a little thing called gratitude.

Wow Im on a roll today. Three blogs.

I've had a bad year. I can say that. Others probably wouldn't agree. I didn't get a deadly disease and die. I didn't make it on the FBI's top wanted list. My house didn't burn down, you know I know you understand. But I have a right to feel like I've had a bad year.

I can also state, I've let my emotions control my life. UH-OH. oh yeah that's right. BIG MISTAKE.

Life isn't easy or fair. People will lie and cheat. That's nothing new, but in hindsight I let the EX be the "man behind the curtain" for way too long. I let someone who had never really cared about me destroy my life.

Now with  my eyes cleared from tears. I can see that by letting the EX pull the strings, he had in fact controlled my life.

Ive said things, done things and wished things that wasn't very positive. I've made mistakes, I am sure some people won't forgive me. But then again, some people aren't worth being forgive. I for the longest time, hated my present life. I had to give up my life, my friends and everything else. While others lived their life not caring. I have struggled, really struggled raising Jorja. I worked at a horrible place, and spent a few nights crying on the way home. I worked at that job for so long that I just couldn't deal with it any longer.
I had lost about 20 pounds due to stress. I had to go without my ADHD medicine cause I couldn't afford paying daycare, rent, gas, food and clothing all on my own. Yeah, the EX pays support. But not clearly enough and I know what he makes. But he punished me and Jorja as well.

The scariest thing is when you are down to your last few bucks, you need gas and there's nothing to eat. I am fine no eating. When I stress, I am no way hungry. But just to think that your innocent child is going without food, while her father is getting thousands of dollars worth of tattoos. While I try to find a playdate at someone's house just so she could eat. Yeah just last summer that was how bad it was.

I was in denial, I thought we wouldn't get to be here that long, or the situation wouldn't have been that desperate. I mean I didn't ever have to worry about going without ever.I never had to get food stamps. Which I had to, and believe me, I am so very grateful. At least I don't have to worry about where or when Jorja will be eating. So a little stress has been lifted.

Since losing my job, I have had a few nights of freaking out. I blame the lack of my anti- anxiety. Had a few disappointing job interviews, a mix-up of unemployment drama. And yet I have never been more positive in my life.Sure the bad habit of negative thinking is a hard habit to break. I still have the negative thoughts racing through my head, daily.

I no longer think about what I had, or had to give up. I remind Jorja, that "what we used to have, we will have again" I am a creature of habit. I like to know where my money is coming from, where I will live. ect. I've always felt ok with standing still, no starting a new job for fear of it not working out. Living in a unhappy and unhealthy relationship because it was constant.

Constant in my mind now, doesn't equal happiness. Sure there will be stress. Some stress is ok, I guess. Change is never easy. But staying in life where it's constant for fear of change, never advancing in life. Isn't a productive way to life.

A example is, I am a tv addict. Because of that I wasted a lot of my life, watching useless crap, that never did anything but entertain me. We are on a budget and we no longer have tv. We do have netflix and hulu. Cheating, well not really having a five year old on summer break would be a mess without something for her to watch.  However I know we are just fine without. There was a time I thought I wouldn't be ok without cable, really. I used tv as a distraction. I do watch shows, I have found myself bored at times. But I have also found the joys of all the free books on Amazon. OH, dear sweet free self help books. That teach of positive thoughts, the joys of moving a head in life, letting go of bad relationships, ect.ect.ect.

I have been reading a lot and now have found my outlet of blogging. Cause what friends have left can only do so much. Not that im ungrateful. I just love the feeling of writing down how I feel.

I am very grateful to be alive. To have a house to live in. To have a beautiful, smart, funny little girl who I get to see become her own person. I am grateful to have a new day to start over, to try to wrong my mistakes. To understand that sometimes, just sometimes, it wasn't meant to be. To overcome the haterd I feel, the sadness goes away a little each day. I have found out through my soul searching this past year, you can't make anyone love you, you can only love yourself and move on. To understand that some people won't do the right thing even if it's for their child. I have understood, that I haven't been a "normal" person, I haven't been the happiest or the positive.I have gained the knowledge to understand I need to change for the better. I am. I truly am. Whether it's too late to mend a broken relationship, oh well. Constant moving forward means what you left behind won't matter. I look forward to a new life with positive things happening, all the time. Even at my darkest times, I always had gratitude for what I had, just really had the negative thoughts about what I did have and no longer have, to distract me from the positives.

Like I had a car a ford Focus that I was so happy with. Got in a accident and no longer have it. I moved here and got a hoopty car really cheap, that had major issues. Like I've had to pour in about 1000 this past year and I only paid 1200. Not a good purchase. But I wasn't positive and felt like I just drove that car cause I had to. In reality I was working I could've gotten a new car but the unhappiness that the car brought to me was a constant. A very bad constant that I allowed in my life. Because the past year all the thoughts I had was sadness, stress, hate. So why change it. Instead I know now, to be positive and move ahead.

I simply love, just teaching Jorja about being grateful. She's five. She knows what she had to leave behind and is a little confused why we don't have all that we used to. I remind her "what we had, we will have again"  and I teach her that we have to be positive for every little thing we have and not to worry about what we don't. I for once really believe that.