to be nonsensical to someone whom worries if their child will live the day, but to the people overwhelmed by ‘small’ stresses this is all they can handle. Or is it?
Would these same people be able to rise to the occasion? And even if they can’t or are never given the opportunity, can we still consider them “strong” for carrying on amid their own stresses? 
I think we can, and I think it offers special needs parents (and others dealing with ‘big’ stresses) an opportunity to broaden our concept of stress, survival, and personal successes. When we start rating each other’s lives and afflictions, we lose a bit of our humanity, compassion and perspective. 
It isn’t so much about grading the event or stress in someone’s life, but more about remembering how it relates to their threshold for it. We can all be “strong” in our own way, in our own time, in our own afflictions. It is our responsibility to our own growth to see the strength in others that we may, at first glance, think have an easier life than that of our own. 

Err, loving life in suburbia?!

Years ago when we repatriated back into a normal, seemingly less exciting life of living without an expat package, I had trouble adjusting. Okay, that isn’t a fair statement… I was a mess! 
I wanted to travel. I needed excitement. I couldn’t handle the mundanity of suburbia. I was bored. I didn’t like my neighbors. I didn’t like shopping just to shop. I didn’t like spending my days just taking care of the house, volunteering at school and attempting to make small talk with women I felt I couldn’t relate to. I had walls up. I dreamt of our time abroad. I didn’t honestly want to settle. 
Maybe it was the wrong area of the city for us— alright, it was undoubtedly not the ideal place for our untamable spirits, but I could have done better to “fit in”. It was also a little bit of ignorance on my part as well. I viewed life very simply back then. Nothing of major concern had happened in so long I had forgotten what life full of affliction felt like. I focused on small things instead of seeing the great gifts in my life. Everything was so simple and “boring” and that should have felt wonderful, but instead it was a ball and chain to my adventurous spirit. 
It was time to grow. I had to find myself again. I had to learn to find a center in a world that I couldn’t identify with. It wasn’t easy and it took losing our baby son to jolt me back into what really matters in life. I learned from affliction. I felt gratitude from affliction, and I morphed into a better person with affliction. 
Today is much of the same beautiful mundanity in suburbia: once dreaded now loved. I live somewhere else now. We moved to find a place that allowed our spirits to wander a bit more. We needed a creative outlet and to be lost in an untamed jungle of differences and imperfection. Our family is thriving here, but I’ve recently realized it is less because of our zip code and more about our own personal growth. 
The same game of First World suburbia is played out almost anywhere, just to varying degrees. There are still people here ‘keeping up with the Joneses’. There are still women here that I cannot identify with and that would most likely be horrified by my book. I’m sure there is an entire underworld of suburban housewives that I do not dare discover. I just hold my head high in spite of gossip or judgement. I am who I am. 
I once wrote (before affliction got a hold of me once again and changed me forever) that I had “an addiction to jumping off the proverbial cliff into the unknown.” I was a “traveling nomad disinterested in the mundane routines of suburban life.”
Struggling with repatriated life, I was. I couldn’t connect with others because I couldn’t find myself outside of expat life. If my life didn’t seem interesting to me, I felt it couldn’t be interesting to anyone else. I devalued what I had to offer, and I lived in the past. 
Once affliction took its’ hold and swept me up in a tiresome myriad of loss, struggle and self abandonment, I was able to realign myself with my reality. The neighborhood gossip wasn’t important anymore, neither was it important to me if anyone really liked me or not. I didn’t care about travel or the lack of excitement in our lives. Nothing was of any importance to me except my family and their well being. 
I realize today how much I have grown when I can share in the joy in other people’s travel adventures without the smallest bit of discontent for my own situation. While I have cherished our past adventures dearly, I am no longer defined by them. I am actually living in the moment… in suburbia! And more incredible is that I am loving it. 
Part of my contentment is growth, part of it is where we live, and part of it is acceptance for our situation. Our challenges with our special needs child are ever growing and changing. Trips abroad don’t sound as exciting anymore when the logistics of her intense care are mapped out in my mind. Are we living for ourselves enough? Are we held back by her diagnosis? I don’t believe we are held back, and I do believe we are living and experiencing life to its’ fullest. My idea of a full life has just changed in recent years.  

Where do you find yourself right now? Are you happy in your environment? And if you aren’t, is it your surroundings or your inability to break down the walls between yourself and those around you? Are you living in the past greatness or are you creating a new greatness in the present? 

Dreams…. And what we can learn from them during our waking hours

Since I was a child I have experienced vivid and often paralyzing dreams. Looking back, these nightly visitors to my sleeping subconscious would have been considered night terrors. 
Today as an adult, I still experience vivid nightmares but recalling them during my waking hours gives me opportunities to explore what my subconscious is trying to work out in my sleep that my consciousness cannot or will not address during the day. 
Transitions, difficult situations, fear and a lack of control in my life generally evoke these nightmares. Sometimes I’m not even aware of how much is going on in my life until I am awakened by the imagination of my subconscious prodding me to address my feelings and the situation. 

I am a terrible judge of character. I give people the benefit of the doubt. I try and see the good in everyone, and I often ignore the bad. I am loyal to a fault. Worse, as much as I am warned by others about people, I ignore the foreshadowing in lieu of my own interpretations which are often a misguided view that good will always prevail. I am a con artist’s wet dream, and I am probably the worst person to have as your addiction recovery support because I will always believe your lies. 
This gullibility and desire to filter out the bad for the good leaves me open to be mistreated, taken advantage of and hurt. It also means that I tend to waste time developing friendships with people that otherwise have the 'Scarlet Letter' because A) I believe there is more good than bad B) I am sympathetic C) It becomes a mission to be the voice of optimism and acceptance D) If everyone dislikes someone, it makes me want to like them more because everyone needs a true friend.
Obviously my reasonings, while have the best intentions, can guide me down a path of idealism and ignorance. Everyone probably needs a balance of having a bleeding heart and a jilted remembrance of the past. I just tend to filter out past experiences and embrace the dangers ahead with a wild abandon. Basically, I am the un-evolved cave woman that goes to embrace the charging lion after just witnessing said charging lion a week earlier eat my friend. I tend to think A and B won’t eventually or always equal C.

How do these glaring personal inadequacies and embarrassing admissions relate to my current nightmares? 
My subconscious in all of its’ terrifying direction is playing out scenes not just from a horror flick in the making, but as a figurative warning of the situation around me. Seeing perceived danger surround me from all sides in my dream, and feeling the fear is a reminder to my waking conscious that the warnings are valid, yet not pre-determined in my future.
I fear and dread what I see (and also don’t see) in my dream. I know the danger or the potential of danger is there and at my core it is a fear so deep it is paralyzing by nature. What doesn’t happen in my dream however is just as important as what does. I don’t experience an attack, and while the object of my fear is outwardly dangerous in appearance, it could also be benign (terrifying but benign). 
Seeing the danger all around me is a way of my subconscious reminding me that the real threat of getting hurt emotionally is also all around me. Fearing what I see and don’t see is also a reminder that I am concerned about the unknown. I fear the unknown, and I also fear being wrong about people, not having control and not knowing the truth. 
The fact that the object of my fear in my dream is wild reminds me that as much as I can’t control it’s actions, I cannot control the actions of people in my life. It is something to fear, yet it is something that I have to inevitably accept. 

So what are your dreams telling you? What is your subconscious trying to convey to your waking conscious to prod you along to a better awareness? 
For me, I need to address my fears and release them as well. I cannot change the core of my DNA that regardless of past experiences will continue to see the good and filter out the bad. I have to continue to rely on other people’s judge of character taking in their warnings, but also experiencing everyone for myself as well. The dream tells me that my fears might be greater than the possibility of an attack. Knowing and accepting my flaws is another step towards growth, but also knowing what I can’t change about myself is also staying authentic. I have to accept the consequences of my flaws. I might be hurt more than necessary. But just maybe one day I will be the one that was right about someone… and will be rewarded with a friendship of someone worth the emotional risk. 
Remember your dreams... allow your subconscious to not just scare the crap out of you, but to guide you to an awareness of your fears, your accountability, your situation, and to your deeper intuition. 

Sweating the small stuff... and the blessing that it is.

A screaming child, a dinner to make, a long car line, the five pounds that won’t reverse on the scale, developing friendships, dwindling friendships, busy schedules, sleepless nights, the absence of date nights, the absence of time…. time to breathe, time to think, time to— pee alone. 
I’ve just described motherhood… parenthood… adult life in a First World country. It’s exhausting, and it’s also full of overlooked blessings. 
In the midst of turmoil, loss and boundless afflictions, I use to think how fortunate someone was if all they had to worry about was a list of “small things”. At the time my life was full of constant, ‘turn-on-a-dime soap opera drama filled’ affliction, and I was envious of people with seemingly nothing of real ‘life or death’ importance to worry about.
Fast track to years later and to better times: times of less heartache, times of more normalcy, and I find myself sweating the small stuff. 
Is there a layer just beneath my surface that has a cellular, muscle memory of every moment of heartache, loss and abandonment? No doubt, it does exist, and no doubt it can easily surface with a small reminder from a smell in the air or the way the breeze hits my skin, or a glance at the little white egg. They are deep memories of loss that were imprinted on my soul, and I can’t rewrite my own history. 
But even with our past of affliction, as deeply as it was felt and as long as it will linger just beneath the surface; we can still easily find ourselves living so freely that we get caught up in the everyday. 
And that is a true blessing. 
It is a blessing to be in a place to sweat the small stuff because our lives are absent of the big stuff. The big stuff that is mostly unpreventable and too terrifying to imagine surviving so we instead focus on the little things that happen every day: the commute home, the exhaustion of adulthood, the gossip of friendships, the uncooked meal, the trip to the grocery store or the to-do list that is never done. 

Our lives are as full of blessings as they are full of small worries. With each moment we sweat the small stuff, we are reminded are lives are so blessed we don’t have anything more to worry about.  

Our husbands work all of the time, but they come home every night (no injury, no passing, no abandonment).   

Our children scream for hours, but they are alive and well. 

Our obligations are endless, but it is because we are fortunate enough to have the resources and time to volunteer, to sign our children up for activities and to live in a country without conflict and unrest.  

Our scale doesn't move in the right direction because we have food in our bellies. 

The list is quite endless because our blessings are quite boundless. 
We are the fortunate. We are the ones that are in a period without loss, without great change, without afflictions that we fear are unsurvivable. 
We are in the middle of the backwash cycle of a wave. We are standing clear as the wave of affliction has receded… but it might (and it will likely) come again. 

It will come again because life is full of blessings. It is full of blessings when we only have the small stuff to sweat, and it is full of blessings when the wave of affliction comes crashing again. We can learn and grow in both as long as we remember each cycle. 
When we are caught up in our everyday worries, we have to remind ourselves of the past and what could come again in the future. We have to find a balance of worrying just enough to get things done and complaining just enough to release stress, but we also have to keep our perspective and gratitude that our worries are mostly insignificant. 
In the middle of affliction where we are just barely bobbing above the surface to keep from drowning in our own despair, we need to remember that better days are ahead (just as we had better days before). 
I’ve personally been reminded of such in recent days. I have found myself getting too caught up in the every day and while feeling those blessings, I have also felt guilt over losing perspective. 

Here's to our endless blessings of both worrying too much over nothing, and to our blessings of affliction that give us gratitude for the good days.