Always Look On the Bright Side of Life

I would be a liar if I were to tell you that I am happy all of the time. I candidly admit that although I wrestle with anger issues, I make an effort to stay optimistic because I don’t want to be what my pal VK calls a “Neg Ad” (which is slang for “negative attitude”). Personally, I just don’t want to end up a bitter, crusty, later-middle-aged malcontent who hates everything about her life and who is so envious of the things the people around her have that her only source of joy is making everyone else miserable. I work with one of those; she’s a whole lotta drama. So, I do my part to stay positive.

I recently took a cue from Candy Paull’s The Art of Simplicity: Living Life By the Essentials of the Heart and began keeping a gratitude journal. Essentially, at the end of the day, before I retire for the evening, I make a list of at least five things for which I am grateful. Of course, every day I could write, “I am grateful for nourishing food to eat” or “I am grateful for a roof over my head,” so I attempt to tailor the list to things that occurred to me during the day. I have found this exercise to be inspirational. It has disciplined me to be attentive of my daily activities and not to take the things around me for granted. It has also helped me to see the good inside things I may normally have viewed as negatives. For instance, a friend I have not hung out with for a while recently broke our first date in two years pretty abruptly. I was off-kilter about that for a bit, but when I addressed it in my gratitude journal, I recognized that I was grateful that in making the date in the first place, we had had the chance to reconnect.

When I told Nancy about my gratitude journal, she commented how she thought that it would be really difficult to be thankful for things if one had a bad day, and I could see what she meant. I suspected that on days like that, I would have to fall back on “grateful for having a place to live” to make up the five things.

Well, this week, I had the chance to experience a bad day. And when I say bad I mean that really everything I touched turned to shite. To illustrate, it literally began with a fresh pile of cat shit in my bed, and also included unforgettable hits such as finding mold on fruit I had purchased the day before, being yelled at by a client, getting a call from my insurance company that I may be in default on my homeowner’s insurance, and discovering that the cost of a single load of laundry increased by $1.75 overnight.

The following conversation occurred between me and my high-power lawyer friend, Sexy Bitch, on Facebook:

Sexy Bitch: Today is definitely not in the top 10% of all the days I’ve ever had, or even the Mondays. But I do like my new $11 dress. So there is that.

Me: I think I’m going to have a hell of a time coming up with 5 things to write in my Gratitude Journal tonight… I don’t even have an $11 dress as a go-to entry.

SB: How about framing it in terms of things that didn’t happen to you, Cat? E.g., did not get spit on by a llama, did not mysteriously wake up 9 lbs heavier, did not get notification from health department re: potential exposure to STD, did not shit pants in public?

Me: Yes, yes, then the possibilities are endless!

SB: And fun to think of! I didn’t discover my underwear were on inside out midway through the day. It’s the small things, really.

And you know what? When I curled up with my gratitude journal and began to write, I found that the things for which I am grateful just flowed out of me without having to think much about it. My gratitude was more abundant than on a regular old day when everything is status quo and nothing goes wrong. In fact, I easily thought of not just 5 things for which I was grateful, but 7. And the first thing was, “I am grateful that not every day is like today.”

As I look back on that day, I realize that sometimes things come in pairs, the good with the bad. For instance, the strawberries that were fuzzy just 24 hours after I had brought them home were the same berries that went into the salad that had gotten a rave review from everyone at the barbecue the day before. And the cat shit on the sheets forced me to wash all of the bedding so that, by extension, I now enjoy a completely fresh bed, which is especially nice when it’s 80 degrees in the middle of the night.

To the end of celebrating the little things, I am going to share some items that have made me happy this week.

• A painting by Jack Kerouac and Franco Angeli goes on display in Rome after 40 years in a private collection.
• This extensive collection of Bollywood record albums is up for sale.
• I made this delicious salad, which included Romaine lettuce, Monterey Jack cheese, marinated jasmine rice, toasted walnuts, half of an avocado, an entire peach, and homemade sweet red wine garlic dressing:

• I learned that Magic Hat’s summer seasonal, Wacko, is made with nothing less than beets… I love beets and I must find this beer!  
• One of the specials on Lowell Beer Works's June menu, the Cumin-Scented Tilapia with wilted spinach, green beans, and papaya-black bean salsa and habanero-lime cream. I wish this were the tasternet so I could share!
• The dual album, Rip, Rig & Panic/Now Please Don’t You Cry, Beautiful Edith, by Roland Kirk finally arrived this week, and it has traveled with me everywhere since. Props to sounds I will forevermore associate with summer.  
• This Fickle Picnic comic
• This photo of women who are so comfortable with themselves that they having a pie eating contest while wearing bathing suits. Do it, sisters!
• And, really, just knowing that this blog is lurking out there in my RSS Feeds cheers me up!