Deeply Committed

I am deeply committed to optimism (okay I'm ready for everyone's arrows, bullets, nuclear bombs, swords and blowtorches to come flying out at me). AND...I am not ashamed of it. Ask me the same question 5 years prior to today and I would have had a completely different answer for you...like...I am deeply committed and inspired by nothing. It's all about the process, and this is where my entry truly begins.

I value the merits of optimism because they have posed such an extreme challenge towards me throughout my life. Up until I was 12 years old I was raised in your average every day perfect American household: my mother stayed at home with us because my father, being the bread winner, held an esteemed job in Wayne, New Jersey as a middle school principal. We were also actively involved in the community, my father being a champion soccer coach and my mother actively participating in market day and monthly PTO meetings. Optimism was not required for me here because I was smothered with a blanket of false security for most my life, and thinking on a broad scale was not possible for a girl as young as me. But then when things went from perfect to dysfunctional, and then from bad to worse, and then from worse to unbearable, thinking in a positive light was probably the last thing on my mind. Being so young I did not know what to do with pain, so I got angry and mean. I lashed out like any young teen would in a time of trauma: the black eyeliner smeared the extremities of my eyelids, my favorite color became black, I did unthinkable things to myself to try and surpress the inner pain.

While it hurts and is painful to remember those difficult years I would not be the person I am without them. My mother being the amazing woman she is understood my need for help and had me undergo three months of therapy with the man that I will forever be grateful for for changing my life. He never gave up on the fact that I was unresponsive for weeks, hated everything about the room I sat in with him from the chairs, the lousy artwork, and the horrible smell of old candle wax, and gave him no chance whatsoever to change my outlook.

But after a while this facade of playing the tough girl with no self regard for herself or others. I alwyas harbored a love for humanity and the differences we all share. This man was the only person who, for sucha long time, I felt I could express my true love for life, while I acted to the rest of the world, because I was afraid of what they thought of me. I figured that if I kept the world at a distance, then it couldn't hurt me. He taught me to give it a chance, to give the world a chance, and to give happiness a chance. I remember him saying "so what's the worst that could happen? You get sick of happiness and you become miserable again. At least we've eliminated one option." And it made me laugh, not because it was true (we both knew that) but because it really fell into place for me that the options for me are limitless, and most chances are worth taking. And if they don't work out? Well then that's one thing you can cross off the list as something that works for you, and you get to move on to the next thing.

I am not always happy-go-lucky. It's quite the opposite. I have just acquired a sense of self and awareness that works for me, and that I wish could be exposed to more people. I watch the people I care about and love the most struggle through their every day lives because of their fear of the untouchable, the unreachable, and the seemingly unsafe. It's not to say that I'm a go-getting, risk-taking, adrenaline junky. I just live my life very much according to "you have to figure out what you are not before you can find out who you are."

The way I look at my every day life is that every person, every experience, every wonderful/horrible feeling was put in your life for a reason. Every relationship I have had with a person that has either thrived or flourished I take in stride because I know it was put there for a reason. I feel like if I or anyone else can not accept that you are put in situations and scenarios so that you are able to take something from it, learn from it, acquire a lesson from it, and then grow because of it, then what are you living your life for? Yes, some would say that this is linked to fate...great! So then that me4ans that I believe that all things happen for a reason, ultimately for a good reason. Maybe it will not be something that I myself will ever know, but for someone, somewhere, or something, it made a difference. I feel as though to feel otherwise means you walk blindly through life without growth. I will always consider myself a work in progress. I plan to be like my late great grandmother who lived to be 86 years old and kept taking college courses in art, economics, literature etc. She never stopped growing,a nd she never stopped learning. One may argue that because she was never an artist, never pursued any real career other than a bank receptionist or never went to work on Wall Street that her endeavors were all in vain, but that's not the case. For me she gave inspiration. She was happy and positive until the day she died, despite her having open heart surgery twice, being the last living daughter of 4 and outliving one of her sons who died of a heart attack at age 39. She passed as a happy little Italian spitfire who brought joy and peace to a crazy dinner table.

Optimism not only enriches the person who feels and applies it, but inspires and evokes happiness and peace of mind from those who surround that person. I have times when I feel defeated, sure, I'm human. We all just want to punch a brick wall every now and then, and we all pull the "why me" card. I do it, but I'm not ashamed of it. I am aware of my process of healing, and that these moments of pain are temporary. I've gotten through a pretty traumatizing 5 years, and I feel capable of outlasting many more petty things that would have inhibited me from doing my best had I not come out of those 5 years a strong and optimistic person. I am grateful for every trial posed upon me, and I would not take back one single thing in my life that has caused me to shed a tear or lash out because now I see the result of a storm, and it is beautiful peace of mind. Without optimism I coul dhave easily gone down many more dark paths and possibly never come back from them. I am thankful that my years of pressing on in hopes of a better tommorrow were just another step away. And now that i have defeated those demons within me I plan to spend the rest of my life spreading it to others. I believe that my sense of optimism will enrich the lives of other people who feel that they do not have another way out and who are afraid of chance. Even if I only do for one person what my therapist did for me then i will feel like i lived a life worth living.

"In the end everything will be okay.
If it's not okay, it's not the end."