Living Deliberately

Let's face it: we all have terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days (THNGVB days). Sometimes it's only one day, sometimes it's several. Sometimes you look back and realise the last few weeks have contained a lot of these days.

As I approach my 5th stroke-a-versary, Facebook has kindly been reminding me of my THNGVB days in the weeks prior to my stroke. From misdiagnosis, to spending days not knowing what was wrong with me, to a stroke that affected multiple areas in my brain. Combine that with my current health predicament, having to move out of my home temporarily due to a major plumbing disaster, pressures of work and uni, I've had a lot of THNGVB days lately.

So, I decided I need to do something positive, or at least find the positives in my ordinary days. I teach a couple of classes at a local primary school, and this week’s lessons were all about being thankful for what we have, and I realised I had to start being thankful too. When I was leaving today, the students in my Kindy class were a little upset that I wouldn’t be coming back until next week, they wanted me to come back tomorrow! Just a small thing, but it made me feel wanted and useful.

I know these days won't last forever, but when your whole life seems to be an endless parade of bad experiences, finding the little good things can be a huge challenge. It’s so important to cultivate your positivity, and as I think about my stroke, I remember too, the determination I had. I was determined to do my own insulin injections, determined to learn to walk again, to be independent. I remember being discharged from the hospital, walking out of the ward unaided, and down to the car. I was completely exhausted by the time I actually got to the car, but elated too, that I had made it out.

I watched one of my favourite films again the other day, About Time. At the end of the film, the main character says he tries to live each day as if he had deliberately come back to that one day and relived it, to enjoy it as if it were his final full day.

So I’m again taking up the challenge to try to live deliberately. To find the extraordinary in the ordinary and live.