December 31, 2018 – The cure for a rough year.

         I tore out a recent article by Liz Pryor from the Family Circle entitled, “The Cure for a Bad Year”.  All good advice especially the phrase:

Most important, reload your hope for what’s ahead.

         I read the article and tore out the page  with the intention of sending it on to someone in need of good advice. It is floating around somewhere on this desk.  [Again, my desk is a mess.]

         My husband has an extremely bad habit of putting mail on my desk and he sorts it into two piles – his and mine and mine gets spread amongst all the paper clutter of my life. [I’ve this dreadful habit of cutting out articles, or recipes or reading letters and putting them on my desk to savor again, and then there are the newspaper articles where I plan to write a rebuttal editorial and then after my steaming anger has subsided, I decide not to – that sort of clutter.] The clutter of paper sometimes gets about 3 inches deep covering three corners of my wrap around desk and then I set it right.

         Today I was starting to set it right again when lo and behold what do I find, I find a few Christmas cards that didn’t get opened amongst some junk mail.

         Is it any coincidence that someone sent me the same above captioned article?  What is even more interesting is that I had torn out the article to send it to her.  She notes that her sister sent it to her and she enclosed it in her Christmas card to me with a note: My sister found this article for me. I think it fits for you as well.  Spot on!

         So, now in turn, I am sending it to all the women I know.

         A perfect line:  “When a hell year hits hard, your goal for the next year should be to kick hard back.”  I agree fully.

         “No one get through life without a bad year, and there’s no way to weigh yours against anyone else’s.  Yet, it is so common to hear about someone else’s seemingly even worse year and think, ‘I shouldn’t complain.’  Wrong.  Complain away; you’re allowed.  Hate it, shout at it – but remember that you have weathered it, endured, prevailed.  You battled the beasts and made it to the end.” – Liz Pryor

         After I read Liz Pryor’s advice a few weeks back, I spent a few days thinking of my blessings, and also thinking of my foolish pet peeves. Example: My lovely cat jumps on my lap for a pat when I have just sat down before church in my best black pants and she fuzzes me up with gobs of cat hair.  Yes, the cat loves me, I love the cat, and I must say I love my lint roller that much more.

         There is a phrase - What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.  One day I tossed that phrase out to friend and she retorted – “I am strong enough to move mountains, but, I just can’t move my life in the right direction.”  I knew her pain – it is a universal pain. Spinning your wheels and getting nowhere, sound familiar?

         And, another time, I was commiserating with a friend while she was sorting through some old photos. We were sitting on her bedroom floor as she dug through a bottom bureau drawer.  She was recently divorced not just once, but twice, and I saw brief flickers of delight as she flipped through the treasure trove of photos from the past. I understood most of the emotions flitting across her face and mentioned – “I know there were some really good times mixed in with all the bad.”  She replied something to the effect – not everyone can understand that.

         If you need the cure for a bad year – go to the website below for Liz Pryor’s full article at: https://www.familycircle.com/family-fun/cure-bad-year/

         Me, I have a new saying I’ve polished up these last few weeks after I read Liz Pryor’s article in order to start 2019.

No one is going to tell me what to do.

Happy New Year to everyone.

Hopefully, 2019 will be an exciting new year.