Revision: Why I Decided To Be Happy

     I would like to tell you that I am naturally a bubbly fun person who never stays gloomy. That it is normal for me to shrug off the day’s disappointments and disasters, and giggle my way to a bubble bath before falling into a deep sleep, dreaming of rainbows and handsome men.

     I would like to tell you these things, but they’re not true.

     I enjoy bellyaching and moaning as much as the next person. Maybe more so. I can tell you in excruciating detail what Libby Montgomery said to me in 7th grade that hurt my feelings. I always think of great responses to rude supermarket clerks around 2 a.m. No, I am not naturally or normally an upbeat type all the time.

     My husband is those things, which can be deeply annoying. He will look on the bright side, no matter the cost, will see and talk about the silver lining, will persist in giving the benefit of the doubt. While I’m carrying on about how idiotic it is that our neighbor stockpiles junk in her front yard, he quietly points out that she works long hours nursing the terminally ill.

     I tolerated his maddening behavior for years. Then two major life changes came.

     I was diagnosed with a painful condition that apparently is not going to go away. While a total knee replacement took care of a lot of pain, the burning stabbing in my lower back is a constant companion. I refused to accept this for several years, which as common sense tried to tell me, made the pain worse. In the course of denying it, I did some things I had no business doing (read: tried to move a bookcase) and made the damage worse. Now I have spinal cord pressure that could paralyze me if the wrong thing happens, just in case I was running out of stuff to worry about. What wrong thing? To summarize the medical advice, "You’ll know it if it happens. Just don’t do anything." Which means no bowling, no playing pool, no long movies, and so on.

     Around the time I was accepting this, our family was gifted with a carrier of narcissistic personality disorder. This delightful trait brings constant pain of another kind. Besides their overwhelming arrogance and superiority, there is no reasoning with these specimens. Society runs on the principle that if I tell you respectfully and honestly what I need, you’ll do your best to provide it. Narcissists are not wired that way; it makes no sense to them. They hear nothing but the voices in their heads, know nothing but what their own brains tell them. So in addition to physical pain and discomfort, I had a new family member to continually remind me of my essential worthlessness.

     As a woman whose motto has always been, "I can fix that", facing two unmovable mountains brings new meaning to the word "frustration." If it hadn’t almost killed me to quit smoking, I swear I would start again. Daily pain is frustrating, and let me tell you, being treated like a drooling moron by a 22-year-old is frustrating. Like a lot of people, I get seriously bitchy when I’m frustrated. Between the pain and The Pain, I was turning into a real treat to be around.

      If you’re looking for stuff to complain about you have landed on the right planet, my friend. It is hard to be upbeat, to look for the good, easy to whine and blame. I enjoy being sarcastic. Self- pity can be so satisfying, and justifies a lot of bad behavior. One of my first lessons working for the government was this: in times of trouble, find someone and blame them!

     Then I heard myself one day taking the skin off my husband for some trivial reason. I tried to apologize, to tell him how ashamed I was and that I really don’t want to be that person. And he said, "It’s all right, I know you’re hurting."

     And I really really do not want to be that person.

     I realized I can only do so much about my pain. It’s managed, but not gone. Never gone. And it makes me crabby. So does remembering some of the things I’ve been through, the bad people I’ve survived. I can’t control the pain completely, I can’t change the past, I can’t undo yesterday’s misjudgements. I also cannot fix personality disorders. (Darn!) But I realized, from watching my husband, I can control how I behave. I don’t have to be bitchy and sarcastic and nasty.

     I am not going to be another whiny complainer, I’m not taking the easy way. I’m going to appreciate, and thank, and be grateful and laugh and do as much as I can to defy the legacies of the bad people I’ve tumbled across and the pain sentence I’ve been given. Because it’s not been written in stone, and I do have a choice. And I choose to be happy.

No matter how crabby it makes me.
　
   　

News Feeds of the Mildy Humorous

 Man breaks up with church in this shouldn't-be-funny-but-sort-of-is article.

Charlie Sheen to be the most popular Halloween costume:

I Tried To Tell Them Department

Now God weighs in too! The Human Body is not designed to play football! (More from the Onion)

This video is only humorous if its not your 2.5 million dollar yatch sinking upon launch!

Weekly Blog 4 - The Bright Side of Stomach Flu

      As you know if you’ve been paying any attention, I am going to be happy. I AM going to be happy. Really happy, no matter what or how hard it is or how bad I want to drink gin out of the dog dish.
This week, I am exploring the happiness involved in stomach flu. There are many things to be grateful for when you have stomach flu, although I admit it took me a long time to think of them.
1) The rumbling pain reminds you that not only are you still alive, but that your pain sensors inside your intestines are still working.
2) The best thing of course, is the fabulous amount of weight you can use. Never mind all that scientific clap trap about water weight and putting it right back on. It comes off. That’s all that counts.
3) Stomach flu leads you to contemplate the state of your Last Will And Testament. Did I ever finish it? Where did I put it? Did I take out all those people I’m not speaking to anymore?
4) This most recent bout also made me evaluate and appreciate the efficiency of my bathroom air freshener.
5) Last but by no means least: stomach flu brings the same result as certain relatives: The world is so much brighter when its gone.

Weekly Blog 3 - Andie Macdowell Actress

Article Title - The Love That Saved Her

In the March, 2011, issue of Guideposts Magazine, actress Andie Macdowell writes a moving piece about finding love and redemption. After her second marriage broke up, she was lost in feelings of loss, emptiness and failure, first triggered by her parents divorce when she was 9 years old. The story details her childhood efforts to deal with her mother's alcoholism and her father's abandonment. She writes of her struggles to feel love and how she first managed to do that at a county fair in Montana. She realized she had been receiving that unconditional love from God all along through the love of her children, dogs and horses. This is a touching piece of how a famous beautiful actress who appears to have it all from the outside filled the emptiness inside by accepting God's love and stepped onto the path to emotional and spiritual redemption.

Singing Dog

This guy should make you smile and make you feel better about your singing!

Pothole Gardener

Here is a person improving their world.


This guy is an urban guerrila gardening activist! The Pothole Gardener creates unexpected mini-gardens to make passersby happy. This site is so great! While he's not making lemonade, he is inspiring prople to grow lemon trees.


Thanks and credit to Steve, the Pothole Gardener.

Weely Blog 2 - Making Lemonade

This young lady was shot 18 years ago, in an attack which left her 18 year old boyfriend dead.  Now 32, she has no sensation in the right side of her body. Yet she works full time for the DA's office, working exclusively with victims of crime. She doesn't stay home feeling sorry for herself, or blame the shooter endlessly, or make everyone around her miserable. In faCT she won't speak the shooter's name in order to not honor him. An amazing story of survival and making lemonade out of lemons!  Thanks and credit to 48 Hours Mystery.

Here is her story

Weekly Blog 1 - RollerSkating In A Buffalo Herd

 How hard is it to be happy? It can be a real challenge. We are told we are hard wired to monitor the environment for what is wrong; that is how our ancestors survived. The gal who noticed there was a saber tooth tiger in the bushes is the one who survived. So we carry this skill with us, constantly on the look out for what is wrong. We are hardwired, pre-programmed,gene-directed to check out what isn't working. What doesn't look right. What others are doing wrong.

All this searching for the bad stuff isn't a recipe for happiness. It takes effort to seek out, to appreciate, to be grateful for what is right.  For all the gifts we have. We have to consciously decide to be happy, to be grateful, to be aware of all the goodies around us. Once we notice these things, and sometimes we have to start small, it is almost impossible not to be happy, or least happier. Especially when we speak out loud of our gratitude, when we share the wealth. You have to be careful how you do this, Pollyanna Sunshines are mentally suspect. A co-worker once told a friend of mine," You are so damn pathetic! You're just too happy to know how sad you are."

So my blog is about efforts to stay happy and positive. Looking at things that make me happy is a start. Check out this Victorian Wallpaper sample from Google images.