Sometimes It's Helpful to Remember....

• That disagreeing doesn't mean disliking.
• That anger is normal. Anger almost always masks fear (or some sort of “weaker,” more vulnerable emotion, such as anxiety, shame, guilt, helplessness, or grief (mediate dot com)
• That sometimes there is nothing that will immediately dissolve despair. (Geneen Roth said that somewhere.....)
• That other people's insights can be incredibly refreshing- even though you don't have to agree with every single thought and belief that this other person may have.
• That the blogs of strangers can provide these bits of insight, and that sometimes one is lucky enough to stumble upon one or two of them.
• (Like this one: You are weird. You’re human! So create because you must get that shade of turquoise onto the paper or you must tell the stories of your bizarre family or because you want to have a ticker tape parade in honor of your inventions but don’t create to earn your right to be who you are. (http://www.comfortqueen.com/forget-best-year-bad-idea)

And that, God willing; by tomorrow this time I'll be at a friend's mansion far enough away from here that it will likely be easy to put today's "Glum" behind me.

(insert snow, children, and horses here. I'm afraid of horses, but I think they look really pretty. From a distance, or in a picture.)

I'll be with friends who know how to have an unconventionally good time. Where "weird" is not weird at all. Where making stuff out of garbage is the fanciest label you could hope to wear. Where teen-agers, forty-somethings and fifty-somes are not too old to play dress-up. Where thrift show 'n' tell is way more exciting to watch than "The Incredibly Sexy Bachelor-ette With A Miraculously Repaired Cleft Palette". (with, or without popcorn)

Sometimes it's helpful to remember that today's anxieties can give way to tomorrow's Joy, Bliss, and Forever Happy Ness.

(Or, at least that the yucky times almost always have an end.)