My husband often tells me, during times of stress, that I should enjoy the experience. He doesn't mean that I should "live in the moment," but rather allow myself to really feel the stress and recognize that every difficult time is one that I will look back on someday.
When we were in the process of buying our house, there were several occasions when I felt certain that the deal was going to fall through: we weren't going to be approved for the loan, someone else was going to outbid us, the house wasn't going to pass inspection...But, in the end, here I sit in my very own living room, with a faint memory of that anguish-filled process.
Even when I'm filled with anguish, whether it be house-related or deciding upon a career or education path, I'm excited for something. Hope lies underneath that unrest. Underneath my negativity, there lies a deep and abiding optimism that things will work out. I am not doomed to unhappiness. Graduate school did not work out (for now), but we did get our house to fill with our dreams. I'm still excited about the possibility of future education, and I'm excited about the prospect of growing a family.
I'm excited for Christmas Eve this year. This particular Christmas Eve is the ten-year anniversary of an unmentionable incident. Every year, it is a cause for grieving, but I'm planning on making this my last year that I choose this particular path of dealing with it. I go shopping on Christmas Eve. In a daze, I wander through crowded stores and splurge on clothing (hello, Old Navy!). This year, I'm mainly shopping for house-goods because I have quite a closet full of clothes that I don't wear. Next year, I'm going to look into volunteering on Christmas Eve.
I'm excited for Christmas Eve mass this year. I look forward to taking communion, to kiss goodbye all the sins and failures and letdowns of this year, and be re-born in hope for the new. God has been with me through all of my past anguishes, through all of my hopes.
Even right now, a time when my plate is relatively blank: I'm a newly-wed, pre-pregnant, with no future education lined up, no new job prospects in sight (although I do now have my CNA license), and in the process of becoming a US citizen. There is a potential tornado of activity ahead, and right now I'm living in a period of stability and calm. I am trying to savor this calm because I know I will look back on it someday with nostalgia (probably some future night when I am changing a newborn, and am utterly exhausted).
I hope to do better next year; I hope that I will be more positive, and that I will be able to more fully open myself to God and all His love and wisdom.
