You are important to me

If it was not apparent from my previous blog, I have been feeling a bit world-weary lately and overwhelmed by the items I have put on my plate and the items that have been placed on my plate by others . . . okay let’s be realistic, mainly the items I have placed on my plate. I was questioning whether or not I would be able to do everything that had to get done.  What’s worse, I was questioning the point of accomplishing those items.  I was feeling a bit down on myself and a bit depressed.

Mmmm . . . that's more like it!

 The universe has a funny way of giving you what you need right when it is needed most.

Not 24 hours after voicing my frustrations publicly, I woke up to a message from one of my cousins saying that she was thinking about me.  Once a week we used to get together and watch the latest episode of Dawson’s Creek (feel free to get all of the jokes out of your system now).  She was missing those times and just wanted to let me know it.

Say what you want, but Joey was cute!

A little later that day I was shopping at Target when a young lady that was passing me took a look at me and exclaimed, ‘Hey, you’re Eric from HOBY!’  I stopped and went through my mental rolodex of names, frantically trying to find hers (I am soooo bad with names).  She told me her name and assured me that it was alright that I didn’t remember since I had so many HOBY names to remember.  She told me how much she enjoyed the last food bank event we did and I told her about the upcoming community service events we had and voiced my hopes that I would see her there.  After some more brief small talk about her senior year and such we parted and continued with the rest of our shopping.

The problem with my rolodex is it doesn't have a back so the pages keep falling off.

 All of the sudden I was riding high!

I thought about it a bit and wondered why.  What changed?  I still felt overwhelmed by my to do list.  I still felt bad for having to close achapter of my life. The message from my cousin and a conversation with a high school student didn’t change that . . . Then the reason was obvious.

Acknowledgement.

The things I was doing made a difference in the lives of people around me and two of them let me know it that day.  I was still tired and weary, but it was worth it now.

Acknowledgement. Such a simple thing that is easy to do and can make all the difference in the world to someone. It isn’t done nearly enough in my opinion.  I know I could make a better effort to acknowledge  the people around me.

So thank you to my cousin and Tess (I won’t be forgetting your name for a while now!), and the people that encouraged me after I posted my last blog.  You made a big difference in my day and gave me a better outlook.

Until next we meet.