To Give Thanks

In honor of Thanksgiving, I decided to take some time to reflect on what I am thankful for. I don't have a lot, but I am thankful for everything I do have! Most importantly, I'm thankful for my boys and my husband. Rather than list everything individually, I decided that I'd look at this from another angle.

If I could do everything over, would I? This takes a bit of thought, because there are only a few major decisions I could change. 1 - What if I had stayed in school and got my diploma rather than my GED?

Nope, sorry, this would not have changed anything. In fact, if there had been PSEO back then - the ability to take college classes for free until turning 18 - I think I would have dropped out at 16, and gone to night classes at a community college instead. (Note: The General Education Diploma or GED is obtained by taking a series of tests taking an average of 6 hours total. They recommend studying heavily, and taking only one test per day. I didn't study at all and took all 6 tests in one day. I passed all - most with 90% score, and 1 with an 80% score, so yes, I do think I would have been able to pass my GED at age 16, and therefore been able to get into college.)

Taking PSEO classes may or may not have helped change my life because my #1 goal in life back then was to have a baby, and all other goals held 0 interest. I bet I would have treated PSEO as a temporary solution until I could reach goal #1. My #2 goal was to write, and I do that all of the time anyway, so that definitely wouldn't have changed, lol!

2 - The second major turning point in my life that might make a difference if I could go back and do it differently is when I was working at Qwest. I started working at US West - the telephone company - in 99, and for the first year I LOVED my job. I felt like I was part of something special, and I was working towards a goal. I also happened to be making quite a bit of money. The Qwest took over the company, and everything just went downhill. I was not the only one who had a hard time working there. QWEST DOES NOT value it's employees, and it is no surprise to me that only 10 years later, they have been taken over by Century Link.

I saw my health slipping fast. I was sick far too often, and when I did go to work, it was a struggle to talk to the customers - all of which were pissed off about something. (It was the horrible management and policy changes that Qwest made.) I saw that working there was just going to make me a 20 year old on prozac just to get through the day. Nope! I would never reconsider staying in that job. I may not have money, but I have my health!

3 - Getting married. I will admit that the first year that we lived together - 6 months before the wedding and 6 months after - were awesome! Then came my hubby's mental breakdown. They say that people try very hard to wait until they have some form of support before they breakdown, and for my hubby, I was all the loving support he needed to finally snap. He couldn't leave the house for 18 months while all the medication they had pumped him with slowly left his system.

He had been on various drugs for depression since he was about 12, and this was a good 12 years later. Considering that those drugs all mess with a persons hormones, it's no surprise that it took so long for him to be able to talk to people without longing to bury his head in the sand. He could talk to me, and he made me laugh on a daily basis. Those months were the dark times of our marriage, but we never once considered getting divorced. Not seriously anyway, sure it came up once or twice during arguments, but those were actually few and far between.

So, to sum this all up, there are three major decisions in my past that theoretically could be changed, but I wouldn't even consider changing any of them. I am thankful for my hubby, and can't imagine life without him! He hasn't given me a house or an expensive car, but he has given me two babies AND let me be myself. I love him so much that I get cranky every time he leaves the house, lol!

To return to the beginning... What am I thankful for? It's simple, I'm thankful for my Hubby and my boys :-D