Tonight I went out with two friends after rehearsal where we talked about the show and what we thought of it. I truly think they are fantastic actors and both do an amazing job. Then we worked on one of the scenes and I made a startling discovery: I am an optimist. When did that happen? Was I always an optimist and just had to go through some healing to rediscover it or was I a pessimist who changed? Even as I ask the question, I have a picture in my head of me at one and a half years old, eyes shining, grin lighting up my face, rocking out on my rocking horse and giggling in the chair. I was a very happy youngster. Delighted with the world. Somewhere along there, I think some of that just shut down for a while and the last few years as junk has been cleaned away, my delight with the world has been cleaned and polished. It’s not that I don’t see the darker sides, it’s what I choose to focus on, what I choose to register in my mind. After all, expressing the shadows, talking about them, makes for good poetry that will mean something to me and to you. But I don’t want to live there in the dark all the time. I’ve been there and I didn’t like it. There are still areas I struggle with and if you get me on certain topics, I am anything but optimistic, more like the critics in the Muppet Show, but I have learned that focusing on the positive is just so much better for my life. If I don’t get caught up in all the drama, the negative until I really need to, I can put my energy to more useful things. I think my fear is that people will see my optimism and think of it as naive when it’s not. I’ve seen the pain, I just chose not to stay there. I’m blaming it on Stacey who has taught me by example to look on the bright side of things. It’s the balance between knowing reality and knowing what is even deeper than that.
365-09 #187