I went to New York to see a show last fall

and had to purchase a MetroCard to get around, obviously. This was the card I got:

 I still have this card. It sits in my wallet with my Visa Check card and my photo IDs and my CVS card and my U-Store Membership card and my insurance card and when I find it in the midst of looking for one of those zillion cards, I pause for a split second and I have to smile. It says in tiny letters that it's part of an Arts for Transit project, and mentions the artist's name. I think this card is fantastic. I hope that the small moment of joy it continually brings me is what the artist--and New York City as a governmental figure?--wanted me to feel, and I want to do all in my power to ensure that I have this card until I am old and grey.

My friend K who I talk about, he told me today that optimism is his new plan for the next few months forever. It made me so happy, because I am always so worried about him putting too much pressure on himself and forgetting to have fun and remember that no matter what happens, the big picture is BIGGER than this and in it, he's a wonderful individual. But it also got me thinking...

People constantly tell me that I'm a bright, bubbly, cheerful person. This afternoon a friend told me she can never imagine anyone saying I'm a mean person. Part of me (the you're-your-own-worst-critic part) gives them a look like, Whatchu talkin bout, Willis?! but the bigger part of me recognizes the truth in what they're saying. I think about how I talk to K, or to F or to T, I think about the feelings I try to leave in my wake wherever I go in daily life, the impression I try to impart on my friends and acquaintances, the beauty and growth I try to see in the trials of life, and the care and warmth I try to give to everyone who matters to me in some small degree and realize that I am a bright, bubbly, and cheerful person the vast majority of the time...to most people, but not always to myself.


It's time for that to go. It's not necessary that I don't want to worry about shit, but just that I want to be confident in my abilities and assured in the fact that I can handle my life, and stop stressing over shit that doesn't matter. There's just no damn sense in being your own worst enemy, under any circumstances. Optimism. Live life limitlessly.