The Big, Little Things

Ah, we have all heard the popular saying, “it is the little moments that are the big moments after all.”  We get to choose to agree with popular says or not & that’s a great thing.  You know that I am just plain excited about having daily choices.

Have you found yourself either realizing through personal reflection or through another person telling you that since you were diagnosed with diabetes or another “365” health challenge that you seem to have a “built in” discernment of what truly matters in life?  For sure, that is a work in progress yet, with the diagnosis of an ongoing illness comes expanded thinking, feeling & everything that goes along with that, don’t you think? 

Whether we are having a “good” or “bad” day, we have the opportunity to look at life through the lens of gratitude for the people or things that are “exactly right” in our lives.  Today, it is blustery & freezing cold outside yet at the same time it is sunny & full of light.  Early in the morning, I went out into the elements & the thought that kept going through my mind was of the comfort of a nice warm fireplace at the end of the day.  The next thought was of putting my jammies on since there are no activities to take the boys or ourselves to tonight.  Great, I thought because that meant that upon returning home at the end of the day, we could lock the door to the gusty winds, put the fireplace on, make dinner, put jammies on & read together all snuggled up.  Those are those “big little moments” that I absolutely love. You will have many “big little moments” that speak to your heart too.

It is so easy to get pulled down by “what is not going right” in a day.  The choice that we get to make though is whether we hang out for long with those thoughts.  We can instead choose to look at the myriad of things that went right that day.  If it is an especially challenging day, then as Emeril says, we may need to “kick it up a notch” & concentrate on the people that make all the difference.  That is the path back to remembering what truly matters in life.

My “mathlete” Dear Heart husband is not fond of going to stores.  He avoids them the majority of the time.  Last week, I realized that I was out of the mini juice boxes that are the “exact” right size to get out of the low blood sugars for me.  It was a traditional winters evening in Ontario…pretty darned cold & snowy.  I knew though that I may need a juice box potentially during the overnight hours if I went into low blood sugar.  Drat, it meant that I was going to have to go out into the cold & off to the store to replenish my juice supply.  As I started to put my winter coat on, my husband asked me where I was going.  I told him about the juice box dilemma.  He insisted that I stay home & that he instead would go to the store to stock up.  The first store did not have the usual juice boxes yet my husband decided to go to another store to get them instead of simply grabbing a different brand & size.  You know what, he would have gone to countless stores to get the “exact juice” that we keep on hand.  That is an act of love that feels so “big” to my heart.

This morning, both my husband & I were chaotically going through our routines.  As we both left the house to start our days, my husband stopped, looked me in the eye & asked if I had enough insulin in my pump for the rest of the day.  One of the things that he does for me is to “refill my insulin tankard.”  It is a little like when he holds the door or another act of being a gentleman.  We both know that I am physically & intellectually capable of “refilling my insulin tankard” however, it is something that he likes to do to show an act of care.  It is appreciated too because he has a magical way of getting every single potential bubble out of that cartridge.  He is very detailed & well, I am not organized most of the time.

One of the things that I like to say at home is that “love is a well travelled 2 way street.”  My Dear Hearts create these loving big, little moments for the sake of love.  My heart finds ways as well (but not because) to create big, little moments for the sake of love each day too.

Don’t you find that the “big little moments” sustain us especially during challenging times.  When we are feeling unwell, our minds may not automatically go to the euphoric feeling that we had the last time we went to Disney World however, our minds can certainly go to the place within our hearts that tells us that without question, we are loved in the “big little moments” & all the moments in between.

My heart’s hope for you is that you are blessed with an infinite number of the “big little moments.”  May those moments overflow…be in abundance…may you need a saucer to catch them & keep them. 

Smiles, Saundie :)