6/5/2012- One of the hardest realizations in life is self awareness. Being a mature, well-rounded human being means understanding your strengths, weaknesses, faults and qualities. After all, you cannot be valuable to others if you do not value yourself. You cannot understand others, if you cannot understand yourself and most importantly, you cannot truly love others if you do not love yourself.  I have had hundreds of hours in the past 8 months to take a good, long look at myself and those around me. Some of it pleasant, most of it not. I surely was never cognizant of my own identity, who I was or how I treated others, let alone how others treated me. Some of it positive, some of it not so positive.

The one teeny, tiny encouraging thing about a tragedyy, hardship or setback in life is you have the opportunity to re-evaluate your life and re-evaluate how others compliment you or how others hinder you. It allows you to take a good long look at the people in your life and unfortunately could make you question their intentions. On the upside though, it brings out in some people in your life, who are truly there for you and hope for nothing in return. Some you would never expect, some you haven’t seen or spoken to in years. Some you had never met before.  

Regrettably, I learned that I was selfish, self-centered, egotistical, greedy, unappreciative, sarcastic, spoiled, controlling and undeserving. I never understood what I had until it was almost completely gone. It really takes hard work to change what you have unknowingly been for so many years and even though I understand that about myself now, I still have moments when the old me sneaks out.  

One of the biggest attributes that Scott and I have that makes us complete is he is the “glass half full” personality and I am definitely the “glass half empty” personality. I look at it as being reasonable and practical and he sees it has being a worry-wart and a negative Nancy (or pessimistic, as my dear friend, Erin reminds occasionally.) What I lack he contributes and what he lacks, I contribute. It’s a perfect union.

So some food for thought for all of you who read this (and I appreciate every single one of you who do and hope that you can take at least one positive thing away from this):

Don’t get angry when:

He drives: don’t bitch about it the whole time he tailgates, drives too fast or shows road rage.  (I drive everywhere, all the time now.)

He leaves his socks on floor: pick them up and remind him where they go (my husband can only wear one sock on a good day.)

He leaves the seat up: just look before you sit down and put it down yourself (I sit on a handicap seat now that is so tall my feet dangle)

He snores: try to tough it out.  If you can’t quietly move to another room and let him sleep (I can’t kick my husband in the leg anymore and he rarely sleeps well.)

Be gracious and thankful when:

He picks up the kids: picking up kids especially at a huge high school with a carpool line that is ten miles long is not fun no matter who’s turn it is (it’s always my turn now)

He runs to the store for the item you forgot: even if it's not exactly what you asked for, make it work (my husband can't run, walk or drive to the damn store, yet)

He gets you motrin in the middle of the night: take the motrin, then make love to him (asking my husband to get up in the middle of the night for me now would be absolutely cruel, although he used to when I needed him to and without question.)

He asks you to dance: no matter how great of a time you are having chatting with girlfriends, get up and dance (my husband isn’t able to dance with me, yet)

If nothing else comes out of this, at least I had the opportunity to learn who I am, who my family is and who my real friends are. I have learned who is there for us, who wants to benefit from us and who wants to help enrich us.

 Big life lesson in a difficult way, most of life lessons are though.