I started my body positive content journey by focusing on the parts of myself that I don't LOVE. Usually, the parts of myself that, at one time or another, I've straight up hated.
This time I decided to go a different route. To focus on a part of me I love.
Taking a look at the drawing I selected for this post, you'd think it might be my eyes 😅 and I couldn't blame you for that!
But, really, it's my humor and my sense of wonder.
My ability to laugh at even the hardest of times.
My unique view of the world and the ways it's helped me brighten not only my day but the days of many people around me.
My sense of humor is what's kept me going
Now, I'm not here to pretend I'm this endlessly happy or optimistic person or that my humor is even appropriate most of the time (I've been assured that it is not).
I'm just here to appreciate it.
I've been through a lot (haven't we all?) and I've come very close to the edge. I've flirted with that long goodnight and contemplated the point of it all. And somehow it's always been this humor and this weird way of looking at the world that's brought me back.
And I'm grateful to this sense of playfulness with the very fabric of reality because it reminds me: Life is short. We only get so much time here. Why spend it worrying? Why spend it hating ourselves for that stupid this we said yesterday at lunch? Why not just enjoy things, even when they are weird and fucked up and messy and painful and make no sense?
My mom liked to say, "Find one good thing in every day and hold onto it." As I navigated the depths of a depression in my teenage years these words were an anchor point for me. They reminded me that the bad isn't all bad. The good isn't all good. Things just are. When we learn to embrace that and really live with it in our hearts we're able to find humor in just about anything.
Finding things to laugh about has always made the harder times a little softer
I laughed a lot yesterday even though I'm waiting for a brain scan to see why I'm having headaches literally every day for the past two months. I laughed when I spent 3 days at the hospital for invasive gastro tests in 2020. I laughed at my mom's funeral. We laughed together in her room as she spent her last days on Earth.
I cried, too.
It's not about hiding the pain or masking it. It's not about pretending the hurt doesn't hurt. It's not about obliterating the fear. Though, admittedly, it took me a long time to learn that in life. I spent a lot of years trying to hide and mask and obliterate.
It's not disrespectful to the pain, either; or to the sadness. Two things can exist at once that seem to exclude one another. We CAN feel happiness when we're sad. We CAN find positive outcomes of our grief. We can CHOOSE to allow ourselves the pleasure of laughter.
When I die, I hope people sit around and make fun of some of the dumb shit I did or said. I hope they find reasons to laugh about fun memories we shared.
The things that took the most away from me GAVE me the ability to see life with a sense of wonder
When we're faced with challenges and struggles we have a choice. We always have a choice. We have the irrevocable, beautiful, daunting, sometimes paralyzing choice: how we experience it.
There are a lot of things outside of our control but one thing we always get to decide is what story we tell ourselves about the things we experience.
I'm certainly a victim of my own mind more than I'd like to admit 🤷🏻♀️ I've spent days crippled by self-pity and fear. I'm not here to act like I haven't spent those days in darkness inside my own mind; of my own choosing.
But I've also learned that when I'm forced to move at a literal snail's 🐌 pace when I'm sick, I see a lot more of the details of the world we pass by without noticing. I've learned that taking time off work when I'm sick allows me the space to be creative and make new art or write new stories. I've learned that when we lose someone we can fall apart or come together - and sometimes a little bit of both because we can't control how other people cope.
There's a little good in every day. A little wonder in every moment. A little laughter in every tear.
You just have to look for it 😉
