Rainy Days and Mondays

Sometimes I will start out a post by apologizing to cyberspace for my absence.  Then, I think, "mmm....better not."

I think apologizing is a lovely art--don't get me wrong.  The world would be a better place if we could learn how to genuinely say sorry to people we may have hurt.  I also think there's a point where apologizing goes too far.  I find myself throwing sorry around like my clothes after a long day.  Do I actually fold those clothes and put them away? No.  I throw them in the general vicinity of my laundry hamper with the intent of actually thinking about them later.  It would be better if I were more intentional with my language than that.  I think this attitude is where the "sorry not sorry"  phrase originated.  People realized, "hey, I'm not actually sorry," so I'm not going to lie that I am. However, the lack the confidence to own it, so they apologize for the lack of something they "should" feel.

Ah.  There's that word.  Should.  Can we retire this word please?  Should statements are the worst.  Just the worst.  Don't use them.

I had an experience the other day.  It wasn't the best of days.  I watched too much Netflix, ate too much candy, spent too much time inside, and my dedicated productive hours became royally unproductive (four hours of PCR down the drain...)

I can be a lazy person, but I loathe feeling lazy.  One direction I could go with this is to label myself as lazy and then hate myself and then become more lazy the next day and then hate myself.  (Does anyone else do this??)

The point is that this day I didn't.  I had a bad day.  And the next day I showed myself some self love and positive thinking, and moved on.  Sometimes I think we think of progress in a very Alcoholics Anonymous kind of way.  The way that counts each day of success (1 week sober, 2 months sober, etc.) and starts over at one failure.  (I'm not meaning to knock AA; I think it's a beautiful program that helps a lot of people.)  This may work for addiction recovery, but I don't think one day of failure undoes days or weeks or years of successes.  I don't subscribe to the notion of "starting back at square one."

Rather, I believe in collecting successes and holding on to them like bullets to destroy any feelings of self-doubt or dejection that come along with the failures that life deals out.

Love life. Love yourself.  Love others.  And with age and experience, I'm getting better at this.  That's the message.