Interesting Friday

This past Friday I went to Lexington to go apartment hunting with Ashley.  She is going to be getting her first "big girl" (as she called it) apartment in May.  This will be the first time she lives without roommates and she is excited about it.  I must say, that I am excited about this too because the place she lives in now leaves a lot to be desired, at least from a mother's point of view.  I will be glad when she is out of there! 

On the way to Lexington I kept getting a call from a Michigan number. I don't know anyone with a Michigan number so I decided not to answer it.  Whoever it was kept calling over and over until I finally gave in and answered.  It was Ashley calling on a friend's phone.  Instinctively I knew we had some sort of problem if she wasn't calling on her phone.  I was right.  Her purse had been stolen the night before.  That meant her bank card, phone, and house keys were gone.  Apparently she was at Redmonds the night before with some friends and turned her back on her purse for just a minute. 

So, after we went to look at apartments, we headed to the Sprint store.  Here is where my story gets interesting.  I was about to have an experience that left me wondering if I should feel really old or....well, I wasn't  sure what to feel.

As we were sitting there waiting for our customer service lady to set up Ashley's new phone, another customer service guy walked over.  I would guess he was about 25 and relatively nice looking.  He looked at me and he said, "I don't want you to take what I am about to say the wrong way...(I felt a little panic.  Had I done something embarrassing I wasn't aware of?) but you have the most beautiful blue eyes."  Huh?  I just kind of looked at him.  I had never been told this before.  Then his purpose flashed across my brain.  I said, "Thanks, but Ashley here is the one with the beautiful eyes."  He said, "Well, I do see the similarity."  Then he talked to her for a bit.  
 

Did that just happen? That was the smoothest "man move" I have ever seen.  He used the mother to get to the daughter.  Ashley didn't even pick up on it until I explained it to her later.  So I left the Sprint store not really knowing how I should feel.  Proud on one hand that this guy obviously thought Ashley was a beautiful girl with startling blue eyes.....on the other hand, strangely sad that the 25 year old guy probably didn't think these 42 year old eyes were that great after all.  Ashley's response to the whole thing...."Geez Mom, he was completely bald."  

  

It's The Little Things

 This picture was taken on our trip to Chicago.  We had walked about 3 miles and Ben

was getting tired so Ashley told him to hop on.  To me it was a special "little moment".

Fancy Pants Designs, my favorite scrapbooking company, recently put out a line of products called "It's The Little Things".  I usually want every product the company puts out, but I practice some, not a lot, but some self control.  This time I knew I had to have the entire collection.  I loved the retro colors in the papers and embellishments and the qoutes and sayings were great too.  What really drew me to the collection though was the name itself....little things. 

I have always been aware of small moments of importance and how something so seemingly small to one, can be extremely meaningful to another.  I have scrapbooked for years and any scrapbooker will tell you that the whole point is to freeze little moments in a creative way.  Scrapbookers spend hours attending to small details.  Yet in the midst of capturing all of these little moments, I discovered I had been missing the big picture.  


This time last year, I was in the first true depression I had ever been in.  I had never been like this before. In fact, I never could understand how people got so depressed in the first place.  Stuff happens and you pick yourself up, brush it off and go on.  I was too strong for that....so I thought.  I thought I had been preparing myself for my job loss months in advance. We had been told early on that there would be losses and I knew I would be one of them.  So I made jokes about it and talked about it.  I really thought that the more I got it out of me, the easier it would be.  I was wrong.  I hit the bottom so fast I don't even fully remember the trip down.  Oh, I functioned enough to go to work every day but I was a zombie at home.  My family would be talking, but I didn't hear a thing.  I would cry without warning and be unable to stop.  I started to wonder how I could get out of this life because I didn't want to be here anymore.  I couldn't get it off my mind.  I was miserable and I don't doubt that I made everyone else around me miserable too. All I could see was that a dream was gone and I was too tired to chase another one.  


This went on for weeks, then one night, one of those nights when I couldn't stop crying, my husband did something I will never forget.  He laid down beside me and put his arms around me.  He didn't say a word, he just held me.  He doesn't know this, but it was those moments that saved me.  Someone was there for me.  Of course I had been so self absorbed that I had missed the fact that he, and others, had been there all along.  Jason probably thought this was just a "little thing" he was doing, but it was huge.  


I began to slowly change my thoughts and it wasn't easy.  I started to make myself notice the little things and tell myself how thankful I was for them.  I had a ritual of sorts.  Each morning when I opened my eyes I would say to myself how glad I was to have such a warm quilt on my bed.  Or maybe I would tell myself how glad I was to have such a great toothbrush.  It didn't matter how mundane or silly it all sounded, I just started being thankful for every little thing around me.  It worked.

By about the second week in June, I knew without a doubt that I was going to be ok.  I wasn't going anywhere if I could help it.  I knew I still had a ways to go because there was anger and pain yet to work through, but I knew I could do it now.  Life was suddenly more worth living that it had been in a long time.A year later I am still not quite sure where life is taking me, but I know I want to be here for the journey.

This past Friday I ran into a girl who had done some of her practicum work at the school where I taught.  She had since graduated and gotten a teaching job.  A few weeks ago she had been pink slipped.  She and I talked for quite a while and she said how glad she was to have run into me.  She said no one understands what this is like unless they have been there.  I told her she was absolutely right, it feels like a dream was crushed.  Then I told her my "little things" story.  I told her the next few weeks were going to be tough. When she is sitting in those faculty meetings as they plan for next year or looking at her son wondering how she is going to put food on the table just start looking around for little things to be thankful for.  I said she may not see them at first, but they are there and they will save her and give her more reasons than she realizes to move forward.