Something different...

Ola,

Of late I've been aware of a darker tone creeping into this blog. It is probably inevitable, since every person who examines what life, and "being human", actually means might come up with some ....err.... disheartening revelations?

Anyhow, in an attempt to redress the balance, and focus on the positive narrative for a while......

........Actually having sat and thought, staring at the blank page for a good 5 minutes, I've realised that nothing immediately jumps to mind as wholly positive.....or wholly negative. which ...oddly is a kinda positive?. :-)

Things just "happen' these days. I rarely describe much meaning to them, beyond that of the moment. Perhaps I'm becoming an Existentialist?

Except for one thing. In precisely 4 days I get to go and collect my daughter for the week.

That is Good.

The title "Stubbornly Optimistic" was initially meant as something of a tongue in cheek comment on the situations in which I found myself after life imploded in early 2010.

Some 7 yrs on from that point, and despite a world of random occurrence and mishap, or the discriminations both big and small I am still here.

"I" &"I am" are powerful concepts. Whilst the world might not know who "I am" and those that I work, discuss & argue with whilst generally existing alongside them might criticise or question, it's becoming clearer every day just  who "I am"

• I am that kid who always drove teachers mad asking "but Why?
• I am the adult that continues to ask that simple question, constantly and infuriatingly, but now with bigger words and more syllables
• I am something the world defines as a parent and my daughter defines as her "mad dad" in a way that often makes me chuckle. 
• I am teacher, mentor, guide and go getter of food when the daughter runs out of sausages.
• I am terrible at singing but can pull of a mean car dance shuffle
• I am the narrator of a world of funny voices, that make the "wee princess" laugh in the car.
• I am Stubbornly optimistic.

Which is almost everything. At this point in my life, 7 years on from the bubble bursting and dumping me quite uncerimoniously on my arse, wet, worn out, and severely whipped by life, what "I am" still occupies a part of my mind that will never ever give up:

Out of the night that covers me, 

      Black as the pit from pole to pole, 

I thank whatever gods may be 

      For my unconquerable soul. 

In the fell clutch of circumstance 

      I have not winced nor cried aloud. 

Under the bludgeonings of chance 

      My head is bloody, but unbowed. 

Beyond this place of wrath and tears 

      Looms but the Horror of the shade, 

And yet the menace of the years 

      Finds and shall find me unafraid. 

It matters not how strait the gate, 

      How charged with punishments the scroll, 

I am the master of my fate, 

      I am the captain of my soul. 

Now be honest, how many of you read that and heard Morgan Freeman's voice in your head?

So, the positive bit in todays musings is that I suggest we are all captains, we all have agency, and we all have ability to use that which we have to its best effect. The first part in changing any given situation is the mental acceptance of one's own refusal to be bound by the circumstance's in which you find yourself.

I haven't quoted Dr Dyer in a while, but this seems apt.

"When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change"

And to finish heres a random cool video i found on Youtube the other day ... I've been following Steph Sanjati for years now, and this made me smile... (trust me).

So. Despite all my recent words to the contrary, the word isn't all dark, doom and dreary. Just bits of it. When dealing with all those bits don't forget to come up for air occasionally and look at the other stuff. The view is pretty amazing.

Till next time,

Sarah