Every Day is a Gift
Or some bullshit like that
Toxic Positivity
I spent the better part of the last couple of decades shouting that we need to recognize negative emotions in ourselves and in others. That it is okay to have a bad day, admit that in this moment, you feel depressed/annoyed/angry/defeated. I was tired of people telling me to “make it a great day,” or that I “choose what kind of day to have.” I was sick of t-shirts and bumper stickers insisting that I have positive vibes only. After I’d been ranting about this for several years, someone coined the term “toxic positivity,” and then with some visible published works on my bandwagon, I REALLY got going!
Toxic positivity is dysfunctional emotional management without the full acknowledgment of negative emotions, particularly anger and sadness. Socially, it is the act of dismissing another person's negative emotions by suggesting a positive emotion instead.
Depression
In my late thirties, when my kids were still single-digit years old, I slid into a depression, albeit a functional one. I had been pregnant seven times in pursuit of two healthy children and the coda to that was a years-long ride on a broken-down hormonal rollercoaster. Also, I was on the cusp of seeing that I didn’t know myself very well — a realization that took the form of a precocious mid-life crisis.
As I stalked through the grocery store slamming things into my cart, angry at everything from people to poorly packaged bread and then cried in my car, all those positive platitudes floating around in the mid-2010s ether felt like being kicked while I was already down, floundering in the mud. They felt like loud evidence of my failure to do my own life right. If I could choose happiness, then this depression must mean I am choosing sadness. I must be a fuck-up. That left me feeling defeated and then angry at those wielding the sunshiny phrases that felt like thinly disguised judgment.
Growth
Then, when I finally admitted I had a problem I couldn’t just will away, I got on antidepressants, which lifted the fog enough so I could work on myself a LOT. I read Buddhist teachings. I learned to mediate. I addressed my emotional baggage with the help of a wonderful and painful guide/workbook by Hilary Jacobs Hendel called It’s Not Always Depression (a very useful tome, even when it IS at least partially depression.) I intentionally cultivated healthy friendships. I grew. I’m still growing. It took a while. I’m almost 50.
Somewhere in there, I realized these platitudes people wield, were more than they seemed. Bumper sticker wisdom is shorthand for longer lessons. “Make it a great day,” could actually be code for “Be sure you notice the good things in your life along with the bad things. Don’t let your completely valid sadness or anger crowd out all of the beauty that is right there before you. You can feel sad AND see the gorgeousness of every day at the same time.” But it would be hard to put that on a coffee mug and sell it. The shorthand version is only meaningful if it means something more to you underneath it. That’s why just shouting that phrase over someone’s deeply felt frustration is, at best, useless. It’s a symbol of wisdom, not the wisdom itself.
Every Day Is a Gift, Gen X Style
Perhaps if I write “Every day is a gift,” on my mirror, so I see it first thing every day, it will help me embrace whatever comes up, prompt me to remember that living and breathing on this earth is, all by itself, an amazing, beautiful thing. Maybe that sentiment helps me embrace, instead of ignore, even those uncomfortable feelings of sadness, anger, and boredom.
I haven’t actually written this on my mirror, because my Gen X cynicism won’t quite let me do it — like if I put it there, I’m taunting the universe to test me, to REALLY throw some shit my way, and just…no thank you. But I have started thinking this every morning, even today when I had to get up at 6:30am to take my youngest to early practice.
As we drove to school under a cloudy sky just beginning to get light, he bemoaned the early hour, and I, gently, tried to introduce the “every day is a gift” concept without seeming to overly bright-sided or negating his existing feelings. I acknowledged: sure he felt tired, sure he’d rather be in bed. I would too. But the feeling of being gifted with the day can reside alongside that sleepy reticence. They don’t have to be enemies, those feelings; they can coexist.
An Obituary
In lieu of reminder words on mirror or stitched on a pillow, I have a yellowing newspaper clipping — an obituary of a friend who died several years ago — pinned to my wall. She was my age, with kids my kids age, and she left this world suddenly, of a heart attack one afternoon in her kitchen. I see her black-and-white photo on my wall, and I remember: I am so glad to be here on this planet every day that I get to be. I remember that it doesn’t matter what I do or don’t get done today. I remember that just existing is enough. Thanks, Tatum.
Every Day Is a Gift
You can’t feel the warmth of “every day is a gift,” from reading it on a t-shirt or someone shouting it at you on the internet. That phrase, or any positivistic phrase, is shorthand that speaks to you only when you arrive at it yourself, through the emotional and mental work of getting there. And while of course it’s wisdom I want to share, most of all with my children, wisdom must be wielded wisely. Shouting down people’s expressed feelings of reticence, fatigue, irritation, is not useful.
All those years I spent writing that we need to recognize and accept the existence and necessity of uncomfortable emotions, I wasn’t wrong. I was in a phase in which accepting the feelings around my depression needed my focus. That part of the journey led me to this next phase. I have recognized and accepted those negative emotions, so they no longer have to cry and wail to get my attention. They have become smaller and made space for positive ones to exist alongside them.
Leftover Cynicism
Ten years ago me is trying really hard not to roll her eyes, because she hasn’t quite embraced this new, lighter perspective yet, but I do start every day I can acknowledging it as a gift. Even if said day contains innumerable irritations, I can also let in the good feelings — the inward smile I feel when I see the cactus in our backyard growing new, bright-green paddles can exist alongside the tension I feel about the ever-growing density of traffic in our area. And I can look for useful ways to pass this wisdom on to my children, when the moment feels ripe, even if they do not recognize it for years to come.
Every day IS a gift. A package on your porch wrapped in beautiful sparkly paper or a banged up, wet cardboard box. But a gift, nevertheless.