Epiphany

The idea for this blog came to me while I was in the shower.  Some of my best thinking is done in the shower...where it's quiet and relaxing and mostly uninterrupted (my son still sneaks in sometimes to check up on me).  This particular moment of inspiration was just days after a miscarriage.  I was wallowing.  I was having a pity party in the shower.  I was trying to decide if it was worth it to keep going, and if it was, how was I possibly going to do it...

I need to take a class.  I need to discover a new hobby.  I need to go on a trip to Puerto Rico.  Yes, Puerto Rico.  That will fix it.  I need to learn how to not feel anything ever again.  I need to make a decision that I'm going to be ok.  That I CAN be ok with less than what I planned on.  And then I need to write it down so I can read it on days that seem impossibly hard.  I'll start a blog.  I'll start a blog!!  I bet no one will read it, but maybe it will be good for me to lay my thoughts out in front of me where I can analyze them further and try to correct some of my negativity.

A few more minutes of shower time and a few scribbles in a notebook and I came up with a sentence that describes how I will focus my thoughts from now on - I can have a richer life with less of what I thought I wanted.  I got online to figure out blogspot.  I had absolutely no clue where to start or how to make a blog look like...a blog.  You've probably noticed.  I searched for blogs about living with less and having or being more.  I liked everything I read.  And all the blogs and websites I looked over had links to other awesome blogs with even more ideas and books to read and people who are in the middle of a similar journey.

Well, the other day when I finished that book by the minimalists and then looked over the minimalist blogs I've been following since my shower epiphany in March, I realized something.  There is GOOD coming from that miscarriage.  I've learned so much.  I've changed my thinking patterns - maybe in a very small way, but I've done it.  I look forward to posting something new on my blog.  I feel happy that there are people reading my thoughts, even if the numbers are small in comparison to real blogs out there.  I have found books and quotes and people who make me feel alive and validated and....happy?  Oh man, I think it's true, despite my swearing to my husband through my sobs that I never wanted to be happy about anything ever again (I have a tendency to get a bit dramatic when things don't go my way.  And when I haven't eaten for a while).

It all made me think of this quote I love:

"I do not believe that every adversity that comes into our lives does so because it is necessary in His grand plan.  I am confident that we face many things that the Father of us all would rather we avoid.  The cruelties of men, the ravages of nature, the weaknesses of our physical bodies may bring to us burdens not in the majestic plan of a loving God.  Life brings them, life in its imperfect scope, life in a fallen world, yet a life that still contains immeasurable joys and fulfillment.  I believe that God does not burden us with many of the adversities that we face - but that does not mean that He cannot or will not turn them to our advantage."
-S. Michael Wilcox