One Day At A Time

The promise of each new day should fill us with pleasure. For each new day starts out a clean slate, an empty canvas, an unwritten song...and all one can hope for, is that with each new day that dawns, it's better than the one before. But that is not exactly how life works. Some days you rock it and other days you don't. I share the following now to remind us all that while two days are never the same, it's really our reactions to the events that unfold that define a good day or one that we would rather lock up in a little box marked 'ugh' and file away under the stairs.

Miss Sucky's day begins traumatically. A bird flies in through her open window and the fluttering of it clunking around her room quickly wakes her up. Miss Sucky is terrified of birds, so the panic sets in as she tries to get the bird, or herself, out of the room. The ensuing chaos awakens her roommates who rush to her aid thinking that her screams are signaling an attack. With three grown adults waving their arms around like they are trying to put a fire out, the bird finally finds its way back out the window and Miss Sucky is relieved...until she discovers the little blighter has left his calling card all over her room! She reminds herself that this is what it must mean to be "scared shit-less" and is grateful that at least she didn't follow suit. Her mind then falls to 'him' and she feels a pang of longing and sadness. No anger or bitterness, just a need for him. A need she knows will never be met. She pushes down the seeping wound and gets to work cleaning up after the bird. Her roommates bring her a cup of tea and tell her she has poop in her hair. Grossed out, Miss Sucky jumps into the shower and tries to wash out her hair without touching it. At breakfast her roommate tells her that "it's good luck if a bird poops in your hair." She tells him that "It sure doesn't feel like luck." Sadly, this is the highlight of her day.

Miss Awesome's day starts out perfectly. There are no birds cooing incessantly from the tree outside her window. The day is golden rays streaked across a dreamy blue sky. Thankfully, her first thought is not of 'him,' and while he features fleetingly in her mind throughout the day, it does not grip her heart with a sense of profound loss. She's healing; things are looking up. Miss Awesome heads to her favorite cafe; a little hole-in-the-wall place that serves food that your mouth will mistake as heaven. The coffee is smooth and rich, her muffin is bursting with fruit and the accompanying creme fraiche is both sweet and tart- a palate of perfection to tantalize the taste buds.

Meanwhile, Miss Sucky is making her way to an appointment 40 minutes drive away from her home. She has no car, so the forty minutes will be stretched into several hours and numerous bus rides. But she doesn't mind. It's a beautiful day and she's thinking about going to the beach after wards. On account of blue skies and days of endless sunshine, she has left her umbrella home. It rains! But not until she is preparing to head to the beach after finishing her appointment. The rain is hard and heavy and she is left walking in it after waiting for a bus that never comes. She has to walk barefoot because her wet flip flops make the journey treacherous. She reaches her destination, another bus stop, soaked through. While waiting, she realizes that the cheap dye on her handbag has leeched all down the side of her tee shirt. She improvises and switches the bag to the other side in the hopes that maybe she can try and match the stain. She has to wait forty minutes for the bus to arrive. She's tired, wet and now a gnawing pit of hunger reminds her that she's missed lunch. And since the rain continues to tumble from the sky, there will be no beach today.

Miss Awesome gets some writing done before meeting up with a friend for lunch. Afterward, she heads to a park and under the shade of a tree writes some more. She then catches a film at the local art house and meets up with a few friends for drinks and dinner in the evening. She gets home and writes before falling asleep feeling satisfied with her day. If only every day could be as productive and relaxing as this one. 'He' doesn't even cross her mind as she lays there drifting off and she doesn't even realize that it's the first night where her last thought is not of him.

Miss Sucky spends at least half of her day cursing the public transportation system gods for their insufferable cruelty and blatant inability to create a cohesive schedule. It's been a 9 to 5 job just getting to her one hr long appointment and back again. She was going to stop and have coffee and write for a bit, but still soaking, she opts instead to take bus number six and head on home. She cancels her date for the night so that she can make up for lost time in not having written earlier in the day and then proceeds to procrastinate the night away. She goes to sleep fighting off thoughts of 'him' and failing.

Life can only be taken one day at a time; that is all we have. Some days it feels like nothing is going your way and that the whole world has conspired against you. I call those my "Miss Sucky" days. And it's not so much that I'm 'Sucky' as a person- it's more that all those little moments that pile up into one gigantic mess of misery can kind of overwhelm you if you let it. I'm working hard on being more "Miss Awesome" even on the days that would strive to constrict me into my "Miss Sucky' role. There will be days when I struggle to find beauty, sanity, strength, purpose and peace. There may be moments when my circumstances have got me so beaten down that hope seems like a four letter word spoken only through a dead mans lips. This is the reality of life. And I embrace it all. For it is in the struggle I find myself and it is in the reactions I have to my circumstances that I free myself to be the woman I was created to be.