Joni Mitchell Had it Right...

...when she wrote/sang, "Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got, 'til it's gone..."

It's so easy to get caught up in life. We work. We play. We travel. We make money. We lose money. We pay bills. Such a seemingly endless cycle and what a vicious cycle! How few and far between it is that we really stop and think.

There are days that I whine about having to get up at the buttcrack of dawn. Days when my kids drive me crazy with incessant questions and talking. Days when work seems almost endless. Days when my husband doesn't come home until sundown or later. Days when I get angry because I meant to do something, but didn't do it. Days when things don't go the way that *I* want them too.

But then some things happened. Life changing things happened. Not to me directly, but to people that I love and I care about. I felt so helpless and so powerless to stop the chain of events that inevitably follow. My mind became mush because I wanted so much to be there, to try and take away their pain and to try and make it better--even if it can't be made better right away. I needed to stop, think and put things in perspective.

Sure I have to get up early, but I am so grateful that I wake up every morning. Every day is a new day...full of hope and full of possibilities. My children drive me b-a-n-a-n-a-s, but I'm so grateful that I was able to have them; that I can hear them; and that they still have the innocent curiosity about them. Work is busy, but I am grateful to have a job when so many others may not or may be struggling. My husband may come home late, but I'm grateful that I have him in my life and that he IS able to come home at all. So many of my friends and family do not have that choice right now--their spouses are NOT able to come tonight, tomorrow night or the next night...maybe in a few weeks or months. I shouldn't get angry at the things that I can't or didn't do, but be happy for the things that I did do and still can do. Things won't always go the way that *I* want them too, but that's the beauty about life--it's not about me, it's about ALL of us. :)

Instead of looking at life wistfully and longingly for the things that we don't have, we should be looking at it as being full of possibility and grateful for whatever it is that we DO have. Sometimes when you don't realize how much you have when you have it, you miss it that much more when it is gone.