Mantra'ing

Today will be a good day…..today will be a good day……today WILL be a good day….

That was my mantra until about 8:35am.

Then, Come on Eileen came on the radio as soon as I dropped off Emily at daycare.  She HATED that song with such passion, it’s hard to describe.  Her name was Eileen (it’s hard to say “was” instead of “is” in that sentence; to me, that’s still her name and it always will be but I guess the right verb to use is past-tense instead of present at this point)  and when a song finally came out with her name in it, I think her words were – “A song with my name finally comes out after all these years and it’s trash” or something along those lines.  Knowing my mother she probably used a more colorful word than “trash”; I am pretty sure she used to snarl when it came on the radio, that’s how much she hated it.  Hearing it was hard. My first reaction was to turn it off, just ignore it, but I left it on.  Listened to the whole thing with a pit in my stomach.  And then, a song by the Electric Light Orchestra – ELO – came on.  ELO happens to be my daughter’s initials.  I think it’s just coincidence, I don’t think this was my mom coming through to me via the 80s station on my satellite radio. But it still made me sad.  Not regular sad…..just blah kind of sad.  It’s that feeling that something sucks really badly, but there is nothing you can do about it so you’re just gonna deal with being sad, maybe cry a little bit (with your head down, in your car, sitting in the parking lot outside of your office, just for example), and then move past it.  And that’s what I’m trying to do now, at 9:39am at my desk.  Move past it and return to my mantra (with a slight change) – the REST of the day will be a good day…the REST of the day will be a good day.

And overall it wasn't too bad. I got some work done, I picked up my daughter and happily brought her home and had a nice family dinner with her and Rob. It might not have been a happy or "good" day, but it certainly wasn't bad or evil  I'll take it.