Maintaining a Positive Outlook in the Face of Constant Smackdowns

According to one of my best friends, Jo, life is all about having a positive mental attitude (abbreviated to PMA, opening her to much ribbing about a certain time of the month ... and yes, she does in fact yell it down the halls of school, via text message and e-mail, and communicates it in every way).

It's funny how sometimes, no matter how "P" your "MA" is, though, life just keeps smacking you down. You know those punching bag toy things, the ones that have sand at the bottom that keep coming back up no matter how many times you knock them over? Or, in the eternal words of Chumbawamba, "I get knocked down, but I get up again"? Why is it that some people are able to get back up so easily, while others just curl up in fetal position and whine about how the world is out to get them?

I'm curious, because my resilience to the ebbs and flows of life is kind of schizophrenic. Sometimes, I am totally on Jo's PMA bandwagon, singing Chumbawamba and popping right back up no matter how awful things get. Other times, I'm crying like a baby. Sometimes I surprise myself with my own strength, and at times I am ashamed of how weak I am. There's no rhyme or reason to it.

Is this just human nature? Are there people that are always able to take adversity in stride? If so, how does one become of that ilk?

Musings on the Horrorversary

Anniversaries--weddings, homeownership, even birthdays--are all celebrations of an event, one with theoretically happy connotations.

So what do you call the day that is the antithesis to those joyous times, the ones that come up once every year the same as the happy days? I created a word tonight when I was thinking about this--horroversary. I'm sure someone else has used this before, actually, but I'm not really in high thinking mode, so work with me a bit here.

I have several horrorversaries. One is in December, one is in January, (I suppose I have to add one these days ...) and one is tomorrow. October 23rd (also my grandfather's birthday--an anniversary for my Papa, a horroversary for me ... life is strange) is the worst. It always will be.

Ironically, my birthday is three days later, on the 26th. My mother has planned to have relatives over Sunday night to celebrate, and it's very hard to say, "I just want to be left the fuck alone for the next few days. THAT's what I want for my stupid birthday." She was on my case tonight for "sounding depressed". Oh, shit, if she only knew ... And my students, my sweet and wonderful and loving students, they have been very "sneaky" in their attempts to plan an in-class birthday party. I am trying so hard to keep my shit together on my horroversary, and everyone else is so focused on my birthday (a.k.a. my anniversary, if you want to think of it that way), and I just reread that and I realize what a selfish bitch I sound like and ...

And I guess I'm going to stop now. I'm going to bed on a double dose of Ambien and metaphorically beat myself up for the next few days over something that happened over ten years ago, when I was a completely different person.

How do you spend your horrorversary? (By the way, I truly and deeply hope that I'm the only person who suffers horrorversaries ... when Addie starts saying, "Ten days until my birthday" the first day of September, I know that I think of my horroversary--all of them, but especially this one--on the same terms. Maybe nobody reading this can relate to this in any way, shape, or form ... and if so--I AM SO GLAD FOR YOU :)