You Take The Good, You Take The Bad......

You take them both, and there you have the facts of life.  :P  (OK, enough reminiscing about my childhood TV habits.)

Dear You, 

You will have good days. Days that make you happy to be alive. Days that make you thankful that you are the one living your life. Days where you notice how good even the little things are--the way the sun is shining, the way your favorite song makes you feel, the way your heart beats in your chest after a workout. 

You will have bad days. Days where it feels hard to just be alive. Days that you wish you could have been dealt a different hand in life. Days where you notice how bad even the little things are--the way the check engine light only comes on when you're already upset, the way you can't sleep through the night anymore, the way that absolutely nothing is going the way it is supposed to go. 

Life is made up of both of these days. I wish that I could say there was always a balance, but there's not. Some seasons are made up of mostly good days, but some are made up of mostly bad days, with no breaks in between. No matter how many good days you've had, the bad ones still suck. The fact that you've had good days doesn't make the bad days hurt less. But the good news is that when the good days show up, they show up with all their good day magic, no matter how many bad days you've had. 

On the good days: Live them to the fullest. Celebrate every tiny, warm, perfect, delicious detail. Don't waste a single minute of them looking ahead to what might happen in the future or thinking about bad things that have already happened. Just live the good days, in the moment, as they come. Let them remind you how good life can be.

On the bad days: Remember that you'll be okay. If history is any indication, you have a pretty good track record of making it through these. It's okay that the smallest things upset you. It's okay that you feel convinced that the whole world is against you today. If you can find nothing else good, remember that having a bad day means you are still alive, and that's something. Let the bad day just be a bad day, ask for help if you need it, and go to bed with the hope that tomorrow will be a good day. 

You will have good days and bad days. You will make it through both. Both will shape the wonderful, magical person you are. And both are a reminder of the incredible, phenomenal gift: You are alive.