The end is here. One full year after I began this project, it is time to finish it. In the process of trying to identify 500 reasons to take stock and give thanks in 365 days, I have found gratitude, humility, peace and hope once again. I have come full circle and accomplished what I set out to accomplish. I am proud of this.
Now I can rest.
When I lost my job one year and four months ago today, I never thought I’d get over it. I remain convinced that, without the help of Mr. Wonderful, I wouldn’t have. It was a dark, confusing and unsettling period that undoubtedly shaped the person I now am. So, when Mr. Wonderful went through his own dark, confusing and unsettling period just two months later and threatened our relationship in the process, I found myself at my literal wit’s end. I didn’t know what to do, how to think or who I could be in the face of such horrifying things, so I wallowed for a month and a half in the pit of my despair. I wallowed until I decided I didn’t want to wallow anymore. Until I decided that I didn’t want to feel hopeless. Until I decided that there were other things to live for. Until I decided to not to suffer or see myself as a victim, but rather to take responsibility for my own happiness.
That’s when I started this project.
Only good things can come from paying attention to the positive things that happen on a daily basis and from choosing to be humbled by both good and bad fortune. You simultaneously learn that everything isn’t as bad as it seems and that none of us is immune from difficult experiences. You honestly begin to slow down and enjoy life instead of rushing through it, and you genuinely reflect on just how much you have been given and who you still can be regardless of what you weren’t handed. Life becomes sweeter and the possibilities endless.
That’s what I’ve learned during this process: that life is so much bolder and brighter than I imagined it was (lesson #50, reason #500) when my outlook was narrowed by unemployment and my hope for the future was clouded by a relationship in question. I never would have told you that while I was in the middle of the crisis, because I was trying just to survive it. It is only now, on the other side of it, that I see life for what it is: neither perfect nor easy but beautiful and worth the effort.
Thank you so much for accompanying me on this journey. I cannot tell you how much your readership and support have meant.
Kindest regards,
Grateful & Humble