Truth & Perspective

Eight years ago, I fractured my ankle. I rolled it while running on vacation. Life lesson: don’t work out on vacation. It’s dangerous. I didn’t need surgery, but I couldn’t bear weight, and I had to wear a boot for months. It took a lot of physical therapy to get it back to normal. And even now, I’m a little more cautious when running and walking outdoors.

I didn’t know how grateful I was for my legs until I couldn’t use one of them. Every once in a while, that ankle will ache or I’ll get a tinge of pain. I try to use it as a remember to be thankful. I try to find the positive, which sometimes means readjusting my perspective.

It’s harder for me to find the positives when it comes to emotional pain. Today I had a moment that I hadn’t seen coming. Grief hurts, and sometimes I can spot the triggers and prepare myself, but today it blindsided me. Thank God it happened at home, and I wasn’t bawling my eyes out in a store somewhere. But I didn’t feel grateful at the moment. I felt angry. I did a mad dash right through the stages of grief. But first was anger. And I asked God, “Why did this have to happen to me?”

I know. I was throwing myself a pity party, but grief blinded me of the truth. And the truth is, I’m actually very happy. But for the brief time I got caught up in my despair, I couldn’t see outside of my pain and anger. That’s what grief can do—the dirty, dirty bitch. It felt like a suffocating fog surrounding me. I knew the sun was there, I could almost feel it on my skin, but I couldn’t see it until I got rid of the fog that blinded me.

I didn’t want to suffocate on my own negativity. I am more than my grief. I am grateful, and remembering that truth released grief’s hold on me. I made myself list the things I was thankful for like I was at a thanksgiving meal. It felt dumb at first, but it worked to flip my perspective. I saw the positive instead of going on a negative downward spiral. It doesn’t mean that I won’t feel sad sometimes, but remembering to appreciate the good keeps the bad from pulling me under.

I know everyone suffers one way or another. It’s part of life, but those low times of suffering make the highs feel that much more significant. In a roundabout way, my moment of grief reminded me not to take all the little things for granted.