So, I’m reading the 4th Harry Potter book with my kids right now. And I’m in a part where Harry Potter is going through some hard things, but doesn’t have his best friend to support him. And it’s hard to stop in the middle, because I so want this character to have his friend again, partly because I don’t want to have my kids go to bed with all that heavyness. But, there are only so many hours in the day. And my throat’s a bit sore.
And as a mom, skipping to the part where friends make up, makes me kind of feel like my kids’ friend problems will be solved today too. It’s silly. And maybe the reason why I share these books with my kids is so we can all live vicariously through a character, and get to the relief part in the matter of days, rather than a matter of months. It’s fiction, I know. But it kind of gives you the feeling that the tough things in life will pass. Or, if nothing else, I get to feel all the feels of something in life working out.
Now back to reality, I have been through many bad times, and they passed. (“Like a Kidney Stone” you say? No! The kidney stone did not pass. It had to be removed by an operation. But the residual pain and damage passed.) What I’m trying to say (ineffectively), is if I have a history of bad times passing, you probably do too. Gratitude does not have to be about how rosy everything is. Sometimes gratitude needs to be a wide-eyed acceptance of how bad it was, and that you are not in it anymore.
- Consider writing a gratitude statement (no silverlining allowed).