today was a good day. to say this feels to me more like a mantra than a simple statement. i keep whispering it aloud, almost in effort to convince myself of its truth.
today was a good day.
today was a good day.
today was a good day.
because as the title of my blog reflects: i am indeed a determined optimist.
optimism hardly comes easily to me. seeing the best of situations, the silver lining, the glass half full, the sunny side, etc. etc., it just doesn't appear before me or tumble off my tongue as easily as i would like. so in efforts to change this about myself, i vow to use this blog as a way to scan the contents of my day to pick out what was indeed good.
because the gosh darn truth is that good things happen to us every single day. the truly good things tend to be masked as life's little challenges meant to teach us lessons, to make us stronger, and all that bullshit. but herein lies my problem.
because, you see, even as i type the words "today was a good day", i have to remind myself that this is in fact true. i have to swat away the many factors of my day that scroll across my mind in big red neon letters that would contribute to it being not so good. Just to name a few:
today was a good day.
today was a good day.
today was a good day.
because as the title of my blog reflects: i am indeed a determined optimist.
optimism hardly comes easily to me. seeing the best of situations, the silver lining, the glass half full, the sunny side, etc. etc., it just doesn't appear before me or tumble off my tongue as easily as i would like. so in efforts to change this about myself, i vow to use this blog as a way to scan the contents of my day to pick out what was indeed good.
because the gosh darn truth is that good things happen to us every single day. the truly good things tend to be masked as life's little challenges meant to teach us lessons, to make us stronger, and all that bullshit. but herein lies my problem.
because, you see, even as i type the words "today was a good day", i have to remind myself that this is in fact true. i have to swat away the many factors of my day that scroll across my mind in big red neon letters that would contribute to it being not so good. Just to name a few:
- our cable is spotty, leaving me to watch gilmore girls on soapnet with pixelated ribbons dancing across the screen.
- my clean laundry that cost $2.50 to wash and dry was unceremoniously dumped on the basement floor by an impatient fellow tenant.
- i was hit with my first crippling bout of homesickness today. so much so that i sat in front of my computer, staring at the home screen of the richmond times dispatch online, desperate for news from home, tears streaming down my face, asking myself, "what in God's name am i doing here?"
and though the first two are, i admit, trivial, the third was the reason everything seemed to hit me square in the stomach today. though i've had tinges of homesickness here and there over the last 2 weeks of living in this strange new city, today was the first day that it literally brought me to my knees.
i was left questioning my core motivations for having moved here, for having left all things familiar, to live in a room that costs 1/2 of my monthly income and dares me to stretch out my arms and simultaneously touch each wall with my fingertips.
but who doesn't have moments of self-doubt? i've told myself 100 times today that this must come with the territory. people like to say that cities are impersonal, that there's nothing like a big city to make a person feel small. and today was just my introduction to what this must mean. i walk down the street in pursuit of a newspaper, an iced coffee, overpriced groceries, and i see not a single face i recognize.
but this is what i asked for. i spent months applying to americorps positions in foreign cities, hundreds of miles away from home. i dreamed of setting off, my little car packed full of boxes of necessities and nothing more, waving to my weeping parents in the rearview mirror, nothing but hope in my heart and the excitement of adventure seeping out of my every pore.
and though in reality it all panned out a little differently, a little less dramatic and straight out of a dawson's creek episode, here i am. 900 miles away from home. actually living that which i so desperately wanted. but isn't that just like me? to want and want and want only to get it and not want it so much anymore?
this paralyzing self-doubt and sob-evoking homesickness -- i have a feeling this won't be an isolated event. that this lonely moment was the first of many lonely moments i may have here. so many that if you were to string them all together, they'd make up not a lonely life (i'm not feeling that gloomy), but at least a lonely epoch in an otherwise unlonely life.
you chose this, i must remind myself. this is where you live now.
so today was a good day after all. because i have learned that though i can feel sorry for myself all i want, in truth: i asked for this. so i better get to liking it. i better find the beauty that exists in my situation and learn to convey through words what i see and feel. i better learn to appreciate the strength and bravery i have shown to leave what was easy - the people, places, and things i had grown accustomed to - to truly set out on my own.
and all in all, this proves that the need for this blog is real. i need to reflect at the end of the day to see the bigger lesson that God intended. i need to wake up and say to my mind, "you will be positive today," so that i have a whole different perspective from the time i hit the snooze button, to the time i flip my pillow to its cool side at night. i can have a direct, determined impact on my filters of perspective, to fill my cognitive glass to it's "half full," line, so to speak.
i was left questioning my core motivations for having moved here, for having left all things familiar, to live in a room that costs 1/2 of my monthly income and dares me to stretch out my arms and simultaneously touch each wall with my fingertips.
but who doesn't have moments of self-doubt? i've told myself 100 times today that this must come with the territory. people like to say that cities are impersonal, that there's nothing like a big city to make a person feel small. and today was just my introduction to what this must mean. i walk down the street in pursuit of a newspaper, an iced coffee, overpriced groceries, and i see not a single face i recognize.
but this is what i asked for. i spent months applying to americorps positions in foreign cities, hundreds of miles away from home. i dreamed of setting off, my little car packed full of boxes of necessities and nothing more, waving to my weeping parents in the rearview mirror, nothing but hope in my heart and the excitement of adventure seeping out of my every pore.
and though in reality it all panned out a little differently, a little less dramatic and straight out of a dawson's creek episode, here i am. 900 miles away from home. actually living that which i so desperately wanted. but isn't that just like me? to want and want and want only to get it and not want it so much anymore?
this paralyzing self-doubt and sob-evoking homesickness -- i have a feeling this won't be an isolated event. that this lonely moment was the first of many lonely moments i may have here. so many that if you were to string them all together, they'd make up not a lonely life (i'm not feeling that gloomy), but at least a lonely epoch in an otherwise unlonely life.
you chose this, i must remind myself. this is where you live now.
so today was a good day after all. because i have learned that though i can feel sorry for myself all i want, in truth: i asked for this. so i better get to liking it. i better find the beauty that exists in my situation and learn to convey through words what i see and feel. i better learn to appreciate the strength and bravery i have shown to leave what was easy - the people, places, and things i had grown accustomed to - to truly set out on my own.
and all in all, this proves that the need for this blog is real. i need to reflect at the end of the day to see the bigger lesson that God intended. i need to wake up and say to my mind, "you will be positive today," so that i have a whole different perspective from the time i hit the snooze button, to the time i flip my pillow to its cool side at night. i can have a direct, determined impact on my filters of perspective, to fill my cognitive glass to it's "half full," line, so to speak.
easier said than done. but at least this is a start.
No comments:
Post a Comment