I’m Back

After my last horrible post (which was originally titled “Horribleness” before I toned it down to the still-awful rant that it was), I realize that I need to use this blog for good and not evil. All my feelings in that post were true, but they are not how I feel all the time, obviously. I was using this blog to vent the negative stuff, which is something I’ve always tried to avoid.

The purpose of this blog is to try to focus in on all the good little things that happen everyday and integrate them into a wider happiness. I used to use the blog that way (look at this beautiful post), and I’d use Facebook to vent petty little complaints and annoyances. Lately I’ve been using Facebook to try to note my good moments, and I stopped blogging much, but then finally used the blog to bitch and rant about all the bad stuff. That tells me something. Facebook is throwaway communication. Sure, we all post some positive, momentous stuff there (babies!), but a lot of us also post about what we ate for lunch. A blog post takes thought and effort. All my thought and effort lately is going in to trying to work out “why this is happening to me.” I mean, I don’t go around all day thinking how unfair the universe is or why everyone is out to get me. I’m not that far gone. But I do constantly turn over in my mind this list of impossible happenings, trying to connect them and make sense of them.

So I’m going to say this one last time and then crumple it up into a little ball and throw it away: my family has had a streak of really bad luck – nothing major, but a huge quantity of little badnesses – on top of massive life-changes in our home life, my career, and Adam’s career, all at once. The changes are all good ones – correction: GREAT ones – but they all take work, and the bad luck makes even the good things feel like a burden.

That’s it. That is the summary. I don’t need to think about it any more. Let me move on now.

When I bitched on Facebook about all this bad luck, I said, “I almost wish I had started a log,” and a friend replied that my luck is due to change so I should start writing my good luck log right now. I loved that idea, and not just as hyperbole. I really intended to do just that. But I didn’t. Part of the reason I didn’t is that I was just too depressed to put any effort into anything positive, but also, bad or good, luck is not what I want to focus on. However, what I can do is go back to my Three Good Things activity. And so, right now, I will try to list Three Good Things that happened yesterday:

1. I finished a book that I enjoyed quite a bit.
2. Adam and I remembered, just in the nick of time, to set the DVR to record the season premier of The Walking Dead. We had gotten a new DVR in between seasons and almost missed it. Maybe we’ll get a chance to watch it tonight.
3. I changed my mental set and made it possible to write this blog post.

I have to say, that feels good.