Positivity.

The way I look at it, every morning when you wake up you have two choices. You can choose to be positive, or you can choose to be negative. Okay, so you can also choose which cereal you want to eat, or if you'd rather have a cookie. So, I guess you really have more than two choices. But for the sake of this post, we're going with just two: being negative or being positive. 

It's easy some days to automatically choose negativity. If the day before ended badly, why not just assume you're going to have another bad day, right? I get that. I think everyone feels that way some days. But, no matter how the day before ended, it ended. It's over. And you have the incredible opportunity in front of you every single day to be positive. No matter what. 

Lately I have seen more negativity than I know what to do with. On Facebook. On the news. On Twitter. In real life. It's constant. It's overwhelming. And it doesn't make sense to me. Of course there are reasons to be negative. There are reasons to be in a bad mood. There are reasons to hate everyone and everything. I'm not sitting here telling you never to feel that way, ever. If I did that, I would be the biggest hypocrite in the world and I would suggest you never read what I had to say ever again. 

But, what it comes down to is really your choice. Are you going to let something that upset you today continue to brew and fester (ew) and take over your world? Or are you going to stop it dead it its tracks? Are you going to wallow in it? Or are you going to cry it out, eat some cake, and move on? It's your choice. And no one can take that from you. But, you owe it to yourself to make the decision that is going to make your life better. (Note: that choice is positivity.) 

Now you're probably wondering why I'm sitting here telling you what to do when I don't even know your story. And, you're right. I don't know your story. But that doesn't matter. You know your story. And the power to choose negativity or positivity is in your hands. Not mine. After you finish reading this, I'm out. I have no more control over anything regarding your life or your story. Your story is your story, just like my story is my story. And there's something uniquely beautiful about that. But what's even more beautiful is positivity. Add those things together and you have a recipe for success--a recipe for happiness.

So now I'm handing you the mixer, and leaving you with the choice. If you are reading this thinking that I'm absolutely crazy and that there is no way to always be positive, you are half right. (The half about not always being positive, in case you weren't sure.) And if you are reading this thinking that sometimes it's hard to be positive, you are absolutely right. It is a challenge. An ongoing challenge. But, if you're reading this thinking about taking on that challenge, even just for one day (because after one day you will realize that it really is worth it), my work here is done. 

So, tomorrow morning, it's all you. And if you can't do it tomorrow, try the next day. That is okay. It's not easy. That's why it's called a challenge. But, I'm in this challenge with you. And I know you can do it. 

Fear.

I have written a few posts lately and then deleted them because I didn't think they sounded right--too whiney, too much like I was begging for attention, too jumbled--just not right in one way or another. But I'm going to try again. And if you are reading this, then I succeeded. Yay me!

Sometimes Lyme is really scary. I try not to focus on that aspect of things. But, it makes its way in there every now and then. And fear is a big emotion. A big, heavy, rude, nasty emotion. And, no matter how hard you try to push it away, it pushes back just as hard, sometimes even a little harder. 

(If emotions were a thing you had to bring home to meet your parents, fear would not be the one to bring.)

And, sometimes, fear can be productive. It can motivate you to get things done, or to make a choice. But most of the time, it sucks. And, right now in my life, it's not productive at all. It's heavy. It's confusing. And, sometimes, it's damn near paralyzing. 

Right now, as I'm writing this, there are tears dripping down my cheeks. And I don't know why. I have no explanation as to why I'm crying, or why I've been randomly crying off and on all day. I'm not sad. I'm not angry. I'm not any kind of anything that should make me cry. But, out of the blue, all day, I've been crying. 

Now, for most people that wouldn't be scary. It's just an emotional day. But, for me, it's scary. It's scary because, for the last few days, I have been able to feel the Lyme moving through my body. I can feel it looking for its next victim, its next place to hide. And today, I can feel it in my brain. (Yeah, my brain. It's as creepy as it sounds. It feels like my brain is shaking. And it feels like there is something fuzzy in my head, making everything a little harder to understand, a little harder to say, and a little harder to make into thoughts. It feels like I'm living in a marshmallow with the occasional shaking of a snow globe.) And, it scares the hell out of me to think that the reason I'm crying is because the bacteria is exploring my brain, and leaving its mark on the part of my brain that controls my emotions. It's scary to think about where it's going to make itself at home next. I find myself feeling something and immediately worrying that it's going to be like that for the next four weeks until things move around again. 

I want it to stop. I want to feel in control of my emotions again. I want to feel in control of my brain again. I want to feel in control of my body again, in general.

And, I may be tough. I may be strong 99% of the time. But sometimes, no matter how hard I try to convince myself otherwise, Lyme is really scary.