Tuesday
Slowing down. What a simple concept, what a profound result.
Just choosing not to react, acknowledging my feelings in the moment but not acting on them, silencing my thoughts to pay attention to another’s words, facial expressions, attitudes… in the rare moments that I have been able to do this in the last couple days, it has made a huge difference.
And in the moments where I haven’t, I’ve often regretted it.
I’ve been reading and absorbing so much lately, on sobriety, on relationships, on parenting, that at times there is an overwhelm of information. Too many ways in which I’d like to improve, so many things I could be doing differently, so far to go.
But for now, I’ve boiled it down to this one choice: slow down, stay quiet, don’t react.
And that’s plenty.
Gratitude postscript:
Each and every day, I am profoundly grateful for my boys. But today, I’m feeling it right on the surface. Nightmares last night, probably spurred by a scary article I read right before bed (why did I do that?), woke me with a desperate, gutted feeling of something gone really wrong. And then I felt my son, little C, sleeping next to me, and realized it was all a dream. Dream or not, I’m appreciating them a little more than normal today.