It's Been A Bad Day
With all the isolation, stay at home mandates, lack of physical contact (I happen to love hugs!) and social distancing, there are days when many of us just want to scream from the sheer crazy way it’s made our days. --- Even though they’ve been way more predictable since, we seem to be doing the same things over and over again, rather than running around, going places, eating out, sporting events, concerts and just spending time with friends and family who don’t necessarily live in the confines of our homes.
I remember some years back, one of my daughters was having what she dubbed, “a bad day.” One morning she was running late, finally headed to work and on the way reached up to fix her rear view mirror. While adjusting it, the thing came off in her hand. Before she got out of town, a mere two miles, her car was running warm.
Before she reached her destination, she got caught in construction and the temperature light came on in her car, so she had to turn the heat on with the fan, so it would cool. This was significant since it was warm and humid outside! After she got to work one of her co-workers looked at her and told her, her hair looked especially nice. She replied, “It’s my late, heater on, window open, wind-blown look!”
I loved her response! Regardless of what we are dealing with, how we respond to a situation often dictates how we view our world in general! Now I admit, I am ready to be done this whole “isolation” thing. I’m ready for life to get back to normal—even knowing our ‘new normal’ won’t be what we were living two months ago. It’ll be regained in stages, and that’s assuming we really will get back to where we were. There is plenty of speculation about that!
But when we view our lives with a narrow, dim, dark view, it colors everything we do with clouds, grayness and even darkness. When we can see the ‘silver lining’ it tends to allow light in, even if it isn’t shining brightly!
I’ve been told I have a ‘Polly Anna attitude.’ When that statement was made in a college classroom discussion, I was stricken, even though I owned it—to a degree. I admitted that perhaps I did look at the world as an optimist. I’d rather have joy and happiness in my life, instead of demons and ugliness trouncing on me!
As a woman, I tend to be emotional, so I can, when upset, just want to cry. If I can turn the tables on my negative emotions, I’m there! If that means looking for the good in all things and/or all people, so be it! I admit, there are days when circumstance and even people make that perspective challenging, but it’s always worth the effort! Is it always accurate? Probably not, but it takes the edge off, a would be, dark and dreadful feeling of bleakness and desolation.
Am I being over dramatic? Some might shout out, YES! And again, that may be true, but for me, it’s such a much better option! How about you? How do you tend to view the world? Is it a sad, deplorable, ‘got ‘cha,’ kind of place? Or do you, like me, look for the silver lining, even when it’s a very dim light?