Self-educated Optimist

"Take chances, make mistakes.  That's how you grow.  Pain nourishes your courage.  You have to fail in order to practice being brave."  - Mary Tyler Moore

I am grateful that I can look back over the past 39 years and feel good about what I have accomplished and what I have learned.  I have stumbled, fallen, tripped, and crashed on so many occasions, sometimes quite spectacularly. Though I've had my periods of rolling around in the "Life Sucks" wallow, I do eventually realize I'm doing nothing but making a mess of myself. Each time I have managed to stand myself back up, steady my stance and keep going.  

I wish that I could say what exactly it is that sustains me.  I wish that I could point to some sort of inspiration or  source of faith, because if I could it would make those moments when doubt rises or an old hurt is revived easier to move past.  Much of it is simply past experience, and recognizing that I have been here before and I didn't crumble then, I didn't die.  I survived. I'm able to hold enough perspective to learn from the experience, to take the lesson and file it away for future reference.

I could call myself a self-educated optimist.  It's isn't so much that I'm sure I'll succeed as much as, well if this doesn't work it can't possibly suck THAT much, right?  I mean, remember that time when...yeah, that time, well that didn't kill me (though I cried for a week, ate a pint of ice cream for breakfast everyday and came within minutes of getting an I heart Ben & Jerry tramp stamp).

In the end, I still have a heart that is mostly intact and all of my limbs...that's success!  Now. on to the next adventure.