POSITIVE!

Glass half full, glass half empty, and glass the way I lift it on far too many days.

I made a spontaneous pledge one day last week to be positive for 24 hours. My husband, Rick, ever the optimist, suggested I shoot for just ONE hour first.

It had been an especially negative day of construction noise and stinking port-a-potty from next door; of depressing election news which almost made the p-a-p smell sweet; and screw jobs by multiple airlines (I won't mention which ones, you’re welcome Lufthansa, British Air).

Jetlag, after a 15 hour flight, had me in hallucinogenic hell.

A medical bill awaited my return with the message that insurance had declined to pay: "Due on receipt." Now overdue. The streets proved almost impassible with potholes, as I struggled to get to the store for milk – and back home alive. Not that the potholes hampered the red light runners who, since COVID, have made every drive life-threatening. Great piles of Hurricane Beryl debris still remained from that horror four months later. And a breech at Social Security had sent my number – all our numbers – pinging around the Dark Web.

That kind of day.

And about midway through the morning, which was 7 AM on the clock, since the jetlag got me up at 3, I realized that I was responding in kind. What, me negative? Yes, even usually Pollyanna me. Those who know me will know that this is said with irony. If anything, I’m ever the anti-Pollyanna. (I almost hear some of you chuckling as you think “auntie” – and I won’t forget!)

It’s so easy, at least for those of us so inclined, to slump into the quicksand of negative thinking – and speaking: this wrong, that wrong, everything wrong. And getting WRONGER. Which may be true – from my curmudgeonly old-fart point-of-view, certainly is true – but doesn’t make anything RIGHTER, especially when it comes to the comfort of my living in the world. Or that of the few others who still have the courage or the stomach (or the pity) to bask in my too often negative glow. I remember a guy from decades ago, a guy always so glum (clinically depressed, I fear) that just a glimpse of him sent all of us into a gallop the other way. I don’t want to be such a Gloomy Gus. (Hey, I’m talking to you – the one running away. I SEE YOU! And I won’t forget!)

So, POSITIVE I pledged to be, for 24 hours as a start. “Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness,” someone is supposed to have said (Eleanor Roosevelt? Confucius? Someone we’ve never heard of? So many saintly sorts seem to have claimed it over the centuries). Which is a fine guiding light for living – as long as you can find a candle – and remembered the matches.

There’s that tired old joke that I laugh and laugh at, every time I repeat it: Be positive? I am positive. Positive that everything is CRAP!

Of course it is a joke, and I don’t really believe it. Only three-quarters of everything is crap; the rest is merely deeply disappointing.

But I’m sure things will be getting better soon. They’re bound to. They couldn’t get any worse. (Famous last words. Now rushing for some wood to knock on.)

There are people who just seem to have POSITIVE in their souls, and not in that maddening best-of-all-possible-worlds way. They radiate a something which draws other people like those f***ing candle flames draw moths. And it seems they have to make no effort to do it. Even I’m drawn to them, even as I hate them for having that whatever it is that I long for, but never manage.

Recently we went on a tour (hence that 15-hours jetlag). One of the other group members turned out to be that sort of person. ALWAYS positive; saw the best in every person and place; smiling all the time; always with a good word to say. If he ran, he’d probably sweat POSITIVE.

Though I think knee replacements may mean running is no longer possible for him. But true to his type, he managed to find something good to say even about knee replacements – some falderal about “no more excruciating pain.” (I quickly noted, quietly to myself, that if he hadn’t done all that running, he’d likely have accomplished the same thing. That’s been my approach to pain avoidance.) And the kicker is – difficult managing a kicker, I suppose, with replacement knees – that all that POSITIVE seemed spontaneous to him; no struggling to eek out a wan smile that no one is ever going to believe. If he hadn’t been so nice, I’d hate him!

These days especially I long for POSITIVE, because so much seems to be conspiring to take me (take us?) to dark places. I can do a dandy job of going there on my own, without any help from the world outside. And I’m getting tired of watching everyone run the other direction when they get a glimpse of me.

So, POSITIVE for 24 hours it shall be. No sweat. Look at that: only 23 hours and 45 minutes to go. What’s the big deal? I can do it. Piece of cake. Check back tomorrow and see if I didn’t. (But then, by G**, WORLD WATCH OUT!)