Thankful

I've started three blog posts today, two of which are meaningless. I've spent 90% of the last 4 months staring at my computer screen looking for a job, watching movies and TV shows, reading blogs and following tons various news stories. I love finding random crazy stories, I think I've become a news junkie. Anyway, I've been following the happenings down in Haiti since the quake and I just saw that they found another man alive after 14 days buried under rocks and rubble. Which is crazy-cool.

The events in Haiti have got me thinking about all of the 'disasters' that have happened in my day. The first I remember was the Oklahoma City Bombing. I was at the dentist and when my Mom brought me home we turned on the news and watched the coverage of it for the remainder of the day. Columbine, 9/11, the tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, floods in the mid-west, so many people going through life changing trials and hardship.

I'm not really sure what it has been about this disaster (Haiti), but I can't stop thinking about how truly blessed I am. I have so many blessings that I feel like I don't even know the magnitude of some of them and others I'm not sure I deserve. I have all of the basic essentials: food, shelter, water. I have a family that loves me unconditionally, I have friends, I have a job (in the works) that will help me get my financials back on the right track. I have a good running car, cell phone, laptop, desktop. I could go on and on.

A few days ago my Internet router pooped it's pants and went down for maybe 3 hours. I was so pissed. I had to check my email and follow Facebook FROM MY PHONE. UGH. It was the END OF THE WORLD.

I am even more embarassed at how upset I was when my washing machine ripped a hole in my 1000ct. sheets. They were very expensive and very comfortable and the machine ruined them. I saw them folded up in the closet today and realized that there are people in Haiti that will be washing the clothes off their backs in rivers and streams and they are using sheets to shelter them from the elements.

The last 2 years were rough for me in so many ways. I had a lot of health issues come up (migraines, root canals, insomnia, broken tail bone, ear - equilibrium/Meniere's disease, knee/back problems, side effects of medications), a relationship that I had invested everything I had into failed and ended in more heartbreak and disappointment than I'll probably ever admit too, and to top it all off I was fired from a job that I had loved for the better part of 4 years on my 25th birthday. 2008/2009 were not my years. I feel like at times it was (and still is) hard for me to see through to the light of the bigger picture because I had so many layers of shit to see through first. But I'm trying.

I know that the last few months I have been in a quiet depressed state. So many things changed in such a short period of time, I felt like I lost control of everything and my life blew up. I need to work on seeing the bigger picture of my life in order to stay positive about the smaller trials. I am no longer a member of the LDS Church, but I still have a relationship with my Heavenly Father and I need to keep those lines of communication open on a more frequent basis to be more positive.

I guess the purpose of this post is to get all of my feelings out. I hope that I can remember this feeling and to be eternally grateful for the blessings big or small in my life. I want to continue to see the big picture and try not to get so discouraged about the minor set backs. I want to tell those people I love just how much I love them. I don't want to have any regrets about the choices I make. I want to live a happier, more optimistic life starting right now.