♦ Twinkle twinkle life is hard; you don’t get to choose your hand of cards.

Up above in the heavens and in the spaces down below, people are hurting and dying just to know

Why no one cares or no one who does shows

integrity and grit, only greed and shameless souls. ♦

You see there, I have taken a tired, old nursery rhyme full of fun and wonder and made it work for me. Because I’m bitter, that’s why.  And guess what? Bitter is NOT the new black like the very funny book by Jen Lancaster says it is. Bitter is just ugly and negative and spiteful and NOT what I want to aspire to (or need to aspire to since I am clearly already there.)  I can find nothing redeeming about something that, in it’s adjective form, is defined as:

“characterized by intense antagonism or hostility: bitter hatred; or hard to bear; grievous; distressful: a bitter sorrow.”

How does one live like this for long periods of time? It’s been a week for me and I already feel the need to shoot myself. I remember defining a grandmother as “bitter” because she was someone who liked to put others down a great deal. She would hold grudges and spread rumors and seem genuinely unhappy often times. Because she was resentful toward the other side of my family, a history that went way back to high school for her, my sister and I received one hand towel and one roll of toilet tissue from her at Christmas one year. I was about ten at the time so I don’t quite remember if “hand towel” had been on my short list of Christmas hopefuls or not, but I was gracious and surprised to say the least.

It was at an even earlier age than that when I realized that the world just didn’t operate fairly. While others lived in a reasonably happy home among two doting parents, I had one over-worked, totally stressed out parent and one who thought he was an FBI agent, having already won a gold medal in the Olympics and been drafted by both the Giants AND the Red sox respectively. And forget the “home” part, we moved so often that to this day I can only  define “roots” to you as “belonging to a plant”.

I stress to you, however, that this is not a pity party.  It’s a realization that we have to make something out of what we’ve been given.

Take something and make it beautiful.

How can we not see the beauty in the setting sun, a baby’s sweet smile; rain that produces rainbows; fresh air in your face on a warm day; fresh fallen snow; your proud kid beaming; a new day…and another…and another? I’ll tell you how we lose track of all that good stuff…we get caught up in competing and comparisons and we stop appreciating the simple breaths we take and the very moments we live.  We stop practicing mindfulness.

I feel as though I have lost a week of my life to pettiness and the hope that karma would get a hold of some people’s jugulars and squeeze…s.t.i.l.l…squeezing….no. I am not proud….not done squeezing….ok.

Easier said than done. I shall try again tomorrow. sigh.

♦ Twinkle twinkle angry me. Learn to let go or remain in misery.

There’s too much you miss when you choose to be

so full of disgust and hostility.

Up above let me be free to see

the world in all its tranquility.

With a hopeful heart and a sight for the good,

let me see in others their intentions I mistook. ♦

AMEN.