Night Swimming

My head is spinning...swimming. Especially at night because I'm not sleeping...well, I sleep until about midnight and then I'm up every 45 minutes or so. Partly nerves, partly the fact that there's a full sized human pushing on my bladder, and partly because I just have so much going through my brain and I have never been particularly good at stopping that whole racing thoughts thing. So, as I said, my head...swimming!! And how am I supposed to focus at work? Because of Night Swimming, I'm not sleeping, so I'm tired...and anxious, and peeing, and thinking about everything other than work. But it's all so incredible!! There is a real, live baby in my belly who is anxious to GET OUT and in a matter of days, we will be holding our new baby girl! Our family will expand by an additional 33% (or would it be 25%...I'm so bad at math). Our lives will be enriched completely and totally forever! I can't contain myself. If I didn't have said baby in said belly, I could do cartwheels with excitement... actually, I could still do a cartwheel if I wanted...just not in maternity shirts because they're way to floppy and would end up over my head.

ANYhow, it is amazing how much adding a child to a family makes a difference. For us, a wonderful difference. I can't find the down side even when I try! But, I have definitely noticed (and fabulous FaceBook has helped illuminate this for me exponentially) that many, many, if not most, people find all the ways kids are a pain. And, ya know, it's not just kids...this is a topic I was swimming around last night...and I have to soapbox it because I think it's starting to get to my heart...and the topic is this: MOST PEOPLE ARE APPARENTLY MISERABLE! I know...how completely miserable of me to say that. How totally and entirely pessimistic. But do a little activity for me and you'll agree. If you are a Facebook user, go in to your friends' status updates and randomly screen 20, 30, 50, however many you want. Keep track of how many are positive and how many are negative...and I'm telling you that upwards of 50% will be MISERABLE! Seriously, everything from how annoying it is that their kids dare do anything wrong ever to complaining about the weather (this one is CONSTANT!) to lamenting about bad drivers, ugly people, annoying waiters, stupid spouses...it goes on and on. I feel so sad about it. It's come up for me over and over since I've started on the Facebook thing and has, ridiculously, been upsetting enough to me that there have actually been times I've considered stopping Facebook altogether because it gets at my heart too much.

Do the people I love really feel this miserable all the time?

Is life really this wretched that the only things people can think to make public are the negative, sad, depressing things?

Is there really nothing to celebrate, feel joyful about, or just be thankful for?

Don't get me wrong...obviously this is not true of EVERYone, but I do have to say that it's true of more than not. And it gets to me because I think it's a symptom of a bigger issue...but I can't figure out the issue. Is it that we, as a people, are ingrates? Is it that we, as a society, are spoiled to the point that we're entitled and, therefore, nothing is ever good enough? Is it something else? I wish I could answer it. I've come up with a gazillion theories...there must be some study about it.

I also think it's contagious...the more negativity we each put out individually, the more negativity that comes back in the emotional universe, bouncing off the people around us like little emotional, cosmic pool balls, sending everyone flying into the holes. But, I truly believe this is the case with positivity too...and gratitude...I participated in the Gratitude Experiment (www.gogratitude.com) a couple of years ago and I don't know what kind of cosmic difference it made, but it did make me feel better every day. The idea is to focus on things each day for which we are thankful...that's the simple take on it. I know it sounds awfully Oprah and "The Secret" and I'm not a particularly big Oprah person, but the concept is a great one, one I wish more people would embrace...at least in my life. There's just so much to be thankful for, even when life seems treacherous... there's always a worse circumstance. There are always people who need you more than you need them. There's always something you can find to be joyful about (or at least to smirk about on the harder days)...but why do we not let ourselves go there?? Why is it so easy to turn to the bad stuff...to find company in misery...to toxify the world around us with our own, usually self-created, poison?

I'm trying as best I can to focus on gratitude, to put the positive energy out there and to remember every day that there are more beautiful things than ugly. I hope that once in a while someone around me sees this and decides to try to do the same thing. And maybe even by writing this, one or two people might think before spewing yuckiness on their status updates...at the very least. I don't know...as a social worker I should understand and be sensitive to the need to vent, share frustrations, and process the hard stuff. Don't get me wrong, there is definitely a place for that. But, maybe on a public forum, maybe when 200+ people can read it and be affected by it, and maybe when there is not much of a beneficial reason to do it, it's not productive.

Any of my lovies in my life know that I am ALWAYS willing to have an open ear, a strong shoulder and a loving heart in times of need...that's not the issue...and I hope you all get the difference. But, maybe we could also all work together to share love openly, to find grace all around us, to swim in the miracles that are this world and this life. That's a hope I came to last night while swimming around in my thoughts...

And now, off the soapbox again until next time....thanks for enduring me! :)