It’s funny sometimes how the most innocent looking exchanges trigger the most amazing realizations. A stranger (to me) on Facebook posted to a friend’s status bitching: "I really hate it when someone tries to find an upside to lousy things" which was my post he was referring to in the string, because you know – I am the eternal optimist.

Anyone who knows me at all knows I am the Upsider. You have a shitty day, I give you pets. I usually crack a joke, too. If after the joke you continue to wallow, I go for the upside. Now, I don’t do this when someone totals their car, or receives a horrid medical diagnosis, loses a job or loved one. I am not an ass. I will do it for little things. I will do it for chronic situations that are changeable, among other things.

I have been this way always. I used to think I was the Peacekeeper because of the role I played in my family of origin and then later in my chosen family. And I am that, but it is based on my Upsider "flaw". At least, I thought it was a flaw. I’ve tried to change it and squelch it for decades. *stomp stomp stompity stomp on it* It just never would die.

I know it annoys people. Not all people all the time, but everybody at some point in time. I would feel badly about it, yet I could never stop the absolute certainty that something good, something better, was right around the corner. Not just for me, but for others too.

The little exchange on Facebook caused me think about my overly optimistic perspective again. I don’t care that the anonymous whozeewhat in the thread string is annoyed. I don’t know him, I don’t care about him. He can allow himself to dissolve in a putrid puddle of self-pity and its no skin off of my nose. Other people, it matters. And I finally knew why.

The fighting of this thing in me is not only a waste of time and futile, fighting it is the Wrong Thing To Do™. The Upsider is who I am. It is apparently, my Job. Not my "job" I choose for my paycheck, but my Job as assigned by the Universe. It is me, it is my Reason for being. Always has been, always will be, through the lifetimes. My verbal abilities, my workings, my healing energy, my love, my interactions, my teachings, my survivor ability, all come from a core of this.

You know that nagging question, "Who am I and why am I here?" I have my answer. I am the Upsider. I am here to annoy embolden people with hope. I’ll still annoy people here and there. They’ll still wish I’d just STFU sometimes, but that’s okay. I can live with that because I have my answer to that question and it is not only "okay", it is a relief.

Onward!

This entry was originally posted at http://pj.dreamwidth.org/253017.html. Please comment here or there there using your LJ ID or OpenID.