Thursday, April 12, 2012

This too shall pass…

… is one of the ‘mantras’ I’m trying to adopt for 2012. Another is ‘Just say no’ when you can. Lately, however, I need to admonish myself to ‘Just quit whining!’

This year I vowed to banish negativity from my life – when at all possible. Also, I promised myself this was my last year of volunteering – for anything.

The time has come.

My 21-year-old returns from studying abroad in Seoul this summer and has one more semester before graduating from college. My ‘volunteer career’ (as chronicled before here) started in a pumpkin patch when he was a kindergartner.

Another phrase I’ve embraced is ‘don’t engage’ as in when confronted by bullies, idiots, annoying people – let it go. There’s nothing rotten-to-the-core people dislike more than not having someone to spar with.

Life is simply too short to engage negative people.

But lately I feel I’m turning into a negative, whiney person and, whereas I’m not the Pollyanna my positive (and God bless him for it!) husband is… I don’t like being whiney.

Previously in this space I’ve chronicled the tale of ‘Whiney Girl Rides a Bike.”

When Erik was in first grade each night he brought home a text to read out loud to us. One story detailed the life of a cranky girl who did not like to ride her bike. It’s not quite the purple prose of the Dick and Jane years my husband and I endured (I went from Spot and Puff to Nancy Drew to J. D. Salinger and Stephen King, thank you very much). It does mimic that early reader style somewhat: “I do not like my red bike. I do not want to ride my red bike. Blah blah blah.”

You get the idea.

All three of us -- dad, mom, and first grader -- concurred this story should have been called “Whiney Girl Rides a Bike.”

We all also agreed whiney girl needed to get over it.

Me included.