A New Day

Stay positive. That’s what all the messages are these days: stay up, stay positive, stay healthy. But, while that may be easily said, sometimes it’s not easily accomplished. I don’t feel positive all the time. Sometimes I feel really, really negative. As George Carlin used to say, “Sometimes I just want to have a crappy day!”

This coronavirus thing has been the latest in a long line of disasters for me. I won’t go into them all, because I know I’m not unique in my misery. You’ve had your share of hard times too. So, staying up through it all is not always possible. I guess the first message is that it is okay to be down sometimes. When things go wrong, we have a right to mourn the loss. In fact, if we neglect to allow ourselves to feel, then we are simply putting those feelings off and they’ll come back when we least expect them…or want them to return.

Losses in life are a given; they are going to happen, and we have to grieve those losses. While that’s happening, we aren’t going to be happy and feel warm and fuzzy. We’re going to feel sad and want to isolate ourselves. That’s okay too. It’s part of the healing process. It’s when we continue that way too long that it becomes a problem.

It’s okay to not be okay, but we want to see the bad times and feelings end too. If you feel they’ve gone on too long, then it may just be that you need to do something to bump yourself out of it. That may take longer than you’d like to think, but it can be done and once you are on the other side, you can experience happiness again.

If you don’t feel positive right now, don’t beat yourself up. Keep moving forward. A very wise person once told me, “If you don’t feel like your faith is going to get your through, pretend it will. Keep going, and one day you’ll realize you aren’t pretending anymore.” She was right. Keep moving forward. One day you’ll realize the sun is back and things aren’t so bleak as they were. Keep going until you find that new day. Do whatever you have to do to feel better. Try everything in your arsenal of coping mechanisms until you find a combination that works. Remember, when you come out on the other side, it’s worth the effort. It’s okay to not feel okay…for a while. But it’s better to feel better again!