Ok, now I'm just mad. I just wrote out about three quarters of a post, and it just disappeared. That, my friend, is completely annoying. I simply do not feel like re-writing everything I wrote.
So, I will write something else completely. Fortunately, Unfortunately. Have you ever played that game? It's a create-a-story kind of game that we like to play with our kids. It goes like this: The first person starts a story, like "One day a boy named Joseppe walked to the store to buy a gallon of milk. Fortunately, his mother had given him enough for the milk and a treat for himself." Then person two has to make the story take a negative turn, like "Unfortunately, on the way he was accosted by a large bully who stole the money from him." Then person three gives a positive twist, like "Fortunately, an alien ship chose that moment to land in the exact spot the bully was standing. Joseppe cheerfully collected his money back from the bully's twitching outstretched hand and continued on his way." Person four gives a negative, and so on and so forth. It's a fun game, especially when you have to think your way out of a difficult unfortunately, or when you create a particularly nasty unfortunately and get to watch the next person squirm as they try to think of something to help the poor character being tossed about by the tides of our imaginations.
As a game, this is all very pleasant and mind-stretching. However, as a way of life, it can be quite tiring. What do I mean? Well, Whenever I bring up something nice or positive, it seems like my husband is compelled by some inner demon to try to dampen my parade with an unfortunately. He says that I do it, too, so I cannot completely lay the blame on him. Suffice it to say, all too often our conversations go something like this:
Jess- "I see the house down the street is for sale. Maybe a nice family with kids will move in."
Jeremy- "Probably some college jerks who'll be up all night partying."
Or
Jeremy- "It looks like it will be sunny and in the eighties for our trip!"
Jess- "Oh dear, the kids will get terrible sunburns waiting in line for the rides!"
As you can see, it really doesn't end up leaving one feeling like all is well in the world.
I do think that Jeremy is more often the one who brings up the unfortunate side of things (I believe the word for his personality type is "pessimist"). The apparent cause of his pessimism became crystal clear after a conversation he had tonight with his own parents. He came away from it feeling completely drained, and talking about the way they "always seem to take things so badly," is what I think he said. Upon further discussion, we realized that they had trained Jeremy to look at the world through dark grey glasses through their own constant negativity. Sadly, for them, it seems, the game should be called Unfortunately, Unfortunately.
We have therefor decided to work extra hard at being more positive about things, in hopes of preventing a similar effect on our own children. Whenever we hit an unfortunately, we will try very hard to come up with a fortunately to make the world seem nicer.
Thus, I ended tonight's conversation about his parents with this fortunate thought: "Well, at least they live six hours away. And we have an answering machine, so we don't even have to talk to them!" Aaah, I feel much better.
