I Love Being an Optimist

Yesterday I was having a really bad day.

I don’t know why. I’m sure it was hormonal or astrological or maybe even ontological – (love the way that word rolls off the tongue!). But all day I wanted to punch someone in the face, well not really someone, everyone. My rage was not discriminatory.

I warned my husband and older son that today was not the day to push me. And wisely they both backed off. Now, of course, I was probably in that mood because of the older one’s fit the night before which made my mood dour, but that’s beside the point. I think we should eliminate the age 15 altogether and just skip to 16- like hotels don’t have 13th floors. It’s just a bad age. Period.

But, as I said, I’m an optimist. Always have been. I can’t stay down more than a few hours. So after I day dreamed of boxing my way out of a multitude of situations, including nerf-darting a few cars driven by idiot drivers – wish I could say all were men, but no there was one moran of a woman too who couldn’t figure out how to get out of her own way much less mine and naturally was talking on her cell phone – obviously incapable of multitasking, I went running. Then I sat down to write outside on my lovely glistening new laptop while nasty child number one had hoops practice. By the time he was done – about an hour later, I was a changed person.

Now this morning I get up, open the paper and read about a guy I know, who 17 months ago had his wife suddenly die of a brain hemorrhage. Today, he’s under arrest, suspected of killing her by strangulation! How incredible is that. I always say you never know what’s going on in someone else’s house. It may look like the grass is greener, but that’s just ‘cause they’re secretly painting it.

Suddenly my life has drastically improved - simply due to the fact that my husband, son or any number of people I gave the evil eye to yesterday didn’t kill me overnight. Then I read from one of my Twitter followers that he hates his wife and wants a divorce, which he actually took the time to s-p-e-l-l o-u-t, meaning to me that he must have been pretty steamed when he wrote it. And again, my mood improves. That misery loves company thing really works!

But back to being an optimist. So the bottom line of this whole optimist thing is that no matter how bleak it seems at one moment, the next one is going to be better if you just stick it out and recognize that the foulness, whether you understand it or not, is fleeting.

So today, when I clicked through my email, I was pleasantly surprised to find some old and some new friends on Twitter. Life is good. Today is truly a brand new day.