Today I am grateful for second chances.  Soon I will share some stories from over the Thanksgiving week that sent me into a tizzy.  I’ve been coping with the aftermath of it and trying to bring myself back to center.  That is where the second chances come in.  As hard as it is for my control freak nature to accept that I can’t change someone’s opinion, that I can’t make them see where I’m at, that I can’t change what I’ve done (hindsight is 20/20), I know I have no say whatsoever in controlling the circumstances.  What is done, is done and I need to accept and deal with the situation as it is.  I can work on rectifying it and not making those choices again, I can work on keeping my focus where it needs to be at all times, but I can’t change what happened.  That’s really hard for me because I feel like I’ve lived a series of almosts.  I almost went way to school, I almost had two kids, I almost went for that job, I almost went on that trip.  Now I have an opportunity that I really want and I’m afraid that I screwed that up too.  I have no say in it and trusting that it will turn out is a huge challenge for me right now because I really want it.  But I have no other choice.  I put out the apology and took responsibility and I can only hope for the best—and believe in second chances.

Today I am grateful for second chances AND starting over.  We had a rough day yesterday with a lot of business and some (a LOT) of crabbiness about things not working the way we wanted/needed them to.  No, the universe doesn’t always work according to our plan, and no, it isn’t always meant to.  That doesn’t make it any less frustrating when you’re trying to do something really nice and it isn’t working out.  My husband, my son, and myself were all at odds yesterday for different reasons.  We were all working on the same thing but each of us had several moments when things failed and we realized we just couldn’t keep going.  There was clearly something telling us to stop.  I guess there are reasons for everything, but tensions were high nonetheless.  WE all needed a reset and a reminder to begin today with a better attitude and better humor.  It isn’t easy, but it will be ok.  We have a second chance to start today over and to do better.

Today I am grateful for belief.  My boss mentioned something about consistency the other day and I realized she was right.  I’m super consistent in some things and I go back and forth with others.  The things I waver on tend to be things I don’t truly enjoy doing—I can’t say I’m alone in that.  So I know with everything in me that we are meant to do the things we are called to do.  We are meant to follow exactly what feels right for us.  We are so engrained with what we are “supposed” to do, wishing for more time to do what we want to do, trying to fit it all in that we lose sight of the possibility that we can do something else and we don’t have to live how other people do.  This past week has been mentally chaotic and dealing with a lot of energy—my own anxiety, other’s anxiety, everyone’s frustrations—it’s been really hard to make heads or tails of what to do next.  So I’m choosing my own consistency and focusing on what calls.  I’m focusing on the dreams that I want to pursue and becoming the person who can achieve them.  I don’t need to live up to anyone else’s expectations but my own, no matter how disappointed they may be.  We get one life.  I’m not going to worry about upsetting someone else’s idea if it isn’t right for me.  I choose to focus on my path.

Today I am grateful for decisiveness.  I have honestly detested how I’ve felt over this last week.  I mentioned above the chaotic feelings, the guilt, the fear, the sensation of screwing it all up.  I know I can’t go on like that—constantly seeing the negative in what I’ve done and believing any mistake I make is the end of the world—or the end of my dream.  It’s hitting me hard that there is an opportunity I want and I really could have screwed it up.  I didn’t want to mess it up and it was completely a mistake—an email was literally marked as read so too much time passed.  But I have to decide to keep going no matter what and to refocus my energy.  That isn’t the only opportunity out there.  I have to decide that it will be ok no matter what.  I have to decide that there are other paths to this goal and that it will all unfold exactly how it was meant to in its own time.  I also appreciate that this is a choice and I need to accept what has happened.  Focusing my energy on what goes well will keep it that way.

Today I am grateful for consistent focus.  Having ADD/ADHD makes it really hard to focus even on a good day.  But working toward a goal, forgiving the little misses, and pushing forward will help keep us on the right track.  Patience is never easy—I found that I really need to keep moving on things because I don’t like sitting still.  There’s a lot to do in this world and I don’t want to waste more time hoping for things to happen.  Shifting focus and being useful and having fun doing things aligned with our purpose keep us moving toward the goal.  It’s still a fight because my brain forgets that I can’t do it all even if my heart WANTS to do it all—like right now.  But I slow down enough to remember that it all happens as it’s meant to and sometimes doing it all isn’t the goal.  We just need to remember to do what works that’s aligned with our goal and purpose, one step at a time, a little more every day.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.