Do we put a positive spin on life in all scenarios? Is it ok to feel the reality of the situation and admit that it stinks? If we put a ‘Life is Grand’ keytag on a bad situation, does it make it better? Do we embrace the reality of situation in feeling the emotions that naturally come with?

There must be a fine line between the two-one widow shares with me that we need to embrace the reality of our situations, another friend shares that we can’t let the negative win. But is embracing the horrifying reality of our life letting the negative win? Or is just being real and living in reality?

For widows, there seems to be many varied situations, but two sides: depression, failure, guilt, I’m a widow this sucks AND new life, here’s my chance, I miss him but I’m moving on. For me, it’s both. Some days the depression wins, and some days the hope wins, but I cannot necessarily clarify either as negative winning. It is my reality.

My motto to working through widowhood has been that ‘I have to embrace it and feel it to get through it’ and sometimes it’s a negative experience to feel the depth of despair in widowhood. However, there are times I have hope for the future and what the second life will entail-it’s great to dream again.

One Tweeter suggests that constant positivity could be a mask. I could put on a front, a mask, walk around holding my glass half full, forever spilling it out on others, but eventually, it will run out. One of those times, I’ll fall flat on my face and not only will the glass be empty, but it will be broken, shattered, ruined. Some glasses cannot be repaired-that’s how I feel about fronts.

If I mask this, what I feel, how I feel it, when I feel it, I mask the reality of the situation. I’m not letting the negative win, in fact, by living in reality of what I am supposed to feel by being human, I let the positive win. Seem backwards? No. If I deal with this now, head on, allowing full emotion to set it when I feel it, if I deal with this now, it doesn’t mean I may not deal with it again, but that next time, it will be better. Next time I’ll know how to handle it more, I’ll be better equipped to push through those bad moments, and in the long run, I’ll enjoy more positive moments. If I mask it up, I still feel it deep down, but instead of letting it out, it festers and ruins not just the grief part of me, but so much more.

Another friend says that positivity is no less realistic than negativity. But I am talking to extremes. How often do we put on a front to be positive in horrible situations, and how often to we sink deeper into the negativity because of others around us, sucking things in?

I don’t need a front. I am not going to pretend. I need to deal with this. I am dealing with this. I have tried fronts, and they fail me every time. I’m a horrible liar-I always have been. As I tear what little is left of the front, I find the reality of me. She’s pretty positive, but she feels a lot of negative too.

I choose to live in reality-to figure out what this gal wants to do, how she wants to feel, and what she must embrace to live that reality.