The Gift of Measuring Back

Today I had a moment where I was home for lunch walking my dog and I was ELATED.   I was basking in the beautiful day, walking in my neighborhood that is gorgeous, feeling excited about a great meeting I just had at work that is an amazing opportunity for my writing, enjoying my lack of financial stress, and reveling in the happiness that I felt independent of outside circumstances. 

I mean, I felt so happy inside and out – I think of that scene from Singin’ in the Rain! Now I wasn’t dancing, but I was so full of appreciation for where my life is at and all the things that are going my way! 

Then of course that little voice pops up in the back of my head – ‘how is all this good stuff happening for you right now?  You don’t want to celebrate too much because people will potentially be jealous or think it was all luck and not your hard work that got you here.’ 

Thankfully those little voices are easier for me to keep at bay than they used to be.  All I had to do was ‘measure back’.  I often think back to where I was at 6 months ago, 1 year ago, 5 years ago – and take an inventory of where I was then compared to where I’m at now. 

So let’s take that trip back in time.  (Be forewarned, it’s not pretty.)  6 months ago it was December 9^th. 

I was 4 days into getting to know my new dog.   

I was 22 days into grieving the loss of my beloved dog Dresden, who had a horrible death due to an aggressive tumor.

Gut wrenching.

And I was less than two months into grieving the loss of a relationship that I fully felt was ‘the one’.

It wasn’t good.  At all.

I recently came across a journal entry from mid-January where I was celebrating having my first day without crying in a few months, so I know on December 9^th I was in the thick of all that. 

Now, this topic isn’t glamorous.  This isn’t the kind of throwback that we typically share on Facebook on Thursdays.  We’re much more apt to highlight the good times, and our own personal highlight reel.  Fuck the highlight reel.  It may be more socially acceptable, but this is the stuff that GROWTH is made of.  The nasty, gritty, knock you on your ass stuff. 

People often keep these times quiet and only share with a few close friends, but it’s important for me to acknowledge that awful time, while celebrating the current. 

I know I wouldn’t be in this position if it wasn’t for the dark end of 2014.  It made me set goals, albeit small ones.  Those goals started out as ‘keep yourself together at work today’, or ‘send a nice card to someone who doesn’t expect it’.  They slowly grew as I grew.

Measuring back allows you to see how you've grown, what choices you made then that put you where you are now.  Measuring back to a time where I was so low that it felt like a survival skill to set small goals for each day, allows for me to really appreciate every facet of my world right now.  The people in it, the things on my calendar, my health, my everything.