Positively Positive!

 Most of the time you can see me smiling, walking briskly to or from some place I needed to be. You can find me laughing, waving at someone I either know, or maybe I don't know, but hey, I'm from the South, and we do that. We wave. We wave a lot actually, and sometimes we use our whole hand to gesture our grateful greeting, and other times we resort to just using one finger - - also in a very prominent manner; positively making sure the other person sees it anyway.  We rarely shy away or hold back our emotions here in the South.  Being positively positive is just a way of life for so many of us; we do it without even realizing we're doing it. We show up in the North (and often times in Europe) and the people there know instantaneously that we're just not from around those parts. 

            I suppose I've always been a really upbeat and positive person; when you think about it, and I do think about it. I wonder often why others aren't bouncing out of bed the way I do when the alarm sounds off. My own children will hit the snooze button a few times, but not me; why wake up 10 minutes earlier than I need to just to fight the clock? Nope, the alarm sounds and I get to it. Of course, I'm not going to lie, I do have to pet the dog for a good minute or two before rolling completely out of the bed. She insists. I obey. It may be another Southern thang, but we do sleep with our dogs here, and they do rule the bed. I often beg Ginger for the covers but if she's insistent on not sharing, I do have to go to the linen closet to get another comforter; we do not (under any circumstances really) disturb a sleeping dog. We let them lie.

        Being positively positive doesn't take as much effort (in my humble opinion) as it would to be negative. I rather think that if I were to set the two emotions to a metric and then somehow measure and scale the two, I would be proven correct. I think it takes less energy to bounce than it does to lay flat or curled up in the fetal position. I think it takes less outpouring of strength to smile than it does to duck and dodge someone just because you don't like them, or you don't want to see them, communicate with them, be around them, whatever - - if you just smile and wave, you can always pretend you have something to do, and just walk onward! WALK AWAY with a big fat smile plastered right across your pretty face and then for fun you may want to add a little head nod; and a courtesy wave.  Do it, all of your friends who know you and know you can't stand that other person you just waved at will either laugh with you, or at you, it doesn't matter, either way you made your friends laugh. It's a WIN!  When you let your mind wander off into the negative fields you end up with ugly weeds in your brain, not flowers.

        If positive was a drink it could be named Jude. I could bottle it, sell it, get it out there and the world would sing silly songs all day while guzzling down strong coffee and heavy whipping cream - - maybe even a bit of cinnamon, I do like being a bit spicy you know. I tell people, "I'm not a hot mess, I'm a spicy disaster" at times. I make sure I screw up every now and then just so I have something to be humble about; it's really hard to be humble when you're a Sooner fan, and you're just so damn happy all the time - - you have to make at least one good mistake a day so your dog doesn't actually believe you are infallible; dogs are that way, aren't they?  Ginger.  She really had big big paws to fill when George went home to see Jesus  - talk about positive; Ginger makes me look like a slug at times.

        Today I had another opportunity to pour out a little positive on those around me who just insist on being boo-bears all the time. My neighbors (my cranky neighbors who will take their tea on the porch so they can watch me walk the complex) asked me if I had lost another pound yet. Apparently they read my posts on Facebook, who knew? I complain a little when I don't lose weight quite as quickly as I think I should.  I stopped in my tracks when one of the sisters called out to ask me the question - - I could tell she was being sarcastic.  She went on to say, "You should give it up, you're old. You're gonna hurt yourself walking that fast anyway."  I dropped my head to my chest trying not to show her my giggling. but I should have fired back something rude. Instead, I turned to her and said "Alice, God made me the day He made me, and He'll take me back the day He decides to take me back, but until that day I'm going to pretend I'm 17! Why admit otherwise? It doesn't do a body good, it doesn't do a mind any good, and if the geese and the squirrels get a kick out of watching me strut my butt, at least I have that!"  She waved me off with a huff - - and I made the geese smile for the next 30 minutes just to put another kink in Alice's chain - - gotta love it.  Be the positive that others need to be attracted to you - - be their pole.