The Cure for Bitterness

I may be bitter. I probably am bitter. As I open my second bottle of wine for the evening, I definitely know for sure that I am bitter. I didn't always used to be bitter. I used to be an optimist. I was an unabashed, glass-is-half-full optimist. For years, possibly decades. I was smiley and happy and not even caffeinated... and oblivious. All my yearbook signatures have evidence of this. Everyone, I mean EVERYONE told me to "stay sweet." And suddenly I am bitter? How the fuck did that happen? Was it gradual or did I wake up one day deciding life was remarkably, sarcastically, unfairly unfair? Divorce, single motherhood and my Mom's death have something to do with this, but even before all that happened I GOT the quote from The Princess Bride, "Life is pain, highness. Anyone who tells you different is selling something." Granted, my goal at the time was to sell happiness (I reeeeally wanted to go into spin/advertising...I majored in PR.) Perhaps I was pre-disposed to bitterness. According to the professionals, bitterness is when you feel entitled to something and you don't get it and there's this combination of anger and resentment after...and it stews into this hateful thing where you forget what happy feels like. There's this victim crap that swirls around and you are bound and determined to go down the toilet with it.

I think I forget what happy feels like. Honest happy. Honest laughter. My laughter is frought with backstory. Ghost in the machine. I want to feel honest happy again without the worry of real life behind it. Is that even possible?

I am making a move to be unbitter. I am thinking of being happy for people rather than being suspicious of their happiness. It's probly going to turn out as happy AND suspicious for now, but it's a start. I am laughing more at the funny things my kids do. I am not dreading a weird family Thanksgiving (repeating this mantra to make it true). I am still on call if my couple of friends decide they want to leave their relationships. Not because I want them to be as miserable as me single, but because I want them to be free and independent of the man-anchors that keep them individually half-drowned.

I'm not great at gardening, but I am good at people. I aim to cultivate love. Pure, I knowyouandIloveyouanyway love. I think this is one of those things, the more you give it away, the more you get it. When you have a life full of love..., that's it, right? What else is there?