People who are dealing with depression, especially around the holidays, sometimes hear family and friends say:
Cheer up!
Wanting others to be happy is a wonderful sign of kindness, but saying
cheer up!
does not always work. That is, somebody who is feeling down might hear
cheer up!
and feel
- misunderstood
- criticized
- invalidated
- pressured, and
- cheered down.
Lately, I’ve been having some down moments — here and there — related to changes and uncertainties about my heart health. Nobody has said “cheer up” to me, in so many words.
As best I can, I’ve been working on cheering myself up, by
- focusing on work I love,
- taking photographs,
- writing blog posts,
- listening to music,
- exchanging gifts,
- wisely indulging in chocolate,
- and connecting with great people, in the blog-o-sphere and the Greater-Boston-o-sphere.
For example, last night, my boyfriend Michael and my 16-year-old son Aaron met up with my long-time friend Jon and his wife, Debbie.
Don’t Jon and Debbie look cheery? Spending time with them last night cheered me up, for sure.
Jon reads my blog every day and Debbie often reads it, too. Last night, over dinner, Jon recalled his most recent blog post appearance, which I shall repeat here:
That’s a card Jon sent me in the hospital, when we were both much, much younger. (The thought of being younger doesn’t necessarily cheer me up right now. Instead, knowing I have a good chance of getting considerably older would REALLY cheer me up.)
By the way, that’s a COMPLETE COINCIDENCE that Jon’s card from way-back-when actually says “cheer up!” I had no memory of that when I decided on the title for today’s post. What are the chances of that kind of synchronicity, dear readers?
For some reason, coincidences and synchronicity cheer me up, every time. (It also cheers me up that I haven’t yet written a post titled “Coincidence” or “Synchronicity.” I guess I still have many more posts left in me.)
Here’s something else that cheers me up: Just now, I was easily able to locate something else that Jon wrote to me, long ago. Here are Jon’s words, on my 9th grade yearbook, which cheered me up when I was 14 years old:
In case you can’t read those cheering words from Jon(ny), they say “Good luck to a literary master and a good V.P.” To explain: I ran for Vice President of our 9th grade class and when I won that election, I was
- cheered up and
- surprised.
Here’s hoping it will cheer us all up if I present some other photos I took yesterday:
Some of those cheering displays, shown in the last eight photos above, had motion sensors. After we were looking at those happy snowmen, Michael said, “Did you notice that the snowmen were frowning at first, and when we walked by, they all smiled?” I’m not sure, but I think Michael said that to cheer me up.
Before we walked away from that amazing Christmas display, some bells sensed Michael-and-me motion, and they played this song:
(If it would cheer you up to do so, you can find a cheer-filled “Carol of the Bells” performed by my hometown orchestra here on YouTube.)
I shall now repeat the following photo from this weekend post, for some musical Chanukah Cheer:
One more photo to cheer myself up, before I end this post and (1) cheer up people where I work this morning (I hope) and (2) get cheered up by my long-time, trusted, and faithful cardiologist, Dr. Deeb Salem this afternoon (I hope).
I took that photo a few days ago (if you follow me), outside the Art Center where my son was appearing in a play over the weekend. I couldn’t figure out how to include that image in the next day’s post, and I’ve been missing its presence here. It cheers me up, right now, because it shows:
- color
- home
- learning
- smile
- peace.
What do you see around you that cheers you up?
Thanks to Jon, Debbie, Michael, Aaron, Dr. Salem, all the creative people shown in this post, and everyone else, everywhere, who has been cheering me up (including you — of course! — with your visit here, today*).
* Many minutes after I published this post, (1) it is not showing up in my reader here and (2) I haven’t received any likes. Here’s how I’m going to cheer myself up about another (WordPress**) change I cannot control: (1) let it go and (2) go on.
** Here’s another WordPress change I just noticed: despite my having close to 2,000 followers four days ago (see “Follow Me” for more about that), WordPress is now telling me I have approximately 1600 followers. I apparently lost 400 followers, including myself. Was it something I said, did, or wrote? In any case, I’m going to (1) let that go and (2) go to work. Cheer up!
The Year(s) of Living Non-Judgmentally 