The Silver Lining

Bad news always follows good news.  Right?  The pessimist in me is standing and applauding; the optimist has her arms folded tightly across her chest, pouting.  

I mean, consider this: waking in the morning to a fresh pot of coffee…definitely good news.  No creamer…very bad news.

So, I got bad news this week (beyond the creamer issue).  It is not worth going into the details (go elsewhere, spies), but it had the sort of dagger in the heart and twist effect.  

Then a strange thing happened – it was followed by good news.  WTH, you say?  I know, right.  Now it was not like the ‘heavens opened, a beam of light hit me, and all was well with the world’ good news, but good news all the same.  I stopped, stood completely still.  Surely the world was coming to an end, or the car would have a flat, or there would be no creamer.  Nope (and stop calling me Shirley).

Nothing happened.  Nothing.  I had received good news on the heels of bad news, and then…the cycle just stopped.  

That led me to ask myself; what if I have had it all wrong?  What if good news ALWAYS follows bad news?  What if I have had it backwards this whole time, and the universe sort of bitch slapped me so I would finally recognize this fact?

I mean, I woke up to coffee but no creamer.  But then, I went to Starbucks and had a lovely conversation with a lady that brightened my entire day (and I found out that strawberries were on sale at Safeway – bonus good news!).

Perhaps, I have been looking at this all wrong.  What if I shift events in my life, change the timing of how I view these events, and allow the good news to overshadow the bad?  Could it really be that simple?  Was I actually creating my own dark world, where the clouds would overtake the sun and block it from my view?  Looking at the clouds now, it seems pretty clear that the sun still shines around the edges in a silvery-gold lining, and the clouds are getting wispy.  

My inner optimist is placing a sparkly crown on my head and beaming with pride.  The pessimist is glaring at me from the corner.