You know when you can’t take one more thing. So you hit rewind and retell all the trials that have led up to this point.

It’s like Hansel and Gretel, only instead of leaving breadcrumbs, you’ve made a trail of empty wrappers.

We all do this trick of human nature to make ourselves feel better; only it makes us feel worse unless we find a way to laugh about it, of course.

And I guarantee that when you’re having this kind of rant, it’s because you most likely were late and got stuck in traffic, or it had something indirectly to do with driving.

Once Alex and I were late for a dinner reservation with our friends. Some stranger made the mistake of asking us about our day, so we told him everything, including the horrible traffic and the blinding rain we encountered.

He never spoke; he just listened until we got to the end of our downpour. He had been so empathetic, and he said something so profound it impacted us to this day: “I’m sorry for you’s misfortunes.”

We’ve never been able to have misfortunes the same way again. We’ve often used that quote to remind us not to take things so seriously, but life gets so out of control sometimes, and we forget to laugh. Always glad for the reminder.

When life gets that hard, we wait for it to get easy again. Easy Street. Get out of this string of bad luck and this traffic, and then I’ll be able to lay on a beach and forget about it.

But isn’t that the point? It’s not supposed to be easy. Shocker! Yes, spoiler alert! Life is hard work for all of us! Let’s blame it on Murphy’s law, okay, so it’s not scientific or anything, but bad things are going to happen, just like we can come up with story upon story of all the bad things that have already happened.

So I’ve been keeping a one-line-a-day journal that I fill in every night before I go to bed. I resisted the idea because I’m a spastic journal writer at best. One night I won’t be able to sleep, so I’ll sit there and write and write and write. But then I can sleep fine, and I don’t have time to write like that, so I skip it until the next sleepless night or moment in time when I have nothing else better to do. (Because who likes to keep a journal except for Oprah anyway?)

But this is different. Recalling the day on such a miniature scale tricks me. It makes me want to write so much more. I can always think of something to write on that doll-house scale. And with so little room on that page, I have to consider what I want to remember most about this day.

I know you might have to sit down for this.

I sift through my entire day, even the traffic jams and all the other misfortunes, and I think of something positive to say. It better be something great–I don’t want to waste that precious space.

The beauty of what happened that day suddenly supersedes anything that seemed so trying. It’s like a kick of my blog post, only better–it’s daily. Whatever seemed so horrible during the day magically transforms into something worthwhile at night.

I can’t say this came to me without help. Megan Sumrell, she’s a time management/organizational coach, is the one who had the idea, to begin with, so I give her full credit; if suddenly you feel the need to buy one too, by all means, she’s the one who started this. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0811870197/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=msumrell0f-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0811870197&linkId=b85c75621ed4a73b4acb3e95cd9a2f0e&fbclid=IwAR3fFnDpydslIY_fCLmyrS5Sm_h4u-1IHwvXeDkUgSQ1UBC2pLNh0QZ6FRk

Face it; if life were easy, we wouldn’t have any funny stories to share. We’d be bored to tears, none of that laughing until you’re crying or peeing in your pants business.

Without the hardship–the parts of life that are so ridiculous you can’t make this stuff up, well, we’d have nothing to talk about, except our idyllic vacations, families, and lives. Wake me up when I can start laughing again! And then come Sunday, or Monday as the case sometimes maybe with my muse, I’ll get to splurge about all the amusing stuff behind the one-liners and write to my heart’s content.

Instead of recording a string of negative things that happened, I’m making a trail of all the positive things—the pearls of my life that are worth remembering–the candy that I want to savor.