Telling it Like it Is

I would consider myself an optimist.  At least outwardly so.  Sure, I follow those dark, what-if paths all the way to their tragic ends in my mind, but I generally hope for the best and set my mind on a positive outcome.  I come by it honestly - my parents are two people who have an almost annoying inability to see the glass as anything but half full.  It sometimes drove me crazy as a kid, like the time we spent a bazillion hours driving around Switzerland, lost, after a red eye, and when we finally realized we were still hours from our destination, my parents just laughed.  Laughed!  It wasn't funny - it was infuriating!  But here I am, all grown up and annoyingly optimistic.  And true to my roots and my nature, I usually put on my rose-colored glasses before I go to write.  Part of it is, truthfully, we've got it pretty good.  I stalk enough tragic blogs to know that in the spectrum of all the horrible things that can happen to a family, we haven't even nicked the tippy top of the iceberg.  There just isn't a whole lot of bad stuff to write about.  Part of it is being somewhat private, and not wanting to air our dirty laundry.  And part of it is that I hesitate to memorialize the bad times, that perhaps they'll vanish from our collective memory if they aren't written down.  I am by no means a liar, and I really dislike sugar-coating, but I do err on the side of omission when it comes to runs of bad luck.

And that's what we're in right now.  A stretch of bad luck, misfortune, poop hitting the fan, whatever you want to call it - 2012 has just not been the best year to date for us Stockwells.  Nothing terrible has happened, and all of us are safe and healthy and that's really all that matters.  Really.  I don't even want to complain about the poop that's been hitting our fan because it's so minor compared to the poop hitting other family's fans.  It's just a seemingly unending string of minor annoyances, inconveniences, worries, stresses that we'd rather just clear out and leave us alone.  But, if I may put those rosy glasses back on, it ain't all bad.  Because times like these make you realize how strong you are, how strong your family unit is, how all that really matters is loving each other.  I do believe that, like a muscle that responds to stress by growing longer and stronger, families and relationships benefit from occasional stressors, forcing change and connection and communication.  When times are tougher, families stick together, drawing inward to muster strength and meet the challenges they face.  So it's all good.  We're hanging in.  And the optimist in me knows that sunnier days are ahead.

And even amidst the crappiest of weeks, we still witness miracles all around us...

We welcome with love our newest nephew, Andrew William Sprunger!

Notice that, true to self, I avoided memorializing the bad stuff after all?  :)