Blessings.....

I reminds me of the children's story, how the little train chugged and chugged and said "I think I can" until it got to the top of the mountain. Sometimes life is really like that, a struggle against obstacles and difficult situations and sometimes ourselves. Geez, we grow up thinking that life is a fairy tale, that we will find Our Prince and have a house with a white picket fence and beautiful children and live happily-ever-after and then it doesn't turn out that way. Except for the beautiful children, since I do have a daughter who is lovely and wonderful and talented and a really good mommy to my two delightful grandbabies.

So we grow up and it's not so rosy. Our prince isn't so prince-like and our life is sometimes a series of problems to solve and sometimes we don't have enough money and sometimes the people who are supposed to love us just don't know how and we have stresses at work and sometimes we just feel defeated. And we don't seem to ever get to that age where we thought life would be trouble-free and we find that there are even new problems we didn't anticipate or thought they only happen to other people and when will it ever get easy?

But maybe life is supposed to be this way, so full of challenges and problems and disappointments so that we will appreciate our blessings. I've always thought that happiness is a choice. Challenges can be thought of as confidence and self-esteem builders, sickness can make us appreciate our health, loneliness can be considered time to reflect and renew, and loss can instead be a time to remember the lovely times that preceeded it.

On this Thanksgiving eve, I am thankful for the health of my daughter and her family and the immense joy they bring to me, the job that allows me a place to be productive and useful, the roof over my head that affords me safety and a place to nest, my new women friends who have opened their lives to me and given me so many happy moments, my old friends who have stuck with me through my ups and downs, and my continuing good health. I am clearly rich beyond measure.