Optimism

Last year I watched a boy end a serious relationship replete with love for a brief burst of lust.  Last month I caught a girl in a lie. Last week I heard barely legal girls talk about which bar they had met the guys they went home with.  Yesterday someone told me that I write a lot as if I was inconveniencing him with too much to read.  An hour ago I listened to a friend complain about something she had complete control over changing.  A minute ago one of my best friends kept interrupting me so I gave up on trying to say anything at all.  A second ago I wanted to cry.


But the tears never came.


I stood on the opposite bank from this tree in a nowhere nobody town surrounded by the noise of tire pushing pavement.  The landscape was ugly and the sunset was decent but the illumination was beautiful.  I realized that the dirt and dust being stirred up on the road were responsible for the glow.  I like this image because it is representative of something beautiful surrounded by that which is not. More importantly, the beauty was not possible without the unappealing elements of the scene.


At these moments when the gloom drains me of all of my energy, poisens my thoughts and makes me want to cry I remember that they are so necessary for appreciating the good fortune in my life.  I hold onto that thought as if it were the last warm hand on earth and the tears are kept at bay.