Ch ch ch changes...

If I am ever asked for advice, and for some reason, I often am, "stop complaining" is usually the first thing I offer...followed closely by, "and make a change."
I found out I was pregnant in February of 1982. I was 18. Within a couple of weeks, I was married. And the rest, as they say, well...it's history for sure. My history. Two kids by 21, working the 6am waitress shift for 15 years while gradually chipping away at my bachelor's degree, keeping the cleanest house on the block, making dinner every night, being the gracious hostess, hardest working wife and NO DOUBT the best mother on the planet. Well, in South Orange County, for sure.
I was married from the time I was 18 til I was just a few months shy of my 42nd birthday. Sounds like no big deal when you look back at it as one big piece of time. I remember though, the many days, months and years of getting up at 4am (I still do this today and it NEVER gets easier), running through an 8 hour shift at Coco's, getting off just in time to pick up the kids from school, arriving home to start homework and then get my son to little league or karate and my daughter to dance or girl scouts....then get home to make dinner, finish homework, start baths, get the kids to sleep and fall into bed to get up at 4 am and do it all again.
I am sure I complained. It was tough. But it was my life...and, overall, I really loved it.
The key is, even if you can't change a situation, you can always change your perspective. You can definitely change your attitude. You can change the way you look at things and find that there's SO much good and so much to be gleaned from every season of living. I learned to accept where I was, and made the very best of it.
I loved my exhausting and not-so-glamorous counter waitress job. I loved that I was able to go to school a couple of days a week and had HOPED to graduate before my 40th birthday. (I was 37 on graduation day in 2000.) I loved keeping a clean, organized house and being the very good wife. And, I absolutely enjoyed every minute of being mom to my two intelligent, fun, happy, friendly, active, incredible children.
I made the best of the cards I was dealt. I played my hand well. No regrets.
Then the kids were grown, and I started to complain. I knew it was time to make a change.
And it was a big one.
As I look back on the five and a half years since I left my marriage I realize that I have, no doubt, complained a bit about things. It's not exactly what I thought it would be. It's been tough. Learning to really enjoy living alone has been the most difficult part. But it's my life! And, overall, I really love it!
And what is my choice at this point? To complain? To blame the past for where I am? To cry, to whine, to bitch, moan and wish it different?
If I have learned anything in at this point, it is that you can accept where you are right now, without complaints, with just a little change in perspective and attitute. I have made a change in the way I look at things. And it makes all the difference in the world.
I can do anything I want at this point in life. I love my job. I love my home. I really love my new car. I control the TV, I eat (or don't eat) what and when I want to. I can sit and read a book all day, go to a movie in the afternoon, or spend two hours at Target or TJ Maxx or Barnes & Noble. I can pay someone else to wash my car, spend too much money on baseball tickets and fly to Paris for a Fall getaway. And I can sit in front of the TV in my PJs --with a beer--watching the Dodgers at 4 in the afternoon. I'm telling ya, it ain't a bad deal.
Hey, I'm making the best of those cards I was dealt. No regrets allowed at this point.
And, I know too, that when I start complaining, it's time to make a change.
Sometimes the change is major and life altering. But most of the time, change is just climbing over to the other side and looking at things in a different way. Either way, if you're going to complain, it's time for a change.
Oh, yeah, and remember too, no matter what...
this, too, shall pass.
You may as well enjoy it while it's here.