Keep smiling

How does one remain positive in the face of adversity? A friend of mine asked me, "when did things come to this?". I have been asking myself the same question since the start of the year, but I don't have an answer for it. I am convinced that I will wake up one day and completely freak out because for right now, it doesn't seem to be sinking in. I say this because I remember one of the stories in school about pranks students played on each other. One that always freaked me out was the prank involving waiting for the prankee to fall asleep especially on the eve of their birthday and carry them in their bed to a strange location, most likely the other side of the school, preferably somewhere dark and deserted. Thankfully, this never happened to me but I always imagined waking up in the middle of the night, disoriented, in a dark, strange place, with no one else around, and assuming it will be outside, to sounds of "creatures of the night". what would I have done? run screaming and crying hysterically back to the dorms most likely, that is if I could sufficiently orient myself to find the right way home.

The most sensible thing to do would be to calm down, figure out where I was, walk calmly and safely back to dorm thereby avoiding clumsy falls and bumps and then find the architects of the prank and make them pay. As I said, thankfully, it never happened to me. That said, what I am experiencing now seems far worse than waking up in a haunted house, it does seem like a pretty bad dream yet I remain strangely hopeful and I'am not sure why. I have been lucky to have enough sensible people around me to tell me it will be all right in the end. In addition to this, I have lived long enough to know that nothing last forever but even with all that, given another time and place, I don't know how I would be handling the situation.

My father used to say that there is nothing that can fall out of the sky that the ground cant handle. I suppose he had a point, I mean after all, the meteor that supposedly killed all the dinosaurs did not destroy the earth, nor did it knock it off its path. In other words, what doesn't kill us makes us stronger? call me sceptical but surely, there is a place between death and strength, a bit of limbo where you are not sure if you want to be dead or run the next marathon.

But despite questioning my unusually sunny disposition, I certainly do not wish it away. there are days and times I do feel down but I allow myself to be cheered up by the little things, a call from a friend, a friendly word from a stranger, a good book or a funny film. Who knows, this meteor that has all but knocked me off course may just have done me a huge favour and killed all my dinosaurs. So here's to a speedy repopulation of planet me :)