Lessons from Fred, Ginger and Emily

It's no secret that I've been having a hard time lately. There's no specific reason why the last few weeks have been so difficult, but they have been. I've been struggling a lot with anger and pessimism and fear.

Up until this point, I've been pretty positive about everything - the pregnancy, the loss, trying again - and now I feel like I've fallen into a rut and I can't get out. I just want to go back to being positive and optimistic again; I need to get back to that place, because this one is slowly eroding the hope that I have, and that's no way to live - it's not fair to me, Mr Bibliosaur, or our future baby.

So today, I decided that things need to change. And the only way that's going to happen is if I make it happen - no fairy godmother is going to step in and wave a magic wand. Like Fred and Ginger say, I need to pick myself up, dust myself off and start all over again:

I love that song. Really. I'm a huge fan of their movies. This is because I'm an 89-year-old at heart.

My battle plan is to try to focus on at least one hopeful, optimistic thing every day, whatever that might be. For today, I picked one of my favorite poems of all time - Emily Dickinson's 'Hope':

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

And as of today, I'm picking myself up. Dusting myself off. Starting all over again.