I’ve been struggling the past month or so. It took me about a week to realize something just wasn’t quite right with me. I was crying at every little thing, but it had nothing to do with PMS. I wasn’t stressed out, because my job doesn’t do that to me anymore. And I couldn’t pinpoint one single reason to be feeling the way I was.

Then I realized it was kind of everything all at once – mass shootings and killings, divisiveness and hatred all over the tv, some setbacks with the clearing of our land, the lowest paycheck I’ve received since starting my new job, battles with the school… Just everything. But good things were happening too, and they didn’t seem to offset the bad. I got a new flute student who is a prodigy, and I “won” National Novel Writing Month. It didn’t seem to matter.

If I had the money, I might have gone to see somebody, but I have to tell you that my one experience with counseling was not very good, and so I’m not sure I would have either way. But it was a moot point, which lead me back to thinking about money… I had even started calculating how many hours I have to work to equate to the cost of something I wanted or needed to buy.

(Please don’t think we’re starving, because we are far from it. We have much to be thankful for. My ruminations about money have much more to do with my pride than any hardship.)

But I think I’ve turned a corner. I’ve gotten into the habit of recording three things I’m grateful for each day, and it seems to be helping me to notice the good stuff throughout the day. I’ve started exercising again, and I’ve come up with some long term goals, with short term steps to get there that allow me to use the dead time I have at my job. Therefore, I’m able to use my time to my advantage, and still get paid (albeit very little).

I’ll write a little bit more this week about my method and inspiration for all of this, but I wanted to share, because I know I’m not the only one. It was a scary feeling to know that something was so off within myself. I’m so glad to have found a way to re-center and find my joy again.