"Make it a Great Day"

When I was a kid, every morning before I’d go to school my mom would tell me: “Make it a great day.”

It was never “have a good day”, or “have fun at school”. Always “make it a great day.”

She’s a former social worker and a strong believer in the power of a positive attitude. She loves cheesy motivational quotes and self help books, so she’s always looking for new tips to share with my two siblings and me.

Which makes it ironic that all three of us have been diagnosed with depression and anxiety.

School was difficult for us. We were anxious in social situations, we didn’t have the attention span to do well in our classes, and we didn’t stand out or get much positive affirmation. The three of us responded to our anxiety differently, though. We have the same diagnosis, but we are still three very different people, making us challenging in completely different ways.

My mom knew she wasn’t going to cure our severe dopamine deficiency with corny sentiment, and she knew that we couldn’t always control our emotions.

Still, she told us to “make it a great day”.

We hated it. We made fun of her positivity often but we had a tendency of letting our anxious thoughts spiral us into depression. It felt like a silly notion that we could solve our problems by changing our mindset.

But that wasn’t how my mom went about it. She wasn’t condescendingly telling us that we should be more optimistic, she was trying to teach us to practice mindfulness.

When we’d come home she’d ask us the same questions every day: What was the best thing that happened to you today? What was the worst? When we had issues she’d help brainstorm how to solve them. When the day was too stressful, she’d give us a break.

We couldn’t always control our emotions, but we could acknowledge and understand them in the moment. Then we could let them pass. Our day didn’t need to be defined by it. Nothing makes those feelings less painful, but it allows us to exist in the present without expectations or judgment. That moment-to-moment awareness slows our anxious minds and allows us to think rationally about what we can control, and how to “make it a great day”.

My brother in particular is a naturally quiet, impassive person. Most days he would go to school, barely talk to anyone, then come home and hold himself up in his room with his video games. It would have been easy for him to conform to masculine ideals of stoicism and cynicism, repressing his emotions and having his depression go unnoticed. But my mom encouraged him to feel his emotions and provided him a lifeline for when he needed it.

Our society can be tough on a couple of weird kids. Despite being raised religious, my mom didn’t want any cultural expectations to keep us from expressing ourselves. So, she was open with us about things that many spiritual people would consider taboo.

When I was 13, I started to realize that my feelings were different from my peers. It wasn’t because I read comic books, or because of my social anxiety, but I couldn’t figure out what it was at the time.

I was also 13 when my mom explained the Kinsey Scale to me. She didn’t call it that at the time, but that was the concept she was describing. She explained to me that sexuality was a spectrum, not a switch. Some people were straight, some people were gay, but many people were somewhere in the middle of that spectrum.

There weren’t many openly bisexual characters on mainstream television at the time, marriage equality hadn’t been passed, and my internet was dial-up. I was a naive little girl who had never considered bisexuality as a possibility before that moment.

Things didn’t immediately become easy for me after that. Our culture hadn’t normalized queer theory nearly as much as my mom lead me to believe. But I never felt like it was abnormal or unnatural to be bisexual.

Understanding that my feelings weren’t only valid, but more common was life-affirming.

To this day, my mom is the first person I go to when I need validation. When I feel like I made a mistake, get depressed, or get angry I call her to talk about it. It’s always satisfying to vent your frustrations at someone, but I also go to her for affirmation. Affirmation that I’m not irrational for having strong feelings. Affirmation that I will be okay. That I am okay.

It’s gotten to the point where “you’re okay” has become a catchphrase in our conversations. A few years ago she even bought me a custom pin that says simply “You’re Okay.”

It’s now a decoration on my wall as a reminder and an extension of those motivational posters my mom put up when I was a kid.

Her nurturing nature might not seem like a tough, transgressive “boss mom”, but there is a resiliency in soft mindfulness. It isn't strong in the traditional sense of the word, but it has carried us through some difficult times.

My mom has had a hard year.

My dad passed away suddenly and unexpectedly and it’s been a trauma for my mom, and siblings. And if that wasn’t enough, it happened only a month after we put our family dog down. We had that dog for 14 years and my mom was particularly close to her.

Seeing her during this time was heartbreaking.

For all her training in dealing with trauma and emotions, processing this was still an unpredictable road. None of us knew how to navigate our emotions, let alone do it while having a flood of people sending us flowers.

My siblings and I got our sense of humor from our mom, so we made jokes about how awkward we must have looked when people we barely knew hugged us.

My mom stood in front of us the whole time though. She took the hugs and the tears in stride. She talked to his family and dealt with the work he left behind. She went from an average day to planning a funeral so suddenly, but she rode it out as best anyone could.

She didn’t have an easy solution for us. None of her self-help book tips seemed adequate for the severity of emotion at the time.

Even now, several months later, we oscillate between being okay and being absolutely devastated. But my mom is still the same person who will hear me out when I talk about my problems and send me inspirational quotes she found on Instagram. She checks in with me often and asks me about the good and bad parts of my day, just like she did when I was a kid.

I still roll my eyes at it. But I know that there is strength in still believing in positivity and optimism after what we've been through. It gives us agency despite how tumultuous our situation gets.

There are some days that can’t be made great no matter how optimistic you are. But for the other days: breathe. Take a second to analyze your thoughts without judgment. Think about how you can take care of yourself right now. I hope you make it a great day.