Optimism Overdose: Why It’s Healthy to Admit Life STINKS
Optimism is essential for a healthy life, healthy vision in particular…sort of like Vitamin A. In fact, for the purposes of today’s post, optimism IS Vitamin A for AWESOME.
Why is the song ‘Everything is Awesome’ from the Lego Movie queuing in my head?
I’ve not blogged in almost a MONTH. This has NEVER happened in all my years blogging. The longest I’ve ever missed is one week. I’ve been away for good reason, though.
Back in February, I cracked a molar. This was a HUGE deal.
Admittedly, I DO grind my teeth and have all my life. But, I’ve always been the person who got the sticker from the dentist. I’d never had a cavity, never needed braces.
I’ve always had healthy teeth to go with my very healthy levels of optimism. I figured I was almost forty-five, and teeth wear out and it SURELY wouldn’t be a big deal. The dentist rushed me in to tend the broken molar and O…M…G.
I literally wept when I got the prognosis.
Both sides of my mouth needed to be rebuilt immediately for any hope of saving my molars. If I didn’t do this, then the other teeth would crumble and I’d require a mouth full of dental implants.
I was mortified.
How could this be?
I brush all the time, have floss everywhere…even in MY CAR. How could a person who doesn’t LIKE sweets, who drinks water and not soft drinks have SO much damage?
No, there was a mixup and these were someone else’s X-rays. I wanted to believe that so badly, to get another opinion, but I knew my dentist was right. I’d sensed something horribly wrong long before the one tooth broke.
Between the stress (grinding) and the Shingles and multiple illnesses that just obliterated my immune system? My teeth had been destroyed.
Cracked then rotted from the inside out leaving only shells of teeth. No matter how much I cleaned the outside, the INSIDE was the problem…the place I couldn’t reach with conventional care methods.
How dismally metaphoric.
Call Me, Ms. Optimism
[image error]Look chic AND keep government from reading your thoughts…
In 2009, when my grandmother (who reared me, so essentially my mom) was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s, I kept a good attitude. There were new medications, new treatments to slow down how quickly the disease could progress.
I’d bring Spawn (then a baby) to see her and they’d play Bubble Guppy games on my—okay, his—iPad. Brain games to combat the Alzheimer’s.
Then, my favorite aunt’s heath began failing, the woman who still did her own yard work even though she was ninety-four. Often, she’d be in the hospital at the same time as my grandmother, sometimes in the next room.
Optimism to the rescue. Hey, I can visit them at the same time. Read to them, bring flowers, bring the baby, and save time and gas.
In 2010, when my husband received orders to deploy to fight in Afghanistan, I maintained my optimism. We could do this! Sure, I was a new mom with a baby and a once-solid family that suddenly was crumbling and now my husband was heading for a war-zone, but I could do this.
Maybe I’d write a book about it.
On and on, death after death, loss after loss, through hurts, illnesses, and betrayals so deep I wondered if I might die…I maintained my optimism. Granted, I didn’t shine nearly as brightly, but the world had enough darkness. I didn’t need to add to it.
Nobody cared about my sob story.
Feeling Fixation
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When it comes to being a writer, I’ve been on both sides of the fence. I’ve been the newbie who wrote when I felt like it, when I was ‘in the mood.’ I let everyone and everything get in the way of sitting down and putting words on the page.
Then, I learned that amateurs listen to their feelings and professionals get to work and get $#!@ done anyway.
I blogged no matter what. Someone died the night before? I’d cry after I posted and made word count. Deadlines gave no figs about feelings. If I wanted to be the best of the best, I needed to adopt habits of excellence.
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This is very true.
I’ve been blessed to meet and know many of my author heroes (mega authors, names y’all would KNOW), and I’ve seen them make deadlines and keep writing when their world was literally falling apart.
Writing through pain, through parents dying and children passing and health crises and on and on. Putting words on a page in hospital rooms, during dialysis, right before and after major surgeries.
Granted, I want to point out these incredible authors did this for more reasons than simply being professionals. Writing was also a way of easing their pain.
But, still…pretty inspiring.
Suffice to say, when I’d meet a new ‘aspiring’ writer who told me they couldn’t write or even think of building a platform because they were SO BUSY. Because of the day job, kids, and family they simply ‘couldn’t find the time’ (as if time was laying around in the couch cushions).
My response? Pick another profession.
I didn’t have a lot of sympathy.
To be blunt, I still don’t.
We’ve become a culture driven by moods and that isn’t healthy. I can’t count how many writers I’ve encountered who claimed they wanted my help to be to be the next J.K. Rowling, George R.R. Martin, Stephen King, Sue Grafton, etc. etc. but after we talked? They lost all their enthusiasm because being a mega-author was just so much…WORK.
Yeah…it is.
Years of work, and life doesn’t stop in the meantime just because we have a dream.
Granted, optimism sometimes is the lone lifeline we will have to keep hold of that dream. Optimism in the face of loss, suffering, pain, and betrayal can often be the only thing that keeps us putting one foot in front of the other.
It’s been that way for me.
When people I loved, whom I believed also loved me did the unthinkable? Hurt me in ways I still can’t wrap my head around? I HAD to believe something good would come out of it or risk coming apart at the seams.
Light Through the Cracks
There’s a meme/story I’ve seen passed around Facebook, particularly in spiritual circles. The idea of a broken vessel fashioned back together and how the light can shine through the cracks. Thus, the vessel is all the more beautiful for being broken, blah, blah, blah.
That is a lovely story, one full of optimism. It’s a story that I wanted to punch in the face…provided a story could be punched in the face.
After barely making it through the holidays (NOT a good time for me)…
TADA! Massive dental work you didn’t expect and can’t afford.
Optimism, though.
Once the dentist repaired my teeth, I’d be past the worst of it. Thank GOD the one tooth broke before it had gotten to the ‘you need all implants’ part. I willed myself to look at the upside.
I had the entire left side of my mouth rebuilt and thirty-six hours later was on a plane to San Francisco to speak for five days. And I DID. I somehow also managed to be funny and do my job and not come unstitched. Yay me!
Then I got home and the complications hit.
I still blogged and worked and pressed on. Then the dentist did the OTHER side, the side that theoretically should have been easier. Yeah. She spent three and a half hours on one tooth trying to save me from needing an implant, and was successful. Again, THANK GOD.
But it was still six and a half hours of drilling in my mouth and having to stop because I was bleeding so badly. At the end of it, I had a brand new mouth.
It’s only now that my teeth are repaired that I can tell the difference, how frail my natural molars had all become.
Cracked and rotted from the inside. Mere shells of what they once had been.
Optimism Overdose
I come from a rough background and Viking stock. Was taught to have a pretty high tolerance for pain. After my dental visit, I kept doing my job even though I felt like I’d gone a round or five with Mike Tyson.
Getting up, getting to work, willing myself through even though I was all over.
[image error]Can SO relate…
I used the methods that have gotten me through more tragedies than I want to relay, namely listening to positive books and forcing myself to focus on what I am thankful for.
Surprise, surprise, it didn’t work. When the books that normally brought me peace only sent me into depression or a rage, I downloaded a new book.
I $#@! you NOT, the first five minutes were full of that SAME STUPID ADVICE. Optimism is the answer. Focus on your blessings, on gratitude. Be thankful. Choose your attitude.
I lost it. Furious, I returned the book. I’d had enough. So help me, if anyone ‘sent in the clowns,’ I might have set them on fire. A daisy? I would have stabbed it. Our culture is dying because of a sugar addiction literally and metaphorically. Not only that but…
We are ALL TURNING ORANGE from too much Vitamin Awesome. And here we thought it was a bad spray-tan….
And I get it. We are a society out of whack. One side is all doom and gloom and manufacturing reasons to be in perpetual despair. Our social media feeds are filled with social justice warriors newly enraged over some fresh drama de jour.
Rage porn is the new social addiction.
Humans are addicted to being outraged. They ‘spread awareness’ all over our feeds so much that our every nerve-ending is exposed and raw. We can’t bear to open Facebook, let alone consider using it to ‘build a platform.’
And, since everything hurts, we shut down.
To combat the rage porn, the sugar junkies post happy thoughts of the day and inspirational quotes on Instagram. Filtered images and cropped lives and tips for better this and better that, and how to enjoy the most from soup and laugh at salad.
[image error]Thanks Humor Train.
I can’t help but look at my piles of laundry, the floor covered in grit because Nelson—albeit the fluffy adorable love of my life—flings kitty litter like friggin’ fairy dust.
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I can’t stop staring the stacks of mail I have to sort through, the closets I need to organize, the…the…the…and all I can think is…
Did I FAIL Adulting 101?
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You know that dream where you showed up to a class you didn’t know you were taking and it was the day of the final? And you hadn’t studied because you didn’t even have the book because you didn’t even KNOW YOU WERE TAKING THE CLASS?
THAT was the class that taught you how to be a functional adult, Kristen.
#ItAllMakesSenseNow
But don’t worry, these folks write scads of books giving advice on how to ‘turn that frown upside down’…and I want to burn it all down.
ALL OF IT.
[image error]This meme never stops being funny.
Balance the Force
Oh how many times I need to just take my own advice. A while back I wrote a post about embracing all our feelings and giving ourselves permission to grieve. To be completely transparent, this year has had me questioning everything I believe about myself, my dreams, my future.
Did I even HAVE a future?
As many of y’all know, physical pain only magnifies emotional pain.
***Shout out to all who write despite chronic pain.
Dental work right at my birthday? I managed to ‘work’ through the next week drugged to the gills on pain meds (one of the crowns had to be readjusted). I kept trying to blog, but it was always a blank.
The more I tried to post, the worse I felt. I didn’t even have it in me to repost something just until I felt better. It took everything not to delete every social media account, take down all my websites and walk away.
THAT was when I knew something was horribly wrong.
I’d been fighting this war inside with optimism and more optimism. When that didn’t work, TRIPLE the optimism. My body, my spirit was rejecting it.
NO! SOMETIMES LIFE STINKS!
I started to get to work like usual yesterday and I couldn’t get out of bed. I’ve not felt such hopelessness in years. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t stop crying. I went to grab my headphones for a podcast or an audiobook. Maybe clean the house.
Scandinavian aromatherapy–>Clorox and Endust.
Then a small still voice told me to be still and be quiet. Yes, I needed to clean the house and write the blog and edit the pages and do all the things, but I would not be given the grace to do any of these things until I cleaned out the rot in my soul.
Life Can Stink for Good Reason
Yesterday I hit bottom. Thank goodness for all the unwashed laundry or I might have broken a bone! 
