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Fighting Exhaustion
Exhaustion has been a constant in my life. Some people know stress. Others know heartbreak. I know exhaustion. For as long as I can remember, I have needed 8–10 hours of sleep to feel refreshed. When I was a toddler, I would often sleep until noon. Mom would wake me up so I could have lunch with my two sisters when they came home from school each day.Going to grade school required a battle to get me out of bed in the morning. I remember my Dad shouting, “I want to hear two feet on the floor,” multiple times before I complied. I recall falling asleep at my desk during my first hour class in both junior and senior high school. I could fall asleep anywhere.
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Thoughts of Prosperity
I’ve recently found myself in a very different financial situation. Two and a half years ago, my husband passed away. The first major change was that his income was no longer available. The next came when I left my job at the bank.Since last February, I’ve been living on my retirement income alone. These changes created a new reality: in a very short time, my income was reduced by two-thirds.
What I realized almost immediately was that I needed to examine my mindset around money and prosperity. As I reflected on these areas, I came to see that I had never truly considered myself prosperous.
When I was young, financial stress loomed large due to my sister’s illness and mounting hospital bills. I always believed we lacked the funds to live the life we wanted.
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Unexpected Guidance
An Operations Manual for LifeI was having an unusually crazy day at the furniture store. Nothing was going as planned, and every decision I made proved to be the wrong decision. It was lunchtime, and I told Michael that I was going to the bookstore. I loved browsing the books and thought I might find something to take my mind off my day. I told him that I needed an “Operations Manual for My Life”. We laughed, and I left.
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Counting Losses, Not Weeks
There are so many different kinds of death that we go through in our lives. One type of death that happened to me was having four different miscarriages. I think a miscarriage for anyone is interpreted and felt in so many different ways, and the severity happens differently as well.
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From Grief to Giggles: The Power of a Support Squad
After having a death in my family, my husband of sixty-two years, I have discovered several ways to be resilient. It is traumatic enough, but having family and friends engulf you helps you to recover more quickly from a hardship or traumatic event. Another way would be to get out of the house and do an activity that has been put on the back burner. Such activity could be anywhere from lunches with old friends, movies, or getting together with those we have shoved away due to heavy schedules.