Tiny Victories

I'm not certain how the rest of the world's population interprets its surroundings from day to day... 

I can speak only for myself.

It seems, by times at least, that things can easily feel a little on the grey and dingy side. Like the light has somehow drained from my existence... or the music track has become a somber drone.

It's in these moments that I have to work hard to discern the positives in my tiny sphere. The news is terrifying, traffic is awful, people just tend to suck all the way around. My thoughts land in worst case scenario with all possibilities and the future seems like it will never come... but it's always coming, isn't it? 

It's coming... and going... and all the while, I'm wishing it away like a flu or a cold. Biding my time until the depression lifts and the manic takes over... waiting for the shift.

Waiting.

But time doesn't wait with me. Time marches right on past... and when I look up and see my precious little baby girls turning into women right under my nose, and I witness the passage of time on my mother's face, my husband's... my own. I realize that I am a prisoner of my own making. A prisoner of apathy.

It is in these moments that I must look the hardest for the tiny sparkle. Wherever there is a glimmer of good; In the warm adoration of a cat who has claimed my lap as his own, the laughter of one of my kids at a silly pun someone just made, sunshine, making love to a man that I love with my whole self... and sometimes, just the simple act of getting out of bed and facing another day.

All of these things are tiny victories. Teeny, tiny glimmers of the happiness I seek. The calm I crave and the zest for life I know I possess... somewhere, hidden within the folds of the heavy blanket that descends on me during the first part of the year.

I know it is there.

I simply need to hang on long enough to uncover it...