I'm not so great at staying positive 💩
Recently I've been whining about the cult of toxic positivity. Thank you very much, but no, I am not going to be grateful for every inconvenience and hardship.
A few weeks ago Jennifer posted something in one of our Facebook groups that really struck a chord with me. She gave me permission to share it here:
At 4:45 this morning, my husband woke me up to ask me to unhook him from dialysis because he is having bathroom issues. That was his last connection, so rather than simply hooking back up to the machine, I had to do all of the things (including a harrowing search for the scale) to start a manual exchange before I've even had any coffee. I was briefly annoyed. But during my search for our beloved fish scale, y'all came to mind. I would love to report that I was filled with the humility and gratitude extolled in the Bible. I could only imagine to be so worthy of the Christian title I claim. No... my gratitude came from an entirely different source. During my bleary-eyed, not even 5 am search, I found myself repeating a mantra. I actually laughed at myself and thought of y'all when I caught myself saying the words, "at least he didn't shit the bed," over and over and over again (source).
I love this so much! Because haven't we all been there?
There is a version of gratitude and positivity that doesn't require us to be saints. Which is great, because I'm no saint. Staying positive doesn't mean pretending things are perfect when they are very much not perfect. It doesn't mean you're grateful for the opportunity to get woken up in the middle of the night, no matter how much you love that person who's waking you up.
You can be snarky -- or just really, really tired -- and still hop your way around that pit of despair.
PS. Also shared with permission: