The Proverbial Glass

Brace yourselves, y’all. I’m about to write about something never tackled by a blogger before. I’m about to address this business about whether the glass is half-empty or half-full. Groundbreaking, I know.

Okay, maybe not. And I’ll try to refrain from sarcasm for the remainder of this post.

But this is something I think about really, really often. Maybe everyone does, maybe I’m really strange, but most likely I’m just an overthinker consistently trying to think my way into optimism.

I don’t know how redundant a person can be, but I’ve made it clear that I was ready to say goodbye to 2012. The tough part?

2013 has not gotten off to an awesome start. Not necessarily.

I’m going to go back on steroids for my chronic illness in a couple weeks. I’m putting it off because I hate the side effects and still have some things I’d like to do on my winter break.

I have a renewed, heightened sense of my single status. God help me.

The car I share with my mom, that we both use for work and I for classes, got hit by some idiot who was probably texting and driving, and totaled his car by ramming into ours. We still don’t know how long that will take to fix, which is hard because that car is just short of our livelihood. My mom and I use it for transportation, sure, but I also drive kids to and from school. I’ve borrowed a car, replaced the car seats, and been extremely mindful of the mess that kids leave behind, but it’s a bit of a pain to say the least.

A lot of the people I care about go back to school, internships, etc. and leave me and this zip code alone soon, if they haven’t left already.

And little things, like realizing I have a ton of poppy-seeds in my teeth or having to miss ballet because I might be getting too sick to continue, at least for the time being.

And it’s only been a week. One week into 2013. Seriously?

My best friend has the flu and a sinus infection at the same terrible, miserable time. She argues that it is possible that the terrible things happening thus far are simply leftovers from a not-so-great year. This could be true.

But me being me, I have to think things through until I’m comfortable with whatever the reality is.

And I’m only ever satisfied once I think I’ve found a true silver lining.

I have a hard time writing off any year as a terrible year, including good old 2012. It was tough but good things happened. And I rarely think that good things should matter less.

I find myself talking through the same ideas here at the kick off of 2013.

I just listed the bad things, the things that make 2013 appear to have a terrible half-empty beginning.

But this is not entirely the case, and I know this to be true.

Yeah, I’m going on medication again, but maybe it will work. And maybe I’ll get answers. And maybe I’ll be that much more confident in my health, and that much less scared of getting sick again. And I won’t be in pain all the time, that totally counts as a plus.

My recent awareness of my single status comes something to compare it to, nothing makes a person self-aware like contrast. But in my humble opinion, being happy with someone is almost always worth it even if it’s not for long. So I wouldn’t trade that experience to get rid of this terrible feeling, the silver lining is that it was worth it. That counts for something.

The car thing is pretty hard to spin, nothing awesome comes from a car being hit. But, I’m borrowing a car with satellite radio and I’ve been able to listen to country music which is fantastic. And, the actual silver lining? The day after our car was hit we had to leave it on the street, we couldn’t get a tow. Later that day, I got an email from a teacher at the preschool where I drive some of the kids I work for to school.

She had seen our car wrecked on the street, and emailed my mom and I to let us know if we needed any help getting any of the kids to and from school she would be happy to assist. This woman, entirely unprompted, offered to help my mom and I keep our jobs smoothly. Honestly, I don’t really feel like that’s a small silver lining. When someone is that willing to help, it makes me feel like I’m doing something right.

Okay, I realize that I’m 21 year old stressing out about carpools. But I’m entirely okay with that, because I have a lot of silver linings, a lot of big plans and thankfully, a lot of patience.

So for now, I will continue to think my way through everything until I see that the glass is half full.

And I feel confident that someday, it will be overflowing.