The Optimism of a Donkey

This year was a shit show.

I don’t want to rewrite it as a year of magical moments.

Realizing that made me realize why I’ve been resisting writing a year-end reflection.

Yes, there were moments that made me happy, took my breath away, but they were fleeting. A brief respite from the pressure that defined the rest of the year—an exception, far from the rule.

My joy-baby’s birth is the perfect example; so much happiness mixed with pain following nine months of the most difficult pregnancy of the six I’ve had.

A moment that took my breath away was when a single client paid in full, covering the back-rent and letting us narrowly avoid eviction. What sweet, gasping relief after the suffocating weight of financial pressure leading up to that moment.

Focusing only on the beautiful parts of this feels like wearing a mask—brightening my face with makeup to distract from my sad eyes.

There’s a time for that. Gratefulness goes a long way, and if I’m not purposeful about appreciating what I can, can I expect more things worth appreciating to come to me? What one focuses on grows, as they say.

That’s why when someone asks how I am, or how I’m settling into a change, or how my year was, I jump straight to sharing one of the miracles.

Usually.

Not today; not while I’m alone with my thoughts, letting myself feel.

As I watch my children frolic in the leaves near the river down the hill from our front door, I grieve. Grieve the loss of that home we could no longer afford to rent, even after the gift of the pay-in-full client. Grieve the fact that this place is temporary and we don’t know where or when we will have a stable home again. Grieve the tear-stained trail that brought us here and the uncertainty of our next steps.

This year was not full of magical moments that sparkle and shine like a diamond in an engagement ring. The magic of this year is in the pressure creating the diamond far beneath the surface.

Reflecting on it may not conjure many sweet memories, but it does inspire hope for the future.

I filled five journal pages with highlights, gratefulness, and happiness—they’re there when I search—but even with all that effort I come away feeling defeated.

Why does it have to take so much effort, month after month, year upon year, to find the positives to come to the surface? For some people it’s a pessimism problem. That’s what people tell me my problem is.

They slap on the nickname “Eeyore.”

Funny thing is, Eeyore is one of the biggest optimists there is in fiction. He has the most defeating, depressing sort of life circumstances of anyone in the Hundred Acre Wood and yet he always finds a way to keep moving forward.

How well do you think Pooh would persevere if his house fell down half as many times as Eeyore’s has?

How do you think Rabbit would handle a literal part of his body getting lost?

And do you think Owl would be half as grateful for an empty honeypot and burst balloon as a birthday present?

I suppose I would rather have my character compared to Eeyore even with all that comes with it than be shallow like his neighbors. Forgive me if my ears droop though.

Grief is an uncomfortable emotion to be around, so I understand why no one wants walk with me through it.

It’s lonely though.

Yes, my grief is uncomfortable for you; how much more for the one who carries it alone and cannot escape it?

Years like this one reveal the true friends—that’s the cliché at least. In my experience they reveal more than that. I’ve learned there are plenty of people around who will help in a crisis—emergency responders, so to speak—but if they deem the crisis chronic, they are so much less likely to offer a hand up.

People like it when things fit neatly in a box they can tie with a bow. Baby being born? Sure, let’s deliver a meal, maybe even two. “Get well soon!” I didn’t realize that was a threat.

Get well soon... or else.

If you don’t get well, if the postpartum depression sets in and it lasts longer than a little while, well that’s your problem to deal with.

Until it’s an emergency again, but sometimes then it’s too late.

“If only I would have known! She could have called me—I’d have taken the kids to give her a break.”

Would you though? Think hard. Did she really never ask for help? Or did you simply not see it as an emergency so you put her off?

“Yeah! We should totally get together!”

I don’t understand why people say things like that when they don’t mean it and I’m tired.

Too tired to even be fed up, just... tired.

So I stay here in my little house of sticks surrounded by thistles and learn to love them. A butterfly comes by and I smile, and when even this tiny blessing of beauty betrays me, making my shelter come tumbling down, I build it up again.

When my home falls apart—or I fall apart—I don’t even bother to ask for help anymore, which means sometimes I lie in the wreckage for a while, trying to muster up strength to persevere again.

Sometimes I lie in the wreckage and cry. I did a lot of that this year. I’ll probably do more than my share of it in the coming one too, but I will build again.

I will, not because I resolve to, but because I am resolute.

New Years resolutions never served me half as well as taking the time to define and redefine my identity anyway.

Focusing on what I want to do results in so much disappointment when the train derails. It’s when I focus on who I’m meant to be that I make progress.

I am not the bounciest, nor the strongest, nor do I think myself overly wise. Neither am I one of very little brain.

I am who I am meant to be, and I resolve to be her even when no one would choose to walk this path. It is mine, and I will walk it even when I walk it alone.