Optimism

Yesterday morning K put up stiff resistance to leaving the house. I set up the stroller while he ran around inside. When he became interested in the door hardware, I seized the opportunity to pull his shoes on while explaining how the door worked. Relieved that we were finally ready to go, I hustled him outside and told him to listen for the click when the door closed, because that was the sound of the door hardware clicking into place.

You know what else happens when the door closes? It locks, and you need a key to open it again. I had carefully checked to make sure the key was in my purse, which was just inside the door, right next to K's backpack containing everything he needed for school.

I walked K to daycare, formulating a plan. If JW couldn't bring me a key, I would walk to school or to the library. It was hot and it would be a long walk, but at least I'd get some exercise. I could find a computer with free Internet access to look up bar study materials or track down a friend willing to share, and I could stand to skip eating for one day.

I borrowed the daycare phone and called JW, who couldn't leave work. I told the woman who runs the place my tale of woe and she immediately said, "How can I help? We'll take care of K, of course. And let me give you some money for the bus." "Oh no, it's okay," I replied, "I can walk to school." "To Harvard?" she said. "That's much too far." She handed me a ten dollar bill and said, "You can buy yourself lunch too."

I walked home to check the back door, then waited for the bus. When it finally came, I asked the bus driver if he could make change for a ten. He told me I could only get a bus ticket good for the remaining $8.50. "But this is the only money I have," I said. He shrugged. "You can get off at the next stop and ask somebody for change."

So I got off. I sat down on the stoop at the side of the diner and started to cry. I'm being silly, I thought. So I'll get change. Big deal. I should just be grateful that Dina lent me the money in the first place. I have a plan. And all of this is my own fault anyway.

I pride myself on staying calm and keeping things in perspective. When I have a problem, I figure out a way to handle it and accept what I can't change. I am an optimist, sometimes annoyingly so. I focus on the positive in every situation and am grateful for it. This is why when people ask me how law school / work / studying for the bar / motherhood is going, I honestly tell them how happy I am and how much I enjoy it. Life is good. My problems are very small in comparison.

But for a few minutes, I sat there on the side of the road and cried. Just for a few minutes, I let myself acknowledge that the bar exam was in two days. I was locked out of the house with no books, phone, or wallet. We had received terrible family news recently. JW had been sick. I had re-injured my wrist and hadn't been sleeping well. A work situation had been hanging over my head for weeks and I didn't like how I was being treated. And the stupid bus driver wouldn't even cut me a break.

Just for a few minutes, I squelched the little voice that said, Yes, but K is fine and JW is starting to feel better and you're fine and everything is fine, and look how nice Dina was to you, and that total stranger who stopped and offered to lend his cell phone, and aren't you grateful that even when you have nothing but the clothes on your back there are so many places you can go and people you can turn to. All that is true. But for a few minutes it felt good to let myself be stressed out.

I think there's a continuum between optimism and denial. If you convince yourself that everything is good, then it must be true. Maybe I was heading too far in the denial direction. But isn't all this in the "accept things you can't change" category? Feeling stressed and upset is unproductive if you can't do anything about it, isn't it? But maybe my mini-breakdown today showed me that feelings don't have to be productive.

(And thus, I learned a lesson, meaning it was a good thing that I cried on the sidewalk. Also, it is good that I have been up since 3:30 a.m. because now I have time to blog and exercise.)