January 25, 2010
Ah, fairy tales...those sweet stories that have animals falling down stairs and little girls being forced into years-long servitude and innocent children getting lost in the bush and then cooked and eaten by nasty witches. What joys abound in children's literature.
If my life were like those fairy tales, I'd be in really big trouble. Fortunately, it's not. Unfortunately, it isn't always like the happy-happy, joy-joy side of fairy tales, either.
So, what to do, what to do... Well, as most people of a certain age discover, I've learned to recognize and accept that life comes in waves. The painful follows the ecstatic, which follows the frustrating, which follows the satisfying. 'Round and 'round it goes, with no clear beginning and no clear end.
However, what is clear to me is that all of us have what we need to make this time better than a previous time. It doesn't matter whether we're talking about seconds or decades. We can choose how to feel and think, what to say and do. We can choose to fix our mistakes or at least not repeat them. Believing these things helps me a lot, a lot of the time.
When it doesn't help, I keep in mind the sage words imparted to me recently by a student of mine: "Well, then, just suck it up, Buttercup."
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