M. Reali-Elliott's Blog, page 3

The original rules of summer – excerpt from Summer 20XX

There are never enough water balloons.There are also never enough glow sticks.Always keep two spare bottles of rosé.Keep a wine key in every bag.Dessert can come before dinner.Eat outdoors every meal that you can, with
as much of it grilled or skewered over an open fire as you can manage.Mix all cocktails by the pitcher.Start the grill at the same time that you
start serving drinks.Ignore the house. You’re going to be
outside anyway.Alarms are simply a suggestion.

I had always had a gag
list of rules for summer, rules that were really geared for adults to remember
what life was like as a child. The idea behind them was that summer was a time
to let go of the rigid structure that was necessary the rest of the year and
just enjoy the leisures and pleasures.

The first rule was that
there were never enough water balloons. The second, a close follower, was that
there were never enough glow sticks. Through the eyes of a child, the water
balloons always run out too quickly and that all objects that glow in the night
cause your soul to burn just as bright with excitement. As rules should be,
they aren’t comprehensive or lengthy, just conveying a core idea, because
included with glowsticks could be anything that burns bright against the night
sky, including fireworks, bonfires, and the rising and setting activity of the
sun.

These rules were meant to
reorient your thinking during the carefree summer months, to remind you to just
say yes to the childish requests because what you were giving them by allowing
this freedom was so much more than just another water balloon or glowstick. Simple
pleasures meant something to a child and knowing that we care to allow them to
experience those unhindered was a big part of what brought joy to this season.

Some of the rules were meant to remind adults in the same way. I am certain that, like water balloons, there are also never enough bottles of rosé, summer tunes, or siestas, which shape the bright jewels of joy sprinkled across our summer experiences. The world does not cease its rotation if you hit the snooze button to take in a few extra minutes of calm. There was never enough time outdoors, especially if you worked in an office, so if meals were the only time you had, you should spend them in the open air.

I’ve always looked
longingly at articles about summer that touted top activity guides or summer
bucket lists, knowing I didn’t have the time away from work to embrace the
carefree lifestyle that summer should ultimately be about. Those were written
for dreamers, or so I thought. Articles geared to the college crowd who needed
a few last years of celebrating the vivacious life outdoors or to satisfy their
wanderlust. Or maybe they were geared for older women, empty nesters or young
early retirees who had forgotten how to appreciate freedom and were looking to
regain a life of youthful abandon. But not for someone like me – a
career-driven mother of young children whose tuition payment was coming due. But
just maybe this summer, I had the opportunity to give it a try, in a small way.

Author with new style publishes this year’s must-have beach read

A creative nonfiction
work, Summer 20XX, aims to inspire working mothers to chase after the lifestyle
they want and reorient their families during the years that mean the most.

April 3, 2019 – Orlando, FL – Creative nonfiction works are a growing trend and include everything from biographies to travel and food to personal memoirs, as this happens to be. They are considered factually accurate, but instead of reading like a textbook, they are designed to entertain.

In Summer
20XX, M. Reali-Elliott uses her unique personal style, which is often imbibed
with cynic humor while pointing toward a message of inspiration. A new author,
she infuses authentic and enlivening stories with her insight into the minds
and hearts of those she reaches, with the goal of inspiring others to pursue
their dreams.

Summer
20XX is about a busy family’s journey to squeeze every drop of sunshine and joy
from a summer spent together while learning to be spontaneous and embrace the
challenges that life throws their way.

“This
story is meant to be inspirational, but we cannot grow without recognizing both
the light and the dark within ourselves,” said M. Reali-Elliott. “It takes a
good dose of humor to recognize and face our struggles, both inside and out,
and to choose to move forward with hope and joy. We should always be able to
laugh at ourselves during moments when we are at our most flawed to give
ourselves the strength to continue on.”

Combining
a sarcastic wit and uplifting message is to walk a fine line, but that duality is
often what our privately-journaled thoughts would reveal. In this raw, gripping
personal tale, M. Reali-Elliott captures the essence of what it takes to
challenge your own nature and how a personal change can impact an entire
family’s ability to relate to each other.

“I wanted
to use a journalistic style to record the events that led to our moments of
greatest discovery,” shared M. Reali-Elliott. “The summer described in this
story happens to be mine, but what I want readers to understand is that this
could just as easily be their journey as a family. It could be anyone’s summer,
any year, if they were daring enough to try.

“By using
something relatable, like a journal and an honest story, I could give readers
the chance to picture themselves living a different life. By changing the way
they think, I hope they can learn the same important lessons my family did.”

Summer
20XX is available as both an e-book and via print through major online
retailers.

M. Reali-Elliott is a creative nonfiction writer who uses authentic and enlivening stories to inspire the younger generations to go after their adventures, dreams, and passions, while remaining on a solid ethical ground motivated by all things good, true, and beautiful. http://m-realielliott.com/

For more information, please contact:
M. Reali-Elliott, Author Summer 20XX
Email: m.reali.elliott@gmail.com
Phone: 407-417-6181

Why balance is important

If you read my post earlier this week, you know that I was not in a good place. I forced myself to sign up for a group yoga class, with my husband urging me that it would be healthier to fight my stress productively, instead of through medication or alcohol or bottling it in until I had a migraine and was begging neckrubs from him. He’d be willing to help me get any of those if I needed, but thought I should try a little preventative self-care first.

I found yoga a few years ago, when we first started dating. It helped with the chronic pain and migraines I was constantly fighting. The most amazing thing was that while I was there and in my most relaxed and meditative state, I would find my mind drifting to my purpose in life. From my first class, I had realized that all I wanted to do was write. It became a process, trying to find a way to become what I knew I was called to do.

Then my position changed and my manager required me in to work so early and at such long hours, that I couldn’t attend my yoga classes and I lost touch with it. The only classes available now were more energetic and didn’t allow me to meditate at all.

My career changed again, helping me find my way to my calling. I was working from home and during lunch breaks, would step away to do online yoga courses. They weren’t quite the same, but at least I had some physical activity. Just being at peace finally in my work had given me enough clarity to restructure my life. My career was now based in writing and I could do everything I wanted to do with my family, my hobbies, my life. It was wonderful. I felt inspired every day, whether I was at work or at home, no matter what I was doing, because I knew I was on the right path.

There has been another change recently, and I have lost the ability to see past work. I have practically given up sleep and it still isn’t enough. Work has consumed my life. Personal struggles with my family leave me feeling emotionally drained. With all the hardship, I have no peace.

What I have felt this year has been so different from what I felt last year that it is hard to move forward with my goals. The story I’ve been working on focuses primarily on everything my family learned about finding joy through challenges and getting balance in your life, so it’s been hard to get myself into the same mindset to even work on that story. I’ve also felt like a huge hypocrite, giving advice I can barely follow, while knowing that I need to hear it just as much as any reader out there.

We went out last night and both realized that it was the first I had smiled in weeks. That wasn’t good and I knew it. Even so, today I wasn’t feeling in the most social of moods, but I knew he was right and agreed to go. I needed to take my own advice, too, even though it would be a challenge.

So I attended a yoga class with other moms from the boys’ school. I knew it would force me out and while I dreaded the lost productivity, I realized it was needed. I reminded myself that these moms were the people I was supposed to identify with and who my entire message was for. If I thought my message of finding joy could help them, maybe I needed a little help from them to get back to that point first.

While shifting to a new pose, the instructor said something that seemed to wake me back up: “We are unbalanced creatures. We come in to yoga without balance; yoga helps us to find it.”

It made perfect sense. I realized I had spent most of my life looking for balance. I have some obsessive tendencies, like needing to eat equally on both sides of my mouth, touch objects with both hands. I even have a quirky reaction of only getting goosebumps down the side of my body that has been touched, only equaled out if the other side is touched in the same way. It unnerves me when a yoga instructor does a pose on one side and continues to focus on other poses without doing the same pose immediately on the other side – I actually sit there anxious and distracted while waiting for the imbalance to be rectified.

My entire life has been a search for balance without even realizing it. When I’ve taken the time for myself, and found a way to balance my body and relax my mind, that is when I have been at my best. That is when I am most inspired and able to understand what I feel called to do. I can reconnect with God and feel his healing presence and appreciate my blessings.

In our lives, how could we choose to give this up? I know I left in a much better place mentally. I feel inspired again. I honestly don’t think I could thank the women that put this event on enough.

For all my friends going through something similar, fight for your right to have balance in your life. You never know just what you might accomplish when you put everything else on hold for a little.

Bringing a message of joy to a very dark place

I’ve been writing for a long time, not just since I decided to actually publish a book. I’ve been writing as long as I can remember.

It started as a child, with the best friend I’ve had since I was two, imagining stories together where we shared the ideas, she built them out, and I illustrated them. It continued in my journaling throughout most of my life, so many private thoughts put onto paper, not all of which stayed private. Now I write for an organization, mainly, and only get to write for myself in the off time I so rarely get.

With so many ideas and so little time, I began many books that I didn’t finish. I had many ideas that I couldn’t get to. Some cases were unfortunate, because someone else got there first or because they came true. The world could have used the tales back when they were still fictitious and preventable, instead of the reality we are staring down.

The thing about writing is that you have to feel motivated and inspired to do it. I can’t sit down for 10 hours straight and plug away at technical details. I need some creativity thrown in there to stay sane. I feel more than one emotion a day, and for a full book, need a pretty consistent set of emotions for months at a time. The problem is that the motivation changes constantly and there is far too much that needs to be written. If inspiration changes, it is hard to keep up with everything there is to be done.

What happens when you feel your calling pulling you in so many directions? Right now I have the story I know I should tell the world, put on hold for the story I know I can give the world right away. Those are inspirational, positive, and necessary. But lately, all I feel inside me is a story I will likely share on a distant day, though it is only motivated by anger and rage and pain.

I try daily to work on the prepared inspirational story, which is due to publish in three weeks, but I can’t honestly always force myself to see it when there is so much working against me. How do you write a story about the light when all you face is the darkness?

Summer 20XX is about making the choice to laugh instead of cry. So I edit and promote, and pray that this story has the power to pull me back into the positive. I need that positive. Unfortunately, that is not always the world we live in. I believe the world needs that positive, and I hope that I can do my small part to transform it.

And so the first message I will issue is one of joy, of finding reason to laugh in the face of challenge, but I want readers to know that fighting the pain of this world is not just an uplifting story to leave them with a good feeling, but a constant battle, even for me. It is something we all have to choose every day, most especially when it is not an easy choice.

That is how we spend our humanity, our entire life, captured in a never-ending choice of whether to dwell on the good or the bad. I hope your battles are not so tough and that you find joy even in dark places.

Bloom where you are planted

In meme culture, we often see quotes or slogans that stir us, without understanding the origin. We apply them to our lives and repeat them to ourselves as a mantra, but understanding the root can provide a much richer knowledge.

The saying “Bloom where you are planted” was originally attributed to The Bishop of Geneva, Saint Francis de Sales in his book “Introduction to the Devout Life.” Recently the phrase has been popularized as a calling to triumph in the face of adversity. I fully support this notion and there are countless stories and blog posts about this already, including situations in your own life that I’m sure you can think of.

Yet in the original usage, it was a call to spirituality. The motivation behind it was to urge individuals along when they first felt a calling to transform their lives.

It wasn’t so much about blooming when you’ve been planted somewhere that isn’t ideal as it was an encouragement to bloom when you felt you’d had the benefit of being planted. It was a call to purposeful action.

When you feel you’ve been called, when you feel you’ve been planted somewhere for a distinct purpose, this should not be ignored. Ignoring it will cause you to whither as surely as someone who refuses to bloom when their outlook isn’t sure.

Certainly, try blooming if you’ve been planted somewhere you’d rather not be. The blossoms you produce may yet yield fruit. But once you feel a purposeful planting by the hands of one who created the universe and chose to plant you in it, follow your purpose.

What are you willing to work hard for?

My eldest competes later today in his school-wide spelling bee. Last week, he won his class competition and I’ll admit, I was surprised.

A frequent discussion in our household is how we dedicate our time. My boys know there is a tradeoff, an opportunity cost, and that each time they decide to take on an activity, they have given up the opportunity to do something else with that time. They sit down and map out their after school plans so that they can learn something about the things they’re passionate about – drumming, skateboarding, drawing, to name a few. Like me, they believe in the 10,000 hour theory, but have too many things they want to be really good at.

Ashton is often upset if he isn’t the best of the best, and I have to remind him that that’s actually okay. This year, he seems to be having an even tougher time at it because academics have gotten very competitive and he has his first really tough teacher. We all had at least one growing up, the type that marks you wrong even when you’re right, because there’s some life skill she thinks it teaches.

Lately I get a lot of, “J* is better than me at everything!” (*Name removed for privacy.) I remind him that we all have things we are good at and things we aren’t so good at, but realize, I can’t actually think of something J isn’t good at. J’s dad was my physics and pre-calc teacher in high school. J is wonderfully gifted and I’m very happy for him and his awesome family, so I really don’t know what to say to my son at this point. My husband would ask Ashton, “How hard are you willing to work to do that? What are you willing to give up – Scouts? Baseball? No? Well, that’s the decision you’re faced with, but remember, it was your decision.”

When they announced that it was time for the school spelling bee this year, which starts in fourth grade, he came home and said that he wanted to win it. And I worried.

Spelling is not one of his gifts. Math, science, art, we’ve got those covered. He loves to read and to me, that’s more important than the actual mechanics of language, which will come with spending enough time reading. He also tends to quit pretty quickly when things get hard.

“Ashton,” I began, hoping the rest of the words would just come to me. “Do you think I am good at spelling?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Well, good, since I kind of write for a living… But the thing is, at your age, I was not that good at it. At least, not compared to Aunt Elise (my best friend since the age of 2) and it always bothered me that I wasn’t as good as her. Still, I learned enough that I am very good and have even made a career out of it.

“You know that spelling isn’t exactly your thing, but if you want to win, I’ve printed out the words for you already. How hard are you willing to study for this?”

He promised he would. Then Christmas break came and he was at his dad’s for over two weeks where I had no ability to influence whether he actually practiced or not.

I was very surprised when he won his class round, and so was he. J gifted his extra study list to Ashton in congratulations and to cheer him on. Have I mentioned that these children are amazingly kind?

I know I could save this post and wait until after this afternoon’s school-wide bee to include how he does there. But winning isn’t the point. What makes me most proud is to see him give the effort.

He is able to think through the event with enough forethought to say that even if he gets his very first word wrong now when competing against all older students, he’s just happy to have succeeded thus far. Honestly, he echoes my same sentiments.

Willingness to try his best and the dedication to push through the challenges are the important lessons for him to learn. Those make me more proud than a victory will. I’m here to celebrate his efforts, whether he is successful right away or whether he learns how to pick himself up to try again next year.

And so my friends, that is the lesson for the day. Celebrate efforts. Perseverance shows true character, and that is an important lesson for all of us to learn.

We have forgotten how to use our hands

A few months ago, I was in charge of a station for a pack-wide cub scout meeting. When asked what I was going to do as my activity, I announced that we would be having a paper airplane building contest and I was hardly surprised by the eye rolls this plan received from the other den leaders. Tacky, they thought. For the little kids like her den.

It wound up being a huge hit, to the parents at least. I was in for a bit of a shock at how it was received by the children.

Do you know how few children can fold a paper airplane? I don’t mean a fancy airplane that does impressive loops or has a neat tail. I mean one that meets the basic concepts of being made from paper and having a central shaft with two wings.

Boys came through my station, grouped with their own age, though not sequentially, so I was left to work out my strategy each time we cycled them. Most of them had never once folded a paper airplane. As I explained the basic, necessary components that would enable the paper to be propelled through the air, many of the kids broke down crying, while I walked their parents through the few basic steps, beginning with “fold it down the middle.”

What surprised me most was that the oldest children were the ones least capable of managing to fold the paper. The youngest boys, who had only just started Kindergarten, were the ones most willing to try, with their efforts and confidence decreasing with age. I would have thought that the bigger boys were old pros at this.

It turns out, they were terrified, because they had never done it before. The youngest children were used to being asked to try something new; they faced learning new skills every day. The older the children got, the more comfortable they had become to never bother with something so basic, that being asked to give it a shot caused them to come unglued.

Some of the parents laughed and critiqued the children’s willingness, “I guess if you can’t do it through an app, you don’t learn how…” That spoke highly of their parenting techniques to me, so I kept fairly quiet.

How could there be fifth-grade boys who had never made a paper airplane, I wondered. I can hardly keep my boys from making them with their church bulletins and sending them flying across the sanctuary. Isn’t this something boys just did when simply coloring the paper wasn’t enough entertainment?

The next day, I was volunteering in my eldest son’s fourth grade class to make a papier-mâché project that was fairly basic, just covering balloons with the gluey wet paper strips. Some of the kids struggled with keeping their balloon steady, as it grew heavier to the sides already covered in material. But I had plenty of time to circle between students and chit-chat with other mom friends, including the art teacher, whose son graduated around the same time as me and knew me from my time in school. The same level of effort wasn’t required as my previous paper project.

I was still puzzled about the paper airplane activity. As I left the campus, one of the directors caught me in the hall and thanked me for volunteering my time and being willing to get my hands dirty. I laughed and told her how much I love helping with art, but shared the previous day’s events with her.

As we talked about it, she shared her insight into what has become a generational trend: we don’t know how to create anything with our hands anymore. My boys’ school is very hands-on with engaging activities, and strongly emphasizes the arts, but it is a rare type of institution.

But I realized she was right. This wasn’t just the children from the previous day who couldn’t fold the paper. I was instructing the parents as well. There were a few dads who got into the activity and were amusingly competitive, but as a whole, most had forgotten how to make this basic childhood object.

Everything we do is electronic, not just in business, but even in the creative world of art and music. Even as I write this post and think of the book I’m working to write, it isn’t being hand-written on paper the way my favorite honored writers of the past would have done. Setting aside the arguments about the negative effects of electronic time, I worry what else we are giving up when we willingly choose to avoid doing things with our hands.

If experience is the best teacher, yet we aren’t willing to experience, are we still learning? We still fill our time with activity even while our hands remain idle. At the end of it, can we still say we’ve learned, that we’ve felt, or that we’ve grown?

Parents, teachers, children, single adults, whoever is reading this, do yourself a favor today. Take some time to make something with your hands, even if it is as small and seemingly tacky as a folded airplane. You never know just what you might learn in the process, not just about the art media and the activity, but maybe you’ll discover something new in yourself as well.

A charge for life

On occasion, I like to go back to my older pieces of writing, and this is one that has mattered very much to me over the years; I return to it regularly. I attended a very small, very special private school, one that was committed to teaching its students to think upon the good, the true, and the beautiful. I continue to place my family in the Orlando area so that my children can attend school there now.

It was so small that for many classes, Juniors and Seniors attended the same courses, which alternated each year so that that each subsequent set of Juniors and Seniors would learn the same material, just at different ages. One such course was Aesthetics, which was a unique combination of study into how culture, traditions, and value systems impacted art over time.

One of the first days of the school year was dedicated to The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The joint classes had spent an emotional time discussing the heroic deeds of these soldiers who marched to carry out orders that they knew would lead to their death. The primary discussion topic for our class to mull over was what things were worth fighting for. If worth fighting for, then one should certainly understand that death was a possible outcome. But what our teacher asked us to consider instead, was whether we could instead choose to live for those things.

Anyone can choose to die for something they care about, but it takes an even stronger person to choose every day what they are willing to live for. And so I give you my charge to the Junior classes, delivered at my high school graduation, to inspire them when they chose the path they would take.

Melissa Stevens – Charge to the Junior Class

The student’s journey toward education seems sometimes like a soldier’s march, sometimes an athlete’s sprint and sometimes a snail’s painful crawl.

Though much of the work during your final year of high school may feel like the dragging of a heavy shell over broken terrain, it’s the last month, this one, that leaves the snail in the dust, that becomes the marathon run
at the sprinter’s pace. One is left in wonder as to how and, in fact, whether all necessary credits, classes, or assignments have been completed.

The pace least often found is that of the soldier’s determined march – a purposeful striving to do what must be done, in a dignified, respectable and responsible manner.

Nearly 100 students began the next leg of their upper-school journey this last fall at Geneva, some as newcomers to the school and some as veterans. Eager, and somewhat nervous, at the beginning of the year, they tried to settle in quickly through the halting and unsettled hurricane-filled weeks of summer.

Homework to right of them,
Teachers to left of them,
Future in front of them,
Volleyed and thundered.

Flashed all their textbooks bare,
Flashed as they turned in air,
Penning the papers there,
Noble young students.

Throughout the past nine months at Geneva, some among us have fallen, and others have joined our ranks in the charge for education–to prepare us for life.

My challenge to you, young scholars, is to choose the bold march of the martial pace less traveled, knowing that in the end, this will have made all the difference.

Some things, it has been said, are worth fighting for; and if worth fighting for, then worth dying for; and if worth dying for, then most surely worth living for.

In your continued journey toward education, my friends, may your work be honorable, your goals respectable and your minds full of the wisdom gained as you press on in the march – right across the finish line.

Resolve for joy when times are tough

I don’t believe in fate, not really. Or déjà vu. I definitely don’t believe that everything that happens to us is completely random. Some things are within our ability to control, others aren’t, which most all of us believe in some form or fashion, just varying how much falls into each camp. Fate and déjà vu don’t really catch my attention as I make my way through life, but coincidences and premonitions are another story.

When you stumble upon the same core idea multiple times within a few days, I believe the universe is trying to grab hold of you and tell you something. It’s time to pay attention.

Something caught my attention very quickly last Sunday during the church service. It was very small, something most people would just chuckle at before moving on.

As the opening hymn began to play (Lift High the Cross), I leaned over and whispered to my husband, “I had this song in my head all day yesterday.” He shrugged, “Maybe it was a premonition,” then quickly went back to singing and likely dismissed it immediately thereafter. To me, it was a sign: it was time to pay attention.

The sermon had my laser-focus from the first ten seconds. Now, I love church, but that isn’t normal for me. I have lived so long in the written word that it is very hard for me to glean information when I haven’t been able to visually process it. 

It opened with a call for us to determine to find joy in the face of difficulty, and as it happens, that is what so much of the book I’ve been slaving away writing each day is about. Maybe this was a sign that I would learn something new. Maybe I would hear something so amazing it would give me a new idea for the message I want to take to the world. Maybe this was God’s way of telling me that I am on the right path doing this.

The sermon message focused on why we get frustrated when events don’t go to plan, how to accept suffering, and how to turn suffering into a source of joy. It reminded me of all the occasions over the summer months where I was at my wit’s end with failed excursions, weather-related cancellations, and times when I just couldn’t get my family to cooperate to do what I thought we needed to be doing to make lasting memories of our extended time together. I learned so much more through the trials we faced and wholeheartedly realized the truth that a challenge is still a blessing in the form of a lesson. I learned not to fight it and to appreciate the trials enough to thank God for them every day when I listed out the blessings I was grateful for in our dinnertime prayer.

More importantly, I found a way to teach my children to appreciate the unanticipated curve balls that would be thrown their way. Through this, they learned how to feel joy and laugh at situations instead of crying. I remember saying to them that they can always choose to laugh. The scenarios you find yourself in aren’t always up to you, but the attitude you face them with is. We should all remember that we have access to joy within us that people and problems cannot steal from us.

I pray that you all choose wisely as you continue your walk through life. Choose the life spring of joy that is available to you. It flows from within.

Think you’ve had bad luck this year?

How 2018 is coming to a close

For starters, I have a cold and am not in the mood for much. I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions, but I do so love beginnings and endings, and an annual event provides such an opportunity to reflect and reevaluate yourself and your life. Getting in the mood to celebrate and to cook is another thing.

Last night as I traipsed to bed, all I wanted was to finish a book I’d started and get some actual sleep through my illness. I carried my book, a water bottle, and the remnants of some warm homemade eggnog to my bedside table, then proceeded about my evening routine.

I shuffled through the medicine cabinet, looking for all my nightly meds, plus something that might help me breathe for roughly 8 hours. I felt pretty miserable from lack of oxygen flow and a day I felt was spent in vain. The highlight had been a man in a mermaid shirt at church, but at least I’d laughed a little.

As I stumbled back to bed, teeth already gripping my pills, I reached for the water bottle. A sudden, sharp sting jabbed into my thumb, and I dropped the water bottle in shock. More like pitched it at the bed, to be honest.

A single-word expletive escaped my clenched teeth as I tried to both scream and hold onto my foul-tasting pills at the same time. It started with an F.

“What the absolute eff?!” came next and I realized that not only had I thrown the bottle onto the bed, but that I, myself, was now half-way across the room and that my poor, bewildered husband was staring at me. After a few seconds, squeezing my nails into my left thumbprint, I was able to explain.

“Apparently there was a wasp on my water bottle and it stung my thumb. It is now waiting on the side of the bed for you to go kill it.”

“You know wasps are attracted to water and need it to live?” he asked, as if it were an obvious daily threat I should have expected.

After the execution had been done and the pills swallowed, he continued to stare at me. “How do these things always happen to you?”

I shook my head, perplexed. In the two minutes it had taken me to brush my teeth and retrieve pills, when I was already sick and miserable, a wasp had found its way into the house and onto the lid of my water, where I was about to return. How, indeed.

I do suffer from a run of bad luck. Not tragic, mind you, but just enough to be frustratingly ironic. My mind quickly ran through all the other household members and how they would have reacted, and I started to laugh. It started as a chuckle, but soon both of us were laughing hilariously.

No one else in my family would have laughed. It would have been marked down and remembered forever as a ruined day. The fact that I was laughing at my rotten luck seemed to make it all the funnier to him as a witness.

As I climbed into bed, I reminded myself that laughter is always a choice that we can make. My ability to laugh in the face of adversity is what shows my family that it is possible. Maybe it isn’t such bad luck. Maybe it is my opportunity to show the world that life is entirely what you make of it, so you should make the most you can.

Choose laughter, my friends.