happiness today, hope tomorrow

A month ago the wonderful Miss Ruby gave me this award.


Here in her own words are the reasons:
infertility (and many other things in life) makes you focus on the future your desire is for a future event even if you manage to get knocked up or get a successful adoption placement it's still a future event and so we're constantly looking forward looking to the future and focussing on happiness we may achieve then but what about the now? what about what is making us happy in this moment in this very instance?

I hadn't been able to pass it along until now, because I just hadn't been feeling much happiness or hope. But both of those are slowly changing and now feels like the right time.

The rules are easy - you put that picture up on your blog and you post about one thing you're happy about right now and one thing that you are hoping for in the future. And then you pass the award along.

Right now, I am happy that I am (albeit agonisingly slowly) finally losing weight because I am eating healthier and exercising more, and feeling happier so I am eating healthier and exercising more and losing weight and...well you get the gist.

And my hope for the future? I can't believe that I am not going to write "a healthy baby" - because I have finally acknowledged that my life is never going to include that. I'm not saying I'm happy about it, but I have stopped fighting it. So my hope for the future is a happy one with A.

I would like to pass this along to:
Jen @ Life in our 40s - Ups and Downs
Betty Rubble @ The Fork (Knife and Spoon) in the Road
CGD @ Adventures in Infertility-Land

flicker

Last weekend was quite the challenge with Significant Other in his lowest mood to date. It was a glorious couple of days weatherwise, so last Saturday I went out elephant-spotting again. But a couple of hours into it, Significant Other called me home because he had had an anxiety attack. And when I got home all we did was argue (apparently I drive him bonkers, what with one thing and another).

Sunday was a little better as we drove over to my parents' and baked in their lovely garden and ate delicious mother-cooked food.

And then on Monday there was this little, tiny, blink-and-you-would-have-missed-it mood change. I held my breath...

We had our 6th therapy appointment on Wednesday during which Significant Other said that he was beginning to feel a little less despairing about the future and a little bit more able to look forward to things. After the appointment we walked for a bit, went and had a drink in a pub, walked a bit more, stopped to have dinner, walked a bit more and then got the bus home. All the while, I held my breath and hoped I did or said nothing which would bring the mood down.

Since then things have been getting a teeny, tiny bit lighter each day.

I know that the landscape of depression is marked with peaks and troughs, and that Significant Other still has some way to go, and that moods can turn on a sixpence.

But right now I am taking as much care as I can of that little candle-flicker of hope.