When I caught up with an old friend after A.‘s chemo, he told me I had a very glass-half-full view of the world. But I’m not in the habit of putting on rose-colored glasses. I think being real means recognizing the good things, too.
And I’m in good company.
During and after the chemo, I read lots of memoirs—about what lives, relationships, diseases, and struggles of all kinds are really like. All the better when they’re like Nina Riggs’ The Bright Hour: Compelling. Intelligent. Clever, insightful. Funny. Poignant. Heartbreaking when life is.
There’s something inherently optimistic in acknowledging: Yes, it’s exactly this bad. Even when “this” only refers to the one element of my life you’re ready to talk about, to acknowledge right now. If you lie to others or to yourself about how things are going, where does that leave you?
What if instead you choose to see the situation you’re in, to step back and describe what’s happening and how you’re taking it, even if it’s just to yourself? Then you can take the next step, which might be as simple (or as involved) as journaling or asking for help.
The optimism is in the implication that this is worth talking about, that your state of being is worth describing, discussing, working on, in the feeling that maybe it doesn’t have to be this way forever, that you want to work through it.
The optimism is in acknowledging, even for a situation that can’t be solved, that talking about things as they really are means we can talk about things as they really are. We can handle the truth,we can be open to just how hard and sad and boring and also just how painfully beautiful and inspiring and touching and happy it is, it can be.
I try to approach my writing with pragmatic optimism. I called this site “this glass has water.” It’s a fact: a water glass contains water. But seeing the water and not just the empty part of the glass? Acknowledging all aspects of the story? It’s profoundly optimistic.
I’m in a bad place. This is what it’s like. I’m telling you what it’s like so you’ll know if it ever happens to you that it has happened before, and maybe what to expect, and hopefully that it’s possible to see out, but certainly that you’re not alone in this.
or
I’m in a good place, and I want to remember this, so I’m going to try to figure out what makes it good. I want to appreciate it fully while I’m here, and I want to know how to replicate it in the future, and I want to take steps to keep it good, to make it better, because I’ve realized that it only really feels good if the journey feels good.
This way that choosing a story and then framing it in a way that serves me, and hopefully some of you, is my favorite thing about writing. I get to affect how I perceive and remember the stories I tell.
I might write down a thought or idea and then realize: That’s not it. That’s not how I want to think about this. That’s not how I want to share it. So I come at it from another angle, or set it aside and focus on something that feels like a better choice, like the way I’d like to be in the world.
Do you ever adjust the lens you use to tell your stories to change how you feel about them? Does widening the aperture feel overwhelming or calming? Share in a comment below.
This Glass Has Water 