Yesterday was 80 degrees and sunny here in Chicago - after a long, cold winter, a cool and damp spring, we finally had a GORGEOUS day. And I was angry.
I was sad. I was depressed. Everything started going wrong ( I left my wallet at home, when I was headed to lunch where I had planned to cover the check. I snapped at a co-worker for something that any other day would have caused a 'sigh' at the most. Every email was a Herculean task I didn't have time for.) and then I started berating myself for everything that was wrong with me (Why do you get so mad so easily? Why is your to-do list so impossibly long? Why haven't you started learning new monologues the way you SAY you want to? Why is your career stalled? Why aren't you taking steps to advance your career? Do you even know where you want your career to go? Why can't you afford to buy a house? Why are you so angry on a beautiful day? Why can't you just smile and let it go? Why do you have to be 'right' all the time? Have you learned nothing in the past 30+ years?...and so on).
So the day proceeded to be beautiful and I proceeded to be depressed...and that becomes its own sticking point. If I can't be happy on a beautiful day, do I deserve to be happy at all? Am I worthy of trying again tomorrow? How can I justify wasting this entire day being depressed and then simply snap out of it after a good night's sleep and be ready to face the day and happy that I'm alive? Because, I am. I did. I made the choice to go home & sleep after my show last night and I woke up to a sunny morning and hope that today will be a good day. I don't expect that I'll get angry over nothing (though I still might!) and I don't expect everything to be harder than it has to be. Just as magically (and annoyingly) the feelings of hopelessness, inertia, and what I call "Why bother"ness that were all over my day yesterday, are no where to be found this morning.
And because those feelings are gone just as quickly as they appeared, my struggle for today will be in forgiving myself for having wasted yesterday. I could easily fall into a self conversation of "why" - Why did you let yesterday make you feel that way? Why did you get so angry? Why do you think you deserve a second chance today? Why don't you know what to do to make it all better? Why don't you have a better grip on your emotional needs and a better plan for dealing with days like yesterday...and so on!
Today is a new day. I deserve it because I'm still here. Because I survived - and that's the only criteria.
We don't have to earn happiness.