Life in Living Color

It is said that a second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience.  When I said "I will," I knew I was moving from a steady life in the slow lane, in mostly shades of gray, to one in which I would doing a lot of lane shifting, fast to slow, and experiencing higher ups and lower lows than I was accustomed to.

For the most part, the adjustment has been made, and I love my life and count my blessings.  I gained two wonderful children with this marriage along with my dear husband and life has been interesting ever since.

But some days, I'm tired.  I'm the optimist, the peacemaker (most days), and the one who tries to find the wonder in everything.  I'm the Pollyanna among people who have seen many more troubles than I have, and have good reason to be pessimistic.  I find pessimism tiring under any circumstances.

This Pollyanna doesn't like to be out of control, so I sometimes hold a lot of it in, relentlessly pursuing the silver lining, trying to find the good in everything.  It's disconcerting for people when Pollyanna loses her shit.  It's not pretty, and Pollyanna gets blotches on her face from crying.  People tend to actually become pretty angry about it, to be honest - it's not comfortable and it's not normal.

So when I'm down, I'm really down.  And I sometimes don't know what to do with that, because honestly, my family doesn't know what to do with it, either.  And they don't want to see it, any more than I do, because self-pity is the ugliest thing in the world, and in me, I think it's even worse.

So I seek to find the balance.  Most days, I can do that.  I take a few minutes to myself, go for a drive, play a game on the phone, whatever it takes.  Filling my own reserves.  Remembering I can't control anything except my own reactions.  Figuring out how to not take stuff personally that isn't meant to be personal, and how to not over-react when it is while still maintaining my integrity.

So, yeah.  It's hard sometimes.  Is it worth it?  Absolutely, positively, yes.  Always.