Small blessings and little victories

Last week it was my birthday. I often find birthdays weird and a little difficult. I think it’s a mixture of the expectation, the tendency to reflect on the last year and look at the year ahead to the next, and the subtle pressure to be happy the whole time. I spent a lot of time walking that day, and I started to think about the little and everyday ways in which I could see God’s blessings in my life in the midst of my ongoing struggles with mental illness. In little chunks, throughout the day, I wrote this:

Today God is good. I was sort of dreading waking up on my own, eating a solo breakfast and then trying to muster the effort to leave my flat. But half an hour before I left for counselling yesterday, a good friend suggested that I could stay over at theirs and have breakfast with them. I didn’t wake up feeling excited and full of joy. I didn’t expect to. But I felt celebrated, and for that I am thankful.

After a nice breakfast and another hour or so in the café, I started walking north. I had taken the day off work, I could do a café tour, I could go swimming. Technically, there were many things I could do. But I didn’t really want to do any of them. Before long I felt low and lonely.

My mum called and we talked for a while, that helped. When I got to Camberwell, I sat down and decided to message a nearby friend to see if she was free. Seconds later I looked up and she was walking towards me with her baby – she hadn’t even seen the message yet. We went to a stay and play group together then chatted over a cup of tea whilst her daughter played with and ate her lunch. That helped too.

I was too anxious to go into any cafés. I had decided I wanted some form of Asian street food for lunch, but I couldn’t face ordering from a table or at a till. My phone ran out of battery. The lowness and loneliness returned and grew.

Eventually I came across a Filipino street food place I had wanted to try and they had screens that I could order from, they even had a seat in the corner where I could sit and charge my phone. I had been worried about how I would manage to get to my little birthday gathering without knowing what time it was or where people were.

I got a phone call today that I’d been waiting weeks for too – an appointment booked just over a week away. I had started to imagine the process drawing out for months and months, so I was grateful to know that it was now moving forward. I even found the confidence to call and confirm the appointment time. For me, any phone call I make is a little victory.

Sometimes I feel quick to grumble and complain, but I’m trying to recognise the little and the big blessings. Like the fifteen minutes of sun this afternoon that made it warm enough to sit outside before it began to rain. Like the rain itself that gave me the motivation to go into the bookshop I had been too anxious to go into earlier. Like the other people browsing in the shop that made me feel less conspicuous and self-conscious.

Granted, an hour later I was in a supermarket, I felt grumpy, tired, achy, uncomfortable and a little lightheaded. My tummy was anxious and looking for little blessings didn’t feel so inviting. But I didn’t faint, something that I often fear when I start feeling lightheaded or dizzy, and there were further blessings in the form of the café round the corner that had screens to order from, lots of space (meaning that I didn’t feel a rush or pressure to leave) and toilets that I could hide in for a few minutes and practice breathing. I sat in the cafe for a while and made my ‘party bags’ for the evening, rested a little and managed to write a little too.

I thought to myself: Yesterday God is good. Today God is good. Tomorrow God is good. God is always good.

As well as recognising the little blessings, I find it helpful to celebrate small victories too. When a lot of daily life actually feels quite hard it is easy to become discouraged, to be weighed down by all the things I can’t or didn’t do, or maybe shouldn’t have done. I am grateful for those who point out and celebrate my little victories, even if I’m grumpy in the moment and don’t seem so eager to hear anything positive.

A good friend messaged after I managed to stay through a whole church service and then head back to my own flat last week: “you broke the Sunday panic pattern – what a victory!” It’s not that it’s not ok to have to leave or hide or run away, but she saw that this little victory wasn’t little for me at all, that it takes a lot to stick it out when all I want to do is run or hide.

Celebrate these small victories, both in yourself and in others.