Eyes Being Opened

Today I have done a lot of reflecting on my life. It seems as if this New Year is going to bring on a new and improved me. I guess after so many years of being depressed and allowing my illness to overpower me, it may be time to try something new. No scratch that. It is definitely time to try something new. How do I expect to be a better person and enjoy life if I am not changing my way of life. This first starts with changing my thought pattern. For years I have been telling myself negative things and been stuck in some type of self-pity party. If you have nothing but negative things to say to yourself then how are you supposed to progress in life? This is something that I am just starting to realize. So even though it isn't easy and is an every day struggle, I am learning positive things to say to myself. Hopefully over time I will be able to push all those negative thoughts I continuously tell myself and replace them with good thoughts. Now I realize that this is going to take some time because my brain has to be retrained. I am also starting to be grateful for the people and things that I have in my life. This is opposed to continuously feeling sorry for myself and feeling as if I am missing something. Everyone is dealt a certain hand in life, and there are a lot of people who have had it worse than me. This is not to say that I should be happy about others misfortunes. It does mean that I should be grateful that it didn't happen to me. For example: my mother was a drug addict most of my life and she gave me up when I was a child. For years I hated her and felt sorry for myself that she abandoned me. Now I am grateful that she did give me up because I was better off. What about the people who had to endure all that comes with having a drug addict for a mother and had to see the street life up close. I was saved from that and today I can actually say that I am very grateful. Another thing I have been realizing is how truly beautiful and wonderful my children are. I mean don't get me wrong of course this is something I already knew but now   it's more clear to me. It's like a fog has been lifted and now I can see everything I could not before. For years I felt that having children at a young age somehow left me feeling short changed, like I was missing out on something. I had my oldest when I was 16 years old. Prior to that I helped take care of my younger cousins because of their mom being on drugs. I had a rough childhood in and out of group homes and was forced before my time to become a responsible young adult. So at times I would feel as if I was never able to be a child and then I had a child. I am 28 years old with 4 children and one on the way(God willing). For a while I thought that this was more of a burden than anything else. The truth of the matter is God blessed me with these children for a reason. There are so many deserving woman out there who want to have children but can't. So who am I to take them for granted. How dare I stay stuck in my own depression and not be grateful for what I have been blessed with. Ever since I could remember I wanted a lot of children. Being an only child was and still is hard. I never wanted my children to feel the loneliness that I felt and still feel without a brother or sister. My family is not close so I also wanted to have a lot of children so that they would have each other. They are each others family. Also a lot of people have came and left out of my life. My children are my children, they are my family, they will always be here (God Willing). Today is about being grateful for what God has blessed me with. Until next time.....