Optimism

I am a ridiculous optimist. There, I said it.

I have always wanted to be more aloof, to say the least of it. There is something so mysterious about those brooding pessimistic types: meditative cynics, reluctant misanthropes, cogitative realists. (Edward Rochester* was my first true love.) But that is apparently not my style, against my better hopes. (Heh heh.)

I've tried the more negative route, but it just goes over as absurd when it comes from me. Don't get me wrong, I can get depressed or despondent. I have even been accused of being inconsolable. But not negative. No, I suppose I lean more toward the peppy side. Perky. Hopeful. Sanguine. God, how irritating. The annoyance is so galling, I can hardly stand myself. I do however, of course, have faith that I can overcome this peeving trait of mine. I'll just work on it. I'll get better. Or worse, as the case may be.

Historically and against the odds, I have always chosen to see the glass as half full, even when the glass is broken, cracked and shattered, shards of a barbed and bloody rim poking through, spilling a liquid no more appealing than piss and vinegar. Even then, I can see the potential of a still functioning cup and somehow I envision a dormant but plausible chalice, just waiting for its own right moment. Who am I kidding? It's a way to get by, I guess. But it tends toward the laughable, even by optimistic standards.

The first time I bought a lottery ticket (I was only 21), I got so excited. I was beside myself with the possibilities. All day long I mulled over my future, the changes in store for me should I actually win. Where would I travel? With whom would I share my winnings? Who would I tell first? I am embarrassed by my naivete. When my numbers weren't the winning ones, I wasn't so shocked as genuinely disappointed. I felt the truest form of sadness for a few moments. And I was taken aback by my own foolish dejection.

But I also confess (now at least) that I own an aberrant sense of egotism about my hope, regardless of how silly I know it was. How silly I know it is. As unhappy as I have been at times, even when my perceived misery is a direct result of my own asinine anticipation of things that may never come to fruition, I wouldn't trade my optimism. Silly? Stupid? Naive? Blissfully ignorant? Maybe. But so what. Fuck it. That's who I am. Edward Rochester should be so lucky.

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*In case you don't already know, Edward Rochester is the fabulously detached yet mesmerizing hero of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Read it. Or read it again.