Audrea's Story - Looking through Windows
"It was pouring down with rain one day and it was then that I found my darkest hour."
I never knew how much practicing Gratitude and being grateful for the most simple things in life mattered. Not until I didn't have them!
I took a downward spiral about 25 years ago, where times in my life became really really dark.
I lost everything. My home and my way in life. I became homeless. I stayed in some horrendous bedsits.
I would wake up and the carpets were sticky, and I had no facilities to my own bathroom.
I had to share a very basic bathroom with several other people, I had to clean it before using it, no cooker, no money, no job, no food!
I was shown some much-appreciated kindness by a man who owned a bakery. Every morning, I would go in and he would offer me the most delicious cinnamon and raisin pastries and a coffee to take back to the grotty, tiny room I called 'home'!
Eventually, I had to leave as it was a temporary 6-week stay until I found somewhere else to live, which I didn't.
I literally found myself living on the streets!
It was during February and it was freezing. I was pretty new to the town so didn't really have friends who could lend me their sofa for the night.
I had nowhere to turn. It wasn't like nowadays where help is available, such as food banks and the like.
It was pouring down with rain one day and it was then that I found my darkest hour.
My jeans were soaking wet, it was about 6 degrees cold and I was so so cold as I walked down the street in the pouring rain, drenched to the bone, dripping wet through.
Nowhere to dry off or change my soaking wet clothes, I would pass by houses looking through windows, watching as people would sit in warm houses watching TV or holding a hot drink in their hands, so wishing I could just have that again for just one day!
I would rest my tired legs, have a hot drink, and put on some warm cozy clothes.
25 years down the line, I sorted myself out. I don't recall how I managed it. But I did.
I was browsing the app store one day in my new home and found the Gratitude app around 4 years ago now. Every hot drink, everything I eat, every warm fluffy pair of socks I put on now to sit and watch a film I express gratitude for.
I'll never forget the days I walked down the street looking through windows, wishing I could have that hot drink and warm clothes.
I open the Gratitude app and put photos of cups of coffee and meals I make. Photos of beautiful walks I have knowing that I have a warm cozy home to go to.
Never take anything for granted. For you, as I did, might lose everything one day. You might be that person looking through windows.
Always make time to express gratitude, for that Gratitude, I express every day has got me where I am today.
The more Grateful I am, the more good things appear in my life. For that alone makes me feel so blessed that I found the Gratitude app.
I read back occasionally and see how far I have come in the last 4 years. Being Grateful truly makes your dreams come true.
