Wednesday, March 21, 2018

Pollyanna Dances On


Third night in a row out on the town. I’m dizzy with the excitement of it all. Well, not really, but it’s been fun. It’s Wednesday night, dinner with Betty night, but tonight we had a special treat. My longtime (at least forty years) friend Linda came in from Granbury, and the three of us went to the Wine Haus, had good wine, food from Chadra, and lots of catching up. Such fun. Glad to see Linda, who flits here and there about the world—from Dubai to Angel Fire to South Padre—and doesn’t make it to Fort Worth often enough. Betty and Linda both had pizza, but I indulged in lamb chops and mashed potatoes and ordered stuffed dates for the table. Too full to eat all the dates, but they were so good. Nice evening.

Comments on last nights blog made me realize I needed to clarify impressions of my life, lest I sound like Pollyanna dancing my way through life in bright red shoes, turning everything I touch to gold, every minute to joy. As I said last night, I’ve had my hard knocks: the deaths of my parents and several people close to me; a difficult divorce; a lifelong battle with anxiety (the doctor says I’m just not wired like other people—I don’t know how helpful that is). My heart has been broken by a couple of good men and bruised by a few not so good. I am neither a best-selling mystery writer nor a well-respected literary author—I’m just a yeoman writer. In the last three years or so I’ve had several difficult health crises, with the result that I can no longer walk without assistance and my vision is slightly impaired, my heart slightly off-kilter. I cannot hop in the car and go to the grocery or out for lunch. My outings have to be carefully planned, and I necessarily rely on others. Despite my joy in my cottage, I miss many things about life in the house that was home to me for twenty-five years, and despite what sounds like a gay social life, I spend long hours alone in the cottage. Some days loom long and empty.

But I choose not to write about those things. I choose, for instance, not to write about the heartbreak of a dissolving marriage but to focus on the joy I found in raising four children as a single parent—they taught me more than I could ever hope to teach them. I choose to be happy and to write about happiness. Like self-pity, happiness feeds on itself.

The best thing my ex-mother-in-law could say to others was, “I wish you a lotta luck.” I always wanted to scream, “I don’t believe in luck. We make our own luck…and our own happiness.”

6 comments:

Unknown said...

You never have to apologize for being positive. Ever. If people can't handle you being uplifting, their souls are rotting. And I pity them.

judyalter said...

Thanks, friend. It'sbout time we had lunch again. And, ahem, I do believe it's your turn to cook. I have made great progress on my cookbook and could even provide you with a printout, should you wish to critique.

Anonymous said...

It's curious new world of ours where Facebook happiness is taken as fact and genuine happiness must be apologized for...

judyalter said...

Agreed, anonymous, but it's not an apology but an explanation. It would be too easy for some to attribute my happiness to sheer luck and credit the same source for their own unhappiness. In my own preachy way, it is a moral lesson.

Unknown said...

I am very pleased to hear that you do not choose to write about the ugliness of life by the happiness. I wish I could. But one writes what one experienced the most, I suppose. My high school freshman year, my parents decided to move from Pierre, SD to Valentine, NE and open a hardware store. Valentine has a population of 2,500 people and is the largest town for 140 miles in any direction. It was no fun being the new kid. Those were the four most miserable years of my life. When I graduated from high school, I fled immediately, agreeing to play football in college only because I wanted a way out and fall training started early. I got injured and couldn't afford to stay in college so was forced back home. But as soon as I healed, I joined the army to get away. The only times I went back was to visit my parents and that rarely and for a short period of time. I promised myself that when my parents died, I would write a novel about that place. It out Peytons Peyton Place except much more cruelty if you are not a member of the inner clique. And there are no outer cliques! I was talked into going back for 10th high school graduation and spent it sitting in a corner. I haven't been back to another reunion since. I did have a couple of friends who were also outcasts and one of them I still keep in contact with. One of my high school English teachers touted me saying that she was certain I was going to be a novelist from the time she read some of my assignments because I always told stories during "free writing" and one other adult boasted that he was the president of my fan club. He was a prominent business man in town and the year I was nominated for a Pulitzer he took out an ad in the local paper congratulating me. But, growing up in that town was pure misery. Like you, I had two miserable marriages and finally filed divorces on both. I swore off marriage after the second one. Now, I live alone (and have for years) down here and am not unhappy about that at all.

judyalter said...

but you're still dwelling on the unhappy parts of your high school experience and your resentment of the town. Why not dwell on the good things that have happened to you--children, success as a writer and critic, a happy man living in a semi-idyllic setting now. Being "not unhappy" is different from "being happy" and bespeaks a whole different approach to life. We make our own misery as well as our own happiness. It's the reason I'm not writing memoir. Who wants to wake the sleeping beast?