Rebellious Thoughts of a Woman

Okay, I've decided to take a break from negativity. I will do as parents used to do (at least when I was facing a plate at the dinner table), and compare my situation to starving children in Africa. Okay, not quite, but that's the idea. And even today I can say: at least I haven't lived through or died in the cyclone in Burma, or the earthquake in China, or whatever other horrific event ocurred in the past few days that I am not yet aware of. And so, I will (as Tom Friedman suggested in his Mother's Day column in yesterday's New York Times), look at the glass half full.

So, I will not focus on my daughter's negativity, but I will focus on the student who came up to me at the end of class today and said that she was sorry that my daughter is giving me such a hard time, but it will get better, she will come around, as she did with her mother.

And I will not focus on the unknown students who are complaining about me (about my inconsistency in being lenient or my occasional flares of humanity, namely temper and impatience), and instead on the student who gave me a Teacher Appreciation Week and Mother's Day card in which she thanked me for always "being there 4 her" and that I will be a big part of her memories of school.

And I will not focus on how we haven't sold the house yet, but that I am still living in this lovely four-bedroom home on a bigger piece of land than I ever contemplated would be "mine" when I grew up in an apartment in New York in a lovely neighborhood where my younger daughter walks to her best friend's house six houses away and her second-best-friend's house two houses behind ours.

And I will not focus on my financial woes, but I will focus on the never-ending generosity of my parents, and the fact that I have a stable job (except for the second point above, which has me concerned, but I will not focus on that concern either).

And I will not focus on how tired and sad I feel so often, but I will be thankful for my health and my ability to nap, which restores me to a more positive equilibrium.

And I will not focus on not having someone to love or who loves me, but I will focus on "feeling comfortable in my own skin." No, not that! I will focus on possibilities, and my never-ending optimism that I will be loved again and I will love again. This weekend, in the New York Times Wedding Announcement section (standard Sunday reading material for me) three marriages stood out: the bride is 50 and the groom is 66; the bride is 44, and the groom 45; and the bride is 60, and the groom 59 (they even had crushes on each other in high school). Not that I want to get married again, but I want to love again.

And I will not focus on today or yesterday, but I will focus on tomorrow.