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Focusing On The Up Side

I recently moved to Texas from Florida with two of my daughters. It seems that my nine year old daughter is doing just fine...dare I say, even thriving. While, my seventeen year old and myself are really blah about the whole thing. If you read my last post, you know that I am completely aware of my internal struggle with this move. If you have read my post, Words Unsaid, you will know that my brain is a super-filing-system set on figuring out problems. The fact that we are not doing as well as my nine year old poses a problem to me. I know...I know...we should not compare ourselves to others, but by golly I want to feel as great as that little sweet girl of mine.

We recently had an amazing girls night out. My brother and his wife gifted us theater tickets to see "Anastasia." In my mind I believed this would be the first solution to our little issue of being meh. I will just lead with, we had a great time and I will talk about that more in just a sec. Right now, I want to share that I realized one of the issues my daughter and I are having.

A friend of mine texted me while I was at dinner with my daughters. It read "I want you to come home." I immediately responded "me too" and I meant it. In that moment, something clicked. I have never learned how to have ties some where else and thrive where I am, at the same time. I ALWAYS cut ties. Its how I survived relocating over 20 times in my childhood (between schools and homes). I am pretty sure that my seventeen year old daughter learned that from me also because when we moved as a family, I would take pictures to put in a photo album, cut ties, and move on. I only recently reconnected with some of my previous friends through Facebook, but that is just through "likes" and the occasional comment on a post.

I do not want to cut ties with my friends in Florida. I want to visit. I want to talk to them regularly. I want them to visit me. I just do not know how to do this and still find my place here in Texas. So, how is this affecting mine and my daughter's mood? I believe a TEDx Talk that I recently watched shed some light on this for me. Allison Ledger, the speaker, stated "our view of the world has a fundamental tendency to tilt toward the negative" continuing on with "its pretty easy to go from good to bad but far harder to shift from bad to good." So, it seems that my daughter and I are focusing on everything we are missing out on not being in Florida which is making it harder for us to see the possibilities here in Texas. Allison also said "you have to work to see the upside." I guess that it is time to work on focusing on the up side of things where we are.

So here's to focusing on the upside! We had a great girls night out. Not only did we spend time together and see a great production of "Anastasia," but my daughters were able to experience a fairly large city for the first time. This experience even included street performers. Two gentleman in particular gained our attention and a few dollars from us. Notably one had on flip flops even though it was cold...how Floridian of him. They sang Beatles covers which made me think of my dad. I turned to my nine year old and asked her "do you like this song?" She looked up at me with a big smile and nodded her head. One more thing for me to be proud of...my daughter has an open mind about music.

I have a real fear about losing my friends in Florida if I choose to connect to others in Texas. I suppose I have found the topic for my next few therapy sessions. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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