Tomorrow is Another Day

Sometimes, honestly, Scarlett O'Hara's final words in Gone With the Wind are all that keeps me going through the day.

After all, tomorrow is another day.

Today? Mmm ... not so good. It was one of those days where I felt like the only part of the world I could handle was the part under the covers on my bed. Of course I couldn't really stay there, I had to be out in the real world where I swear to God clutter actually grows on any available horizontal surface of my home, and why the hell can't my kid stop screaming in my ear?

These are not real problems, I know. Many people in the world have real problems. But today was one of those days where my screwed up brain chemistry was telling me that I had it worse than everybody else on the entire planet.

Don't tell me to snap out of it. For the love of all that's holy, if you tell me to snap out of it I will reach through this computer screen and strangle you, you stupid person who needs to read an introductory psychology textbook. (I know, harsh insult.)

The other day I wrote about fighting the good fight. Some days I don't want to fight. I don't mean I'm giving up the fight forever. I just mean I don't want to fight today. Because sometimes I just get so angry at how hard I have to fight to feel normal. I'm not asking for happy. I'm asking for normal.

I can bet that you, and every single person reading this, have had an occasion where you wished the world would just stop and let you off for a day or two. Maybe you were depressed or anxious, or sick, or exhausted or stressed or grieving.

And the world just keeps on going, expecting you to keep on going with it and its stupid expectations like jobs and laundry.

And today, none of my little inspirational sayings was working.

Keep on fighting the good fight. How much longer until this fight is won?

The only way out is through it. Through it again?

And then, I found inspiration in the stupidest of all places. The Little Engine That Could.

The Little Engine says, "I think I can. I think I can." And even though I've read that book a gazillion times, both during my own childhood and Nathan's, only today did I really, truly appreciate those words. I think I can is good. Not only is it a positive message of self-affirmation, it also doesn't really fully require you to commit to doing anything, just to thinking you can do it. I mean hey, maybe you're wrong and you can't, but you think you can. And really, isn't that about as much certainty as you can be guaranteed anyway?

After Engine, Nathan went to sleep, and, I admit it, I went on a candy run. I went to Walgreen's and bought a big Hershey bar and an industrial-size box of Mike 'n Ikes. And while I was on that trip, I was suddenly overcome with a comforting thought: Tomorrow is another day. And I was actually excited and hopeful for tomorrow.

Behold, the power of chocolate. Or, I mean, positive thinking.