The Optimistic-Realist

For literally 20 years, I have been describing myself as an optimistic-realist. It's a concept a lot of people struggle with so I've discovered a million ways to define who I am with only those words as a guide-post. Yet, as I've discovered myself more, it has actually been harder to define this to others as I've had to navigate many layers of what reality even means.

It turns out you can't be a realist if you don't have a concept of reality.

Another factor that has conflated my responses is the entire toxic positivity culture. I grew up in an environment that taught me if a smile wasn't on my face, I was the problem. So my version of optimism often ended with other people who consider themselves optimistic upset with me.

When your entire life is shit, optimism for you feels like realism for others.

How do you navigate that? I'm not sure I still know.

This last weekend, I have had serious family drama.

I'm not talking natal-family. I'm talking kids and husband. It honestly felt like as soon as we had one piece navigated even a little, another piece dropped that threw everything out of control. I've been reeling for days.

And yet. Yet, in the middle of absolute chaos where we were concerned that we'd have a child in-patient and while I was navigating being a father to a child who at that time was claiming I was abusive (super triggering for me given the fact that I grew up in an actually abusive home), I have found myself finding the silver lining.

To me, this is what optimistic realism looks like.

It's not just hoping for the best while preparing for the worst. It's knowing my reality, everything that surrounds me right now, and saying "yes, this all matters. Don't hide any of it away," while at the same time saying "look at that beautiful sunrise. How lucky am I to get to see that."

To me, optimism doesn't erase reality at all. It adds a layer of hope when otherwise the world would be too dark to function in. It keeps me rooted in potential instead of fear. It helps me see the silver lining, no matter how small, while still knowing that the world is a dumpster-fire that is slowly spreading to other dumpsters and to cars.

I know a lot of people struggle with the idea of "yes, and..." or "two things can be true."

For me, those realities are the only way I get up in the morning.

Yes, my reality is terrible in a million ways. And, I have so much going for me.

Two things can be true. I am doing better than I ever have and also, I really, really need a break.

Optimistic realism helped me sit down with Claude to discuss my favorite childhood baked cookies. After hashing out exactly what I think might be The Recipe, I made them, not expecting much. When I tasted the dough, my heart lept. Yes! These are exactly The Thing! But then when they were baked, they did not hold the same childhood nostalgia. I hoped that I'd find something from my childhood I didn't want to run away from. And I did. Kind of. I prefer the dough to the cookies. But still. I tried something and found a moment of joy.

I do not see the good things as replacing the bad. To do so would be disengenous. It would be cruel to me to pretend anything but the reality I live in is true. I am breaking under the weight of what I'm faced with.

And yet...

And yet, the fact that I got to have a moment playing with cookie recipes to try and find that moment of childhood connection was also worth something. The good that I experience every single day is worth a lot.

Tomorrow, I will get to give my kids a taste of my childhood in a very real way. I don't know if they will like it or hate it. It also doesn't matter. We get to talk about how these are essentially the cookies I made every single Sunday from the time I was about 9 until I turned 12 and how the reason I stopped making them wasn't because I didn't like making cookies. It was because I taught my younger brother to make them and once he knew how, he'd do it with so much enthusiasm that I never had the heart to tell him that I'd rather make them myself.

Two things can be true. It made me happy that my brother found so much joy in baking. And I really, really wanted to be the one making cookies some weeks.

It's silly the things that spark nostalgia.

Earlier today, it was while kneading the dough for the home-made pizza. Watching B use her hands to get the flower incorporated into the rest of the dough reminded me of my mother teaching me the same. Talking with the kids about how we could make the next set of pizzas any shape we want (almost) reminded me of creating strange dough creatures that turned into strange bread creatures under my mother's watchful eye.

But the best part is, I may grow impatient with my child, but I will never, ever belittle them or abuse them.

These kids are getting a wildly different childhood than I even dreamed was possible.

That's the thing that leaves me judging my parents more than I ever have before.

Prior to having kids, people would tell me that I should give my parents grace because I didn't know what it was like to have a child.

Now I do.

And my parents were still wrong.

Having kids sometimes makes me have more compassion for certain aspects of what my parents went through, sure. But it also leaves me hyper-critical of the rest.

It turns out, when your kid changes their name/pronouns, it can take less than a week to figure out how to use the right ones,

It turns out that you can, in fact, balance love and compassion with a hard reality check.

It turns out, you can show up for your kids even when you are disappointed in them, mad at them, or hurt by them.

The reality, the truth of the matter, was my parents were bad parents because they were more worried about other peoples' opinions than they were about what was actually good for their kids.

And yet, even in the shitty childhood I had, I find the silver linings. These cookies that are very sweet as dough but not so sweet as cookies are a nice reminder of Sunday afternoons in the kitchen with my brothers. It was one of the only times where none of my brothers treated me like I wasn't their equals.

It also taught me how to bake bread, to make dough. B says my home-made pizza dough is as good as Pizza Hut, which from her is the equivalent to her saying that together we made the best pizza in the world.

Every day, I am somehow sharing with my kids the best parts of my childhood while shielding them from the worst.

These silly little Vanilla Drop Cookies are exactly that. A reminder of a simpler time without the baggage of knowing that after the cookies were made, we'd be having a family meeting which would sure devolve into bickering that often led to physical assaults from my mother, my father, or both. But usually my mother.

So even now, as I sit in my own disaster zone, knowing that I have no control over how any of this plays out, I'm relieved that we are still showing up for each other. Every day, we are still caring. I am finding my joys where I can get them, always aware of reality, but believing that every cloud has a silver lining. It doesn't mean it had to work this way, that it was required to work this way, or that some divine source made it happen this way.

Instead, it comes from a place of radical acceptance.

If this is my reality, where do I find my joy?

If this is my reality, where do I find moments of hope?

If this is my reality, how do I fill my own cup so I can keep showing up for my family?

That, to me, is the essence of optimistic realism. I know exactly where I am in relationship to what is around me. I'm not trying to pretend reality isn't what it is at all. But I believe, I hope, that things will work out in a way that I can look back and say, "at least I learned something."

Reality is a bastard. It's a heavy wind causing a wildfire to leave the barrier and inflame the nearby forest. It fucking sucks about 70% of the time. And yet.. and yet even in the midst of everything going wrong, I can find my own moments of hope, things that keep me going even if it's just for one more day.

Like seeing the delight of my child when they kneaded the dough.

Or hearing my son tell me about his new coding project.

Or watching the relief in my other child's eyes when they finally understood what we meant by we will always take threats of self harm seriously, but that it doesn't mean they will necessarily be hospitalized - that we will in fact involve professionals to help us navigate that because their safety is my top-concern, but as long as they are safe, I do in fact wan them to be home because I love them.

It's these things that often seem minimal that change lives and trajectories.

It's hope that keeps us getting out of bed when it feels like the world is collapsing.

I will never encourage anyone to ignore reality. It is what it is and often that means it's kind of terrible.

But even when it is terrible, there are still moments of joy. Even when it is terrible, you can find reasons to laugh. Even when it is terrible, you can breathe through your nose and smell the roses in bloom.

Reality isn't the opposite of hope. I'd even add that you cannot have reality without hope or hope without reality. Reality without hope is a miserable existence which ignores potential. Hope without reality is like building a mile-high building on a fault-line. Both are integral parts to survival.

So I just kind of exist, as an optimistic realist and happy in another piece of my existence that many claim isn't grounded. But it is what it is and this version keeps me waking up every morning and showing up for my kids and my husband. This version of reality keeps me fighting not only for them, but for me.

I'm a bit of a walking contradiction on the best day, so is it any surprise that when I'm in the midst of trauma, my brain goes "oh, yes, time to make cookies" just so I can have a taste of optimism again?

Earlier tonight, I told a friend that my optimism in the face of reality was my super-power. I will never claim reality isn't what it is. Knowing exactly where you are is necessary to figuring out where you want to go. But I will also find the silver lining in every cloud. If there is anything positive in a situation, no matter how small, I will find it.

And I will create a beautiful existence in the midst of my shit.

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