After two days in which it was a genuine struggle to force myself to look for and find the positive in the day, today has been so much easier. I even have more than one positive! And though it is tempting to keep one in reserve for tomorrow, in case I have a bad day, I'm going to blow it all today and make myself find a new positive tomorrow. Which is a bit of a high-risk strategy, but feels like keeping to the spirit of my plan.
So my first positive for the day is the immense power of friendship, and the importance of maintaining connections, of responding, and of reaching out. I took an hour and a half off work and I met some friends for a coffee outside our lovely local cafe. We mostly wore masks, except for the actual coffee-drinking part, and we just had a chance to sit and talk. And it was lovely. I had nearly turned the invitation down, as I struggle to justify taking time off work for anything other than looking after LittleBear during school holidays. But sometimes cementing the bonds of friendship matters more than an over-developed sense of responsibility towards my job. And it was H's birthday, and to be able to be with her and share a drink, even on a damp bench on a chilly-but-sunny October morning was worth it.
Having been reminded how much it lifted me up that my friends had reached out and invited me for coffee, even though they knew I would almost certainly decline, I in turn reached out to other people in my life today, and was rewarded with warmth and friendship in return. And I was reminded that as tired as I am, and as loathe to stick my head out of my nest and make an effort, and as hard as I sometimes find interacting with people, the same is true for a lot of other people too. There is nothing to be gained from walling myself off and then wondering why people aren't reaching out to me. As much as I need people to smile and offer the hand of friendship, others need that too, and sometimes I need to be the smile and the proferred hand.
Meanwhile, I was rescued from my despair over the government's attitude to providing meals for children living in poverty by the response of large swathes of the population. Not only have multiple councils up and down the land pledged to provide meals for children during the school holidays, but cafes, restaurants and charities all over the country are stepping in and offering their services to provide free food through the holidays. There are people who do care. Not because they're trying to score political points, not because they're trying to win re-election, but because they have been moved to act for the good of those less fortunate than themselves.
On which similar note, I've now reminded myself I have a third thing to be positive about. Three things! On one day! I was enormously heartened to read that football fans from a variety of clubs (included the beloved Burnley) had balked at the idea of paying £15 to watch one football match on a pay-per-view basis at the weekend and had decided instead to give that sum to their local foodbanks. There is no greater sacrifice for a football fan than missing a chance to watch their team. That so many fans chose not only to miss a match as a protest at the price being asked, but then didn't keep their money to themselves in a time of hardship, but gave it to those suffering greater hardship is another sign of the number of genuinely good people there still are in the country.
Life is about friendship, about community, about caring, about supporting each other, lifting each other up, helping each other. Our government may be failing us, but there is still hope when each of us little people link together, forge bonds, and make life better one tiny act at a time.
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