Incurably Optimistic

I wrote some heavy things the other night, thinking I might detour from trying to actually write a blog that was generally upbeat to bludgeon you in the eyes with some cold, hard reality. But I'm glad I waited, I'm glad I didn't let it broadcast for even half a Mississippi.

We all have darkness, we all have sadness. We all have those kinds of emotional breaks where we're crouched on the floor in our underwear begging the universe to justify why we should be here. At least, I know a lot of us do. But while I don't want to ignore or cheapen those times, I don't want to glorify them. I don't want to fixate on them.

One of my greatest fortunes as a kid was something I will never quite understand about myself. Maybe I had rotted my brain with so much candy and cartoons that my body and psyche were running on pure sugar and mayhem. But when I was an adolescent, at an age where everybody is uncomfortable at best, I went through things no kid of any age should have to deal with. And I went through most of them alone. I kept things to myself. Sometimes it was because I knew I would feel guilt if I involved people; usually it was because I assumed nobody would care or validate my problems. But even though I probably looked angry because I was always grimacing in pain, even though I went through a light Goth phase and therefore looked like someone who reveled in hurt, I had an undying happiness in my heart that I never let die.

At a time when I was the most scared, the most sick, the most isolated, I think I was happier than I am now. I am not the warrior I was when I was twelve.

I remember shopping with my mom one day... the store was empty enough that it had to have been a weekday during school hours, so perhaps it was at a time when the local school board had decided to formally kick me out for too many absences. But it was a day where I felt comparatively okay, and to help prevent my becoming a weird bubble child my mom would take me out into the public whenever possible, including school days. Anyway, there was a tshirt with Spongebob Squarepants smiling open-mouthed, staring upwards with rosy cheeks and sparkly eyes, and it said in bulging yellow letters:

"Incurably Optimistic"

It was a silly shirt (but all of my acquaintances know how much I value a truly silly tshirt), honestly should have been too childish for a 12 year old since all my peers were rushing into a world of makeup and sexual activity. But it was a weirdly affirming moment when my mom stopped and pulled one off the rack.

"I would love for you to wear this when you go back to school. And I want your teachers to see it."

I'm sure I paired it with some KikWear jeans and perhaps a studded bracelet to give it the necessary amount of edge I needed in my clothes at the time, but I felt a special kind of defiance when I wore that shirt. The defiance of being happy when nobody expects you to be. It's not a mean thing, it's not even sassy. There's no extra satisfaction in it because largely, as with anything else, nobody gives a fuck. Nobody wants you when you're down and out, but nobody even hears you if you're feeling pretty okay.

But people still keep you around when you're doing pretty okay. I've noticed at times of particular lowness, it rubs off on everybody else in different ways until everybody kind of gives up on me. "Nah, last time we hung out I somehow started commenting on everybody's weight. That was weird."

Okay, more likely they just know I'm kind of lame. I'm sure some friends can tell I'm trying, that I'm fighting, that my heart is kind of in the right place when I offer them a beer in the saddest, least beery voice possible. But it's just not cool. Even though my life is objectively and infinitely better than it was when I was a kid, I can't pull myself together to appreciate it because of smaller variables in my life. Things are different. I'm not that kid any more.

I'm sure there's no way to pinpoint anything that cured the optimism. Too much time has passed, too many things have happened. If there ever was a turning point, it's been lost to the ages and embellished upon by other devastating events. Besides, it's not like it's something I want to invest time thinking about.

But it seems like maybe it would be worth it. To move myself forward, maybe it would have helped to know where I came from. And that's just it... I vaguely know from where I have come. I was there, and I think of it often. The details don't need to be that important. I know that I had something, that I still smiled enough that my mom noticed despite everything she was going through. And it made her happier.

That's who I got used to being, and who I started to take for granted. She might have irritated ill-wishers and sad people, but I'd rather annoy sad people than drag down happy ones.

I totally forgot where I was going with this. I'm watching Jim Gaffigan.