Keeping on the sunny side

So I just had a bad few hours at the end of work today for reasons too long and unimportant to your life for me to explain to you. Don't ask, don't tell is a good policy for when someone had a long stupid day at a job that is not their passion. Who actually wants to hear about what set you off in a corporate office? No one. No one will really understand because they don't do your job. It is kind of like telling someone about your dreams. It never makes sense and eventually the listener doesn't care anymore and then after telling them all about it, you just feel like a jackass. So that is my long-winded way of not telling you why my day was crappy.

But I will say this--I started this day off thinking about how down in the dumps I have been for quite some time due to unmentionable forces in the universe at work against me lately. And I decided that perhaps the challenge I am facing is actually the universe telling me to change my old ways and respond to crises in a more positive, optimistic, "nothin' gets the best of me and everything just rolls right off my back" kind of way. So today I thought about how frickin' positive I was going to be. I was going to laugh off anything my boss said that was condescending. I was going to grin and bear it when the workload piled up on my desk. I was going to not cuss out the drivers who cut me off on my bike ride to and from work. All this I vowed at 7am this morning.

And you know what? I got through about half my day doing okay at it. Every time I felt the irritation rise up in me (because it does sometimes--like a slow, white-hot heat overcoming my entire core and up into my neck and shoulders), I would stop, think about how not worth it being annoyed was, then break out into a smile or look at something funny on the internet real quick to make me laugh. Then back to work I went. It was great. I was really doing it!

Then the thing that will go unnamed happened. Nothing big. Just something awkward in which perhaps I addressed something innocently and possibly accidentally dug myself into a wee hole. Reactions to this something by other somebodies were not the greatest and kind of made me feel bad. Then I just got angry. And scared. And generally upset that it even happened. And POOF! Positivity out the window.

I realized I had let myself get annoyed again. Drat! Quick, I thought, go back to your breath. That will help! (thanks acting classes. Thanks yoga. Thanks massage) I put my head between my legs at my cubicle and took some big deep inhales. That helped a little. I got through the rest of the day struggling between mildly upset and shaking it all off. I felt like Jekyll and Hyde. It was a little hairy for a while.

Finally, I jumped on my bike at last after a distracted departure from the office. I think I got all my work done I needed to? I will find out Monday I guess. I just needed out. I sped down the Chicago streets until my ears were numb and aching from the crisp autumn winds. All I wanted was home. I repeated to myself that I need to be positive and optimistic in the face of adversity, that that was my problem and why things had been so tough for me lately. I need to be a better person, I thought. No coming home and being a grouch. I would smile through it all! Yesssss! Of course! This is my lesson from the universe!

I got home. I threw open the door. I yelled out loud "I am positive! I am! SMILE!" and I made my face go into a big huge grin and ran around the house like a crazy person, telling myself more stuff in that same vein. I was mad with positivity.

Until I crashed and gave in and decided I needed a little more than positivity to get me through this day. I needed a shot of tequila for some reason. Even though I hate shots. I just figured that something warm and numbing would help the stress I was feeling, both from the day and from my forced happy reaction to it.

So I poured myself a shot, and I got a lime and salt ready, and I licked the salt, and I took the shot-----
and promptly my throat closed in agony at the taste of horrible cheap tequila, and I gagged and spit the entire shot into the sink. I got all the terrible parts of taking a shot without any of the benefits. Awesome. I sucked the lime like I was licking my wounds, disappointed in myself.
I am such a mess that I can't even take a stupid shot correctly?

No wonder the universe is mocking me.


**Might as well post a picture of something that helped me get through today.