It’s okay to have hard days, weeks, and months. It’s okay to not be chipper and a little ray of sunshine every single minute of every single day. Life is hard. It sucks sometimes. But checking your mindset and finding the positive even in the most challenging situations is important.

I love this quote by Marc and Angel shared in George Couros‘ post Why People Keep Going:

“Being positive does not mean ignoring the negative. Being positive means overcoming the negative. There is a big difference between the two.”

A couple of weekends ago, I was sitting in my hotel room in Fargo during a family vacation for my oldest son’s hockey tournament, and I opened up the DBC Sunday Seven. As I was reading through, I thought to myself how I bet I could come up with my own version of Sunday Seven with everything that had gone wrong during this trip. For fun, here it is…

1. Brecken fell asleep in the car while we were shopping. When we got to Scheels and he woke up to come out, his car seat was soaked because he had had an accident. That’s fun when you’re travelling by car!
2. Brooks had been under the weather for a while. My husband took him to the walk in before our trip to check him over, but he was fine. Since he was still complaining of a sore throat, we gave him new medicine. He wasn’t expecting the different taste and spit it out all over his jacket and down his shirt. This also happened right before going into Scheels. Needless to say, we simply drove right back to the hotel to re-group and clean up!
3. Once back at the hotel, I got a gut-wrenching text from my brother saying he and his wife had miscarried at 16 weeks. This brought back a flood of emotions from my miscarriage along with extreme heartache for them.
4. Early the next morning, I got a phone call from my old principal. I knew if she was calling, it was bad, and it was. I found out that morning that my former student Matthew, who I wrote about just a few weeks ago in the post titled All My Love for Matthew, passed away. No words, just more heart break and unsuccessfully fighting back tears.
5. Brooks still wasn’t any better and was now feverish, so I took him to the walk in. Bam. Double ear infection and strep throat.

   

   

6. I can’t write about number 6, but there is a number six and it broke my heart and made my stress level sky rocket.
7. I got woken up around 11:45pm that Saturday night to Brecken puking all in his cot… and then again at 4am. I can’t make this stuff up.

There’s my Sunday Seven of Rauch misfortune! And it literally took everything in me not to break down. I had no space, no privacy to let it out, which was probably a blessing in disguise. I would have fallen apart.

But the positive I found? When I was IN it, it was hard to find anything at all… but I actually said out loud “Brecken had red Gatorade and pizza for dinner, and blueberries for snack before bed, so at least his bright pink puke smelt somewhat decent! And at least his puke didn’t spill out of his top bunk cot and onto his twin brother”. Yes, that was the positive I was holding on to.

Now that the trip is over and I have a bit of distance, there is so much more positive than just the half decent smelling barf! The group of parents and their kids from that trip were so wonderful and offered us so much love, support, and help through it all. Our four boys had the best time and weren’t affected by the harder moments. Even Brooks perked right up with meds and holds a special place in his heart for two older brothers who took him under their wings this trip. And despite the fact that Caden only won one of his games, and that it was the one that I missed because I was in the hotel room with sick twins, (and that I may or may not have cried when my husband jokingly texted me saying I was banned from attending playoff games — I had had a rough few days, okay), the team was in good spirits and had a blast through it all, as did the parents!

Sometimes it’s hard to find the positives, but it’s so helpful to stretch yourself and find even the smallest of things… even if it’s gratitude for sweet smelling pink puke! It might just help you overcome the negative.

Ps – As I write this blog post, I am sitting at home with strep throat, and so is my oldest son. Maybe by the time I publish this post in a week, everyone in my family will have had strep. What can you do? We share everything in this family… and that is another positive! 😉