Thank You- Yes, YOU.

"So long as we are loved by others 

I should say that we are almost indispensable; 

and no man is useless while he has a friend." 

— Robert Louis Stevenson

Since writing my Broken Fences post, I have gotten letters, emails, comments, hugs, cards, (and chocolate even). It was completely unexpected. I guess I didn't expect any reaction, but if anything, I assumed people would only want to hear my ups and not my downs. The support and kinship I've felt with all the readers of this little blog, both online and in real life, has been nothing short of amazing.

I've realized two things in the past couple of days: the first, that marriages are rough. It sounds painfully obvious. But I always feel like everyone else has it so together and that I'm a screw up. I always wonder what they know that I don't. It meant the world to me to get so many emails from people who admitted they have had problems too. Bloggers who have such beautiful families have told me that it wasn't always that way, or that it wasn't their first marriage, and it took time to get there. I look at their photos, I see sincere smiles, and it gives me some hope that maybe I can get to that place. They've made it, or are still in the process of making it. So thank you, all of you, for your refreshingly beautiful honesty. It's good to know I am not alone.

The second thing I've learned also sounds like a given, but it's been so stunning to me recently; I have friends. Not just friends who want to get together when things are good and life is easy, but friends who care about me. If you've been around me much, you know that It's a Wonderful Life is my favorite movie (because it's the best movie of all time, naturally). I could list 50 reasons why I think it's so great, but one of the biggest is that I have been in George Bailey's shoes-most of us have. You feel like the world is ending and everything is dark and no one is there. You look down from the bridge at the icy waves below, and you wonder if being down there would be better. You think about giving up. You want to give up. But one by one, you feel arms around you until you're surrounded by love and empathy. You are cared for, which is such a invaluable feeling.

In the closing scene of the movie, George reads the inscription on the book from Clarence (the angel): "Remember George, no man is a failure who has friends."

And I'm learning I have many.
Thank you all.