Sometimes It's Good To Be Bad

Today is John's last day with a job that required constant travel.

It's kind of ironic, he went on the road full time the week before Bennett was born. He left the road roughly the week after Bennett turned one.

In between those two guideposts, it was a long, rough year.

I blogged the other day that as I was pulling photos together a few weeks for our annual photo book, it made me realize something.

Before that, had I been asked to summarize the past year, I would have said "ungodly hard".

I struggled through the first 4 months of Bennett's acid reflux alone, while recovering from a c-section, struggling with my own severe post-partum preeclampsia and juggling a crazy toddler and a large dog with severe health needs.

Oh yeah, and handling a move.

I then lost my grandfather, spent six months doing house shopping long distance, and I was hit by a driver and have spent the last four months in a lot of pain from that.

Throw in our move back here, John having a surgery of his own, our tax identity theft, and a whole host of other train wrecks this year, it's been an uphill battle.

But as I was looking through the pictures, I saw none of that.

Instead I saw two happy, healthy babies that grew and evolved this year.

I saw Sterling go from being a fuzzy headed little cherub to become a curly headed little pixie. I have 5 full pages full of crazy mayhem antics, and more that weren't crazy or cool enough to include. And I also saw the myriad of Bennett's smiles and laughs and giggles.

It made me realize just what a great year it has been.

True, there has been a lot of hell. I won't deny that. But that has just made for some crazy ass blog posts.

Since I had that "ah-hah" moment, I've really been looking back over our last year with a new lens.

And it's amazing how a shift in perspective changes EVERYTHING.

My take away from this is that it isn't the event itself that matters, it's how you interpret it. You can choose to wallow in the despair and pain, or you can pick yourself up, dust yourself off and focus instead on the good times.

Because no matter how dark things are, there are always good times.

Amidst everything last year, we had a ton of fun, some amazing adventures, and the difficulties strengthened our bond as a family even further.

And I am incredibly thankful for that.