Michelle's House of Horrors

So, if this does end up being my last letter, please believe that things are good with me, and even when they’re not, they will be soon enough. And I will believe the same about you.

–S. Chbosky/The Perks of Being A Wallflower. 

I have brought this up before, but one thing about me that seems to surprise even people who know me pretty well is that I consider myself an optimist. The thing that seems to trip them up is that I am also very cynical. 

The thing is, although I think the world is falling apart and a lot of people are awful, I am really convinced that ultimately things will always be OK. 

Which doesn’t mean I don’t think anything bad will happen to me or the people I love. Bad things have happened and they will again. Cancer. Armed robbery.  Prison. Death. Really bad things. So how do I acknowledge all the bad and still think that everything will be good with me?

Well, it’s a bit of circular logic, I guess. I think things will work out OK because they always do. Even with the bad stuff. Do things work out OK because I think they will? If I didn’t think that way, would things suck more? Yes. That is pretty much how I think it tends to work. 

Things are good because I think they are. 

Conversely, if I thought those same things were bad, they would be. 

Or maybe it’s that there are always enough good things going on around me that it always manages to supercede the bad. Or maybe I am just so twisted that I laugh at things I shouldn’t. Like food poisoning. 

As I said to some friends at the beach last weekend: dunno, don’t care. 

Even in my worst moments, I know that good things will be coming along. Crappiness is not eternal. Even if it was, I suspect I might still tend to see more good than bad. Partly by temperament, but mostly by choice. 

We are all going to end up dead. Yep. True story. Dead. Every single one of us. The people we love, the ones we hate, the fundamentalists, the atheists. All of us. We can just say “fuck it” and be depressed knowing that life is always a temporary state, or we can say “fuck it” and be happy anyway. 

Given that the end result is the same, I’d just as soon go down laughing. 

As usual this time of the year, I am just coming down from a trip to the beach with friends. 

OK, OK. I know anyone who reads me has heard this a million times. Maybe even a billion. 

I know the best people. 

The kind who laugh so hard they can’t read the next card when playing Cards Against Humanity. 

The kind who make a joke about side boob and it turns into someone threatening to show us what side ball is all about. 

The ones who roast you the best chicken you have ever tasted, make you a delicious breakfast and serenade you with their ukuleles. 

The ones who try endlessly to cajole you into believing (heh) that you are spiritual. 

People you can talk about feelings, philosophy, great books, music or side boobs while sitting on a sunny deck. 

People who will build you a fire. 

Friends who laugh at you for taking one more picture of the haystack rock, and are even willing to concede that the last one is totally different because the fog was rolling in. 

Friends who make you laugh, think and be grateful that there are people in the world.