These days, I have been thinking a lot about college.

You see, I am knee deep in the writing of my next novel which is about three women who met in college. Though I am writing about the school I attended – Yale – I am not writing about my experience. But I do find myself thinking about my bright college years, and reminiscing.

Who was I in college?

I remember my first day of college. Arriving on Old Campus, meeting my three roommates: the funky granddaughter daughter of a famous baseball player who also hailed from Manhattan, a softball pitcher recruit from Arizona, a Connecticut local and track star who would spend four years throwing the shot put for us Bulldogs. I remember walking around the pockets of green with a best friend from high school – not a roommate, but coincidentally placed in Pierson College with me – and looking up at the sky and thinking, This is it. College. We are here!

I remember the first two weeks well. Taking the French placement exam among a sea of fellow freshmen, sitting on folding chairs as the dean welcomed us to Yale. The next time you are all gathered like this will be for graduation, he said. I remember going to the same Mexican joint, an amazing hole in the wall my older sister had introduced me to, night after night, delighting in the sangria even though I was just seventeen. I remember how we went to great lengths to convince the portly bar owner (Sponz, I think) that we were medical students at the school. He didn’t care about our story; the fact that we were young and bubbly and blond seemed to suffice.

I remember studying late at the library, my mind lost in a stack of notes, my hand dipping into a vast bag of gummy raspberries. I remember the charge I got in that particularly good philosophy seminar when we were debating ontology and phenomenology and talking breathlessly about Spinoza and Leibniz and the theory of other possible worlds; how my heart thumped magically in my chest as I threw up my hand to say something. I remember standing in sludge in fraternity basements and laughing with friends and flirting with boys and literally feeling youth and freedom with every breath.

I remember eating cup after cup of Tomato Florentine soup from Au Bon Pain when I was hungover; it seemed to be the answer. I remember dancing with a group of sorority sisters, all of us happy and dressed in black, on the Women’s Table on Cross Campus. I remember getting ready for a night out in my room, blasting my big sister’s mixed tape (Think: Nothing Compares to You, Jessie’s Girl), passing around a bottle of cheap champagne. I remember meeting with my Philosophy adviser, a small and brilliant man, who was passionate about Plato and loved to tell stories about yogurt.

I remember being selfish, confident, excited, nervous, happy, proud, uncertain, young, mature, free, protected, lucky, pressured. I remember feeling gorgeous and feeling fat. I remember falling in love and feeling doubt. I remember not knowing a thing, and knowing absolutely everything. I remember reading, and writing, and drinking coffee. I remember calling home. I remember going home, picking up a Subway sandwich at the train station, hopping on Metro North, heading home, the world blurring by.

I remember graduation day. I was tired and puffy. I wore a black dress with little flowers under my gown. It was sunny that day as we came together in clusters and walked. I remember the Pierson dean announcing my honors: Aidan Donnelley. Magna Cum Laude. The gasps were audible. I’m pretty sure everyone thought I was a not-so-smart blond.

I remember so much. It’s been years, more than ten, but I can still see it – the campus green, my hand flying across a ruled piece of paper taking tiny, meticulous notes, a girl who loved to work hard and play hard and live life, smiling big, struggling too, but smiling, at the beginning of it all.

The College Me. Quite the character. One I love and laugh at and celebrate and forgive. And remember.

They say you can’t go back, but the really amazing thing is that you can. You can sit in a Starbucks at 6:34am on a Friday morning in February with your cup of coffee and computer and your mind and you can go back. To the land before commitment and career and kids, to the campus of not yet knowing, to the fun and the frolic and the ferocious learning. To the four years that slipped by so fast because you were not yet a creature desperate to pause things, to arrest time, to hold on.

This has been fun for me. This little exercise in going back. And now I must do a different kind going back. Back to the home front and the three tiny things in pajamas who have it all ahead of them. That is pretty incredible too.

Who were you in college? Any fun memories? Have you changed a lot since your stint as an undergrad? Do you think it is presumptuous for me to assume most of you attended college? Are most people you know, and socialize with, college grads? I know several of you are still in college, so share your stories since you are experiencing them now and we would all like to live vicariously!

After spending two days leading up to my fifteenth high school reunion blogging about my anticipation and anxiety connected thereto, I figured I owe you a bit of a recap. So. Here it is.

It was a really lovely evening. We Class of ’96-ers gathered in the Dalton basement in the room where I once upon logged a lot of time playing my trumpet during orchestra practice. It was a bit odd and more than a bit meaningful to spend time in that room once again after all these years. The turnout was not immense, but solid. I saw many people from my past. And, remarkably, I managed to speak to most of them. What amazed me – really amazed me – was how warm everyone was (or seemed). I anticipated a good deal of artifice and pretense and it just wasn’t there. I envisioned traces of cattiness leftover from our teenage days, but no. There was just wine and smiles and conversation.

Yes, conversation. As some of you know, I went into the night hoping for authenticity and realness. I feared that the night would be stuffed with flimsy small talk. And there was some of that, sure, but mostly there were good, sturdy interactions, neither superficial nor serious. They were somewhere in between, these chats. And this realization itself was worth its weight in gold – or Dalton blue as the case may be. The realization that there is a land between superficial and serious, between perfunctory and profound, a land where real things are said even if they aren’t entirely revealing. A good land.

In this in-between land we danced. Trading bits of our bios. Remembering our Dalton days. Who we were before we went to college and then entered the world, this world, which houses us all today. We talked about predictable stuff – cute babies and frustrating jobs and the passage of time. We laughed – nervously and genuinely and much. We didn’t quite say it, but I think we all thought it, or at least I did: This school had something to do with this, with this medley of good and interesting people gathered here.

Because, really, it can’t be a coincidence. We are all different creatures, sure, but we were all nurtured for so many years in the very same place. In this place, we learned how to think and to write and to talk. In these classrooms, we began to be who we are today.

Who are we today?

That is not an easy question. Of course it isn’t. But the best questions, it seems, are the tough ones, the ones without ready borders. And I cannot answer this one. What I can say is that on Friday, I got a glimpse of many people whom I once knew – some well, some barely. And that glimpse was wonderful and inspiring and, yes, lovely.

Yes, that word again. Because in this instance it is the right one.

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How have your reunion experiences been? Do you think the schools you attended have had something important to do with who it is you’ve become?

As I mentioned yesterday, I will be attending my fifteenth high school reunion tonight. The proximity of this event has me thinking about something:

Who was I fifteen years ago?

I was rounder, and more selfish. Obsessed with A’s and other accolades. Fond of late nights and the banter they brought. A shred entitled. More than a shred spoiled. I was innocent, naive, as yet untouched by the oft-brutal fist of Life. No one close to me had died. No one had hurt me. My heart had not yet been broken. Existential bruises were not yet there shimmering on my white skin. I had not yet lived. Not much at least. But, man oh man, was I eager to.

Fifteen years ago, I was months shy of attending Yale. I imagined myself there, swaddled in ivy. I pictured a profound transformation – of self, of soul, of psyche. I envisioned new faces, interesting and pretty, faces with eyes for seeing and studying, lips for whispering wisdom and kissing. I anticipated a patchwork of stories – of true words knit between bright beginnings and happy endings. Because the endings, I imagined, would always be happy.

Fifteen years ago, I wore a blue and green striped dress for graduation. Looking back, that dress was tacky and terrible, but at the time I loved it – the boldness of those robust horizontal lines, the happy hues. Isn’t this what happens though? We look back with wonder, with judgment, with curiosity, and think: Was that really me?

And it was. It was me. Me then. And now I can’t help but think:

Who will I be in fifteen years?

Will I still be here on this blog weaving words about life and love? Will I still be here in this exquisite and maddening metropolis? Will I still be here in this glorious green pasture of raising girls? And will I look back – at who I am now on this June day of 2011 and have a hard time believing this is me?

*

On Twitter yesterday, I wrote: Who were you fifteen years ago? Me: a naive, optimistic, foolishly confident HS senior.

And I got the following responses (that I adore):

@jkhoey: naive, optimistic, foolishly ambitious recently-divorced attorney in Toronto.

@lemead: A beer-bloated college graduate with big dreams, long hair, my first business card, and an apartment in Beacon Hill.

@cnoepagan: Me too, exactly. RT @ADonnRowley: Who were you fifteen years ago? Me: a naive, optimistic, foolishly confident HS senior.

@HeatheroftheEO: 15 yrs ago I had a Dr Pepper on my 21st birthday. I hadn’t thought about that in YEARS.

@EloiseBates: A nervous 14yo starting my first job, never dreaming of the confidence & knowledge I would gain in the next 8 years there.

@mrspop007: 15 years ago, I was doing very little, hanging out for the summer until my first teaching job began. In other words, I was a very lazy person.

@kebmurphy: ambitious idealistic social butterfly in teeny brownstone on W 75th about to start Columbia J School to become famous writer

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Who were you fifteen years ago? Come on, this should be fun! Are you the person now that you would have predicted fifteen years ago? Who do you think you’ll be fifteen years from now?

Tomorrow night we will gather at the wonderful school that in so many ways made us who we are. We will fumble through hellos awkward and artificial and authentic. We will fidget in corners and look around, glimpsing faces both familiar and foreign. We will clutch sweating glasses and bemused spouses, reminiscing and remembering. Remembering who we were fifteen years ago when we were less wrinkled and worried and worldly.

Fifteen years ago. When we donned caps and gowns and bright teenage smiles. When college, that exquisite wonderland, loomed large on the landscape of our collective cosmos. Much has happened in all these years. Parents have been lost. Commitments have been made and marred. Babies have been born. We will talk about these things, I imagine. Or maybe we won’t. Maybe we will just dance around the big things and take refuge in small talk. I hope not though. I hope that amid the inevitable air kisses and the swirl of superficiality, there will be some real sentences bartered, some real heart displayed, some true memories unearthed. We will see.

Fifteen years. What a long, short time it’s been.

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Any advice for me as I head to my fifteen year high school reunion? Do you think it makes sense that I am at once anxious and invigorated to see so many people from my past? Do you enjoy attending reunions? Do you ever hope that real conversations will manifest in situations that are particularly prime for idle chat?

No legacy is so rich as honesty.

William Shakespeare

Several years ago, I ran into an old friend on the street. This friend and I had gone to school together between the ages of five and twenty-two. We had lost touch and I hadn’t seen him in a while. But we stood there for a few minutes in a spotlight of sidewalk sunshine. And I’m not sure how this came up, but he told me the following story. A story I don’t recall. A story that, to this day, makes me wince and smile.

“When we were in Kindgergarten,” he said. “You asked where I was going to college.”

“No!” I said.

“Oh yes. Yes, you did,” he insisted. “And when I said I didn’t know, you said Well, I’m going to Yale.”

Oh goodness. How obnoxious, right? Yes, maybe. Or maybe not. Every year as a little girl, I went to Yale for a football game. Either Yale-Harvard or Yale-Princeton. Dad had played football for Yale and it was a fun way for him to reunite with his buddies and teammates and we all loved going, taking in the fall air, walking the bulldog around the bowl, cheering on the team in blue and white. Promptly, I fell in love with the place.

And then. One by one, we Donnelley girls went to that campus. For our own time there. All of us loved it.

This weekend, Husband and I took the girls to their first game. This year, it was Princeton. I had fun dressing the girls. Here, Toddler hikes up her jersey and shows a sliver of midriff. A tiny taste of what’s to come. (Yikers.)

Here, Baby stands by a tree and says, Look at me! No belly bared yet. Thank goodness.

The girls meet Handsome Dan, the Yale bulldog. They smile big and keep a safe distance.

In the stands, we sit with my Mom and Sister T and several of Dad’s college friends. The girls wave their pom-poms furiously.

We all cheer on these guys.

Yale takes an early, but modest lead. After this shot, we last exactly 7 minutes and 32 seconds longer. Hey, half a game is better than no game, right?

Truth be told, the girls spend most of the first half playing on the ground. With their new stuffed bulldogs.

Before we head out, I snap a shot of the sky. It’s an impossible and optimistic blue. I try to get that flag, too. That lone Y. Before we head out, I think of all these years that have passed. Of a young Dad in that very uniform in that very stadium playing his heart out. Of myself as a little girl, in these stands, on Dad’s lap watching. Of my tailgating years where I was more focused on the bloody marys than that scoreboard.

It was a good day. A day full of love and legacy and life. My girls had fun. We did too.

I do hope they don’t trot off to Kindergarten and announce that they are Yale-bound. I still can’t believe I said that. And yet I can. Because it is a magical place. For a tiny creature. For a grown woman.

I look at these pictures now. These little ones dressed in Yale blue and my mind shimmies to the future. Of course it does. And those words, those two words, appear: What if. What if these girls grow up to go to Yale? How cool would that be? It would be cool. It would.

Are these words evidence of pressure? Maybe. I hope not. Are these words evidence of privilege? Sure. Are these words evidence of pride? You bet. Are these words just as obnoxious as my Kindergarten confession? Arguably.

But these words are honest. And honesty is perhaps the richest legacy of all, no?

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Have you taken your kids back to your alma mater? Do you ever indulge in a round of the What Ifs? Would you be pleased if your little ones went to your school(s)? Were you pondering college in Kindergarten? How do you feel about the word ‘legacy’? Does it have positive or negative connotations for you?

Sometimes, I imagine the future. And in that future I see three fair-haired girls with blue eyes sitting around the dining table doing their homework. In this scene, Husband and I putter lovingly around the kitchen, fixing dinner, fielding questions about spelling and math and social studies.

I know I am getting ahead of myself. Toddler is not even four. Baby just turned two. And the littlest? She is not here yet. I also know I am being a bit idealistic in my envisioning. The nights where Husband and I cook are, well, few and far between. But, hey, I’m optimistic. Years down the pike, it seems very likely that we will have our culinary act together.

Back to the homework bit. Husband and I have talked about ourselves as students. Our approaches. Our attitudes. And they were different. Truth be told, I was a bit of an academic robot. I worked very hard and wanted my A’s. And I got them. And when I didn’t? It was not okay. Not remotely okay. The end result? Stellar grades and an alarmingly perfectionist take on self and the world.

Husband is a very smart man. But he has admitted that when he was in school, he tended to work hard only in classes that interested him. If he wasn’t in love with a subject, he didn’t sweat it. And B’s? They were just fine. The end result? Solid grades and a shockingly sensible approach to self and world.

So, we were different then. And we still are. And this is fine. Good, even. I see it only as a positive that we are not clones of one another. I hate the world ‘balance,’ but it is the right one here; Husband and I tend to balance one another out.

But what happens down the line when our girls are in school and looking to us for guidance? What if my inclination is to encourage A’s and Husband’s is to encourage enjoyment and whatever grades that brings? How do parents, parents with profoundly different visions, present a united and integrated front to their progeny?

I don’t pretend to know. But I do think about this. Because I think this question is about more than academic approach. I think, at bottom, this is about the many different – and good – ways of living life.

The good news? Husband and I are continually affecting one another. I admire his serenity, his sensibility, and know that I have absorbed some of these things. And I see that Husband has, after nine years by my side, embraced some of my perfectionist and A-seeking ways. Maybe, just maybe, by the time these questions truly matter, by the time those three girls are gathered around the table with their noses in text books (who are we kidding – laptops), we will have met in the middle?

(A girl can dream, huh?)

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How much did you care about grades when you were in school? In retrospect, do you think you cared too little or too much or the “right” amount? Do you and your partner have similar or different attitudes about academics? Do you ever envision your future and dilemmas that might crop up? Is this an A post, or more of a B+?

I love Christmas. Love love love it.

I could speculate why, but I won’t try. Just know that when the season creeps up, I get a bit giddy. Just know that I had a December 18 wedding. Just know that we literally planned the architecture of our new home around where our tree will go.

You get the picture, I hope.

And I love the music. My love for Christmas music though is a bit more complicated. I associate Christmas music with studying, with buckling down, with anticipation of freedom and frolic. Every fall in college and then in law school, when exams were on the horizon, I started listening. And it helped motivate me. I worked so hard, so efficiently, so doggedly because I knew that when all was said and done, when the papers were turned in and the exams were finished, I would be home with family around our big tree celebrating the season.

And so. Some might think that at this point in my life I would perhaps have a bitter taste in my mouth about holiday music since, for me, it has such deep connections with school and studying in my mind. Not so. Not so at all.

Confession: I am having a hard time with my writing. A very hard time. My next novel is taking shape. Some days are absolute gold. Some days are mucky gray. Monday? I was floating. I broke through something – a ceiling of self, of story, of symbol – and I was elated. But then Tuesday came and I dragged. I cobbled words together that left me utterly disappointed. I felt something inside me shrink.

And then. In a low moment, I thought of something. I thought of Christmas music. About how it buoyed me once through impossible and insecure intellectual times. About how it soothed me and sustained me. About how I always prevailed at the end of these times. I contemplated in that very moment turning it on.

But I didn’t. Why? Because it is October.

It is not even Halloween yet. Thanksgiving is still weeks away. It struck me as illegal to be dipping into the Christmas tunes. I conducted an impromptu little Twitter poll about this and the majority of people said to wait until the end of November, but a few? They said that there are no rules. A couple confessed to listening to Christmas music all year long! (Love it.)

And so. This is a silly post in many regards. Who really cares when one Manhattan mother starts getting her jingle bell on? This dilemma of mine is hardly blogworthy. And yet. There is a speck of something here. About those nefarious shoulds that creep into the cracks of the everyday. About the schedules of propriety we have set for ourselves and each other. About seasons of joy and seasons of doubt. About the things that keep us going even when we feel a bit stuck.

So. Silly or no, here we are. Here I am. Debating Christmas carols in October.

• Do you love Christmas? Christmas music?
• When is it legal to start listening to holiday tunes?
  
• Do you find yourself doing things when society tells us to do them?
• Are there things that motivate you during times of pressure and self-doubt?
• Do you work or write best in silence or to a soundtrack of life or music?
  

We humans often talk about fear of the unknown. We cower together at the idea of uncertainty, the reality of roads unseen. Change looms and we know this, but we are afraid of its implications. Who will we be? Where will we be? What we life be?

Abstract enough for you? I have a point. (I think.)

My littlest Sister T moved to Chicago this past Monday. She moved there without much of a plan. No job. No roommate. She just went, seeking to shift things up. Now, it is worth reminding you all that T is no slouch. The kid graduated from Yale last May at the tippy-top of her class with a GPA that would make you cry. I do not tell you this to brag, but to tell you that her future? It’s undeniably bright. (I also tell you this to brag, I guess. Hey, I’m proud.)

Anyway. The point here is that she has no idea what her life will look like. Where will she work? Whom will she date? How will she spend her time? Will she meet a gorgeous stranger at 1am at darkened bar? Will she fall in love with a career she never dreamed about before? Will she take in the Chicago fall air and never turn back? I don’t know. She doesn’t either.

I know she is a little scared. A bit fearful of the unknown. This makes perfect sense. If she weren’t a bit anxious about the unfolding of her life, I’d be worried. But I think, I know, she’s also really excited. To walk out into her life. To putter around the real world, a world beyond Ivy. To see who it is she becomes.

And I am excited, too. To watch her fumble and stumble into her own happiness. To witness her evolution. To see her grow.

And, if we are being really honest here, I am a tad envious. She has so many big things ahead of her. I think I might just have to live vicariously. Nothing wrong with that.

Because me? I’m ten years ahead of her in this game of life. A full decade. My life is very different from hers, its contours more fixed, its contents more defined. I am a wife and a mother. I have a home. I have a professional passion. And these are exquisite things I would never ever trade, but they are also known. I have a good sense of what my life will look like in one year, five years, ten. The biggest uncertainty for me right now is whether I will have another girl or a boy this spring. I find out in two weeks and I can’t wait! But then again, I can wait. Because once I find out, I will know.

I guess you could say I have a fear of the known. A fear that it is all mapped out, my life’s landscape, and that it’s my job to just live within the boundaries. But even as I write this, I chide myself for my simplistic thinking. Life is never known. We can plan and plot, but things are never fixed, never firm. Change always lingers. Surprise always looms.

We never know entirely, do we?

This is scary. This is good.

T, I am so so proud of you. I can’t wait to watch your adventures from afar. And I can’t wait to come visit next month! Love you.

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• Are you afraid of the unknown?
• Are you afraid of the known?
• Do you think at any given point in life we are afraid of one or the other?
• Which city do you like better – Chicago or New York?
• Any words of wisdom for T as she sets out on her life adventure?
  

A final plea. If you haven’t yet, please click HERE to vote for Life After Yes as SheKnows final book club pick of the year! Your support thus far has been incredible! This will be the last time I beg. Promise

This weekend I went back to Yale for my tenth college reunion. We went back. To that beautiful campus. To those beautiful years.

We logged many hours reminiscing and reconnecting under a vast white tent on Old Campus. The weekend was stuffed with familiar faces and rich conversations and contagious laughter and even beer pong. Many things, so many things, made me smile.

One thing? Seeing my books displayed in the lobby of the hotel.

But one of the most amazing things about this weekend had nothing to do with parties and people from my past. That amazing thing? My two little girls. Husband and I took them to Old Campus on Saturday morning when it was very quiet and pretty empty. We plopped our creatures down in the candy green grass and let them roam and explore. They ran and ran and jumped and giggled. They sniffed out the little white flag above. Which made me smile because we surrender to these little ones countless times a day.

The girls insisted on playing with the stakes of the big white tent even though we told them that it wasn’t safe.

They spotted a mysterious beige object outside of Connecticut Hall. And had great fun banging it like a drum before we read the faded writing on it and realized that it contained some kind of poison. (Why are kids magnetically attracted to danger?)

They ran. At times together. At times separately. They skipped toward each other. And in different directions.

We walked along stone paths and checked out the trucks unloading lunch.

We walked through archways between Here and There. Then and When.

I watched Baby stroll down Elm Street, the same street I walked so many times clutching books and gummy candy. And dreams.

The girls looked for animals.

They chased squirrels.

And each other.

Toddler ran so fast. Leaving a mess of golden curls in her wake.

She stopped every now and then. To take it all in perhaps.

But then she kept going.

Yesterday, Husband let me sleep in. He took the girls on a “safari adventure” around campus. He snapped this shot of his two little women at the Women’s Table, the scene of some delightful debauchery of latter day. The scene of so many stories. And good ones.

He caught the girls being silly. Doing their job. Having fun.

And today. I’m home again. On my new campus. Today I look at this picture of my girls, my creations, on the campus I love deeply, the campus that in so many ways created me, and I am flooded with memories and affection and awe. Today I look at this picture and tears, sweet blissful Bulldog tears, come.

And to them, I surrender.

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• Have you taken your kids to your alma maters or other seminal places of your youth?
  
• Do you remember visiting your parents’ schools when growing up?
• Do you agree that it’s important and necessary to surrender to our kids and our emotions from time to time?

**”Do you ever feel like a book comes into your life at a time when you really need it?  It’s like some force in the world told me that I needed to read Aidan Donnelley Rowley’s book, Life After Yes, at this point in my life… can’t rave enough about this book and I encourage you to go and find your own copy asap!!  I am eagerly anticipating more from this author in the future!!  This book whole-heartedly deserves the Five Star CRAZY AMAZING review!” Click here to read the rest of the review over at Crazy for Books.**

**The second installment of the online Life After Yes book club is up over at Motherese. Yet again, Kristen provides an incredibly thoughtful analysis of my work and asks wonderful questions (that I am tempted to answer!). In the event that you missed it, also check out last week’s discussion. I cannot tell you how meaningful it has been for me to witness such rich conversation about my book.**

“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.”

William Arthur Ward

I don’t know much about sailing. Or about William Arthur Ward for that matter. But I do love this quote. And I am very interested in the topic of optimism. What is it exactly? Is it something we are born with? Something we absorb as we navigate our days? Is it something we must choose, embrace, practice at?

I don’t know.

But I do know that these questions matter to me. I do know that I want very much to be optimistic. More than that, I want very much not to be pessimistic. Last week, at T’s Yale graduation, Bill Clinton was the Class Day speaker. And Slick Willy didn’t disappoint. He charmed us all with his trademark mix of wit and wisdom. He implored the graduates – and all of us really – to get real about the big problems we face in this modern world. But one thing stuck with me in particular. Something about pessimism.

Clinton said, “Cynicism and pessimism are cop-outs. Excuses to take a dive. Self-fulfilling prophecies.” And as he said these words, I sat there in my folding chair on good Old Campus, nodding. Nodding fiercely. I do not want to be a pessimist. I do not want to be a cynic.

But are these things up to me? Per Clinton, it seems they are.

Is optimism innate/inherited? Are each of us genetically or physiologically wired in such a way that we are more or less likely to see life’s silver lining? Do we inherit our powers of positivity from our parents? Is it hard, if impossible, to transcend the levels of optimism we witnessed and absorbed growing up?

Is optimism contagious? Are we more likely to see the sunshine in our days when surrounded by others who are optimistic? [Once upon a time, a young (and super-cynical) girl who wore tons of black and whose default face was a bitchy scowl met a young (and shockingly-optimistic) boy who didn't care what he wore and was prone to smile. They met in a bar of all places! And days passed. And months. And years. Seven-ish years later, that same girl has two girls of her own and is much much more optimistic about life. And she wears color!]

Is optimism a choice? Whatever its source, can we choose to add more optimism to our selves and to our stories? Can we make efforts to alter the ways we see things and process them? Can we train ourselves to see sunshine instead of storms? Can we, with devotion and diligence, avoid Clinton’s cop-outs of cynicism and pessimism?

Again, I don’t know. But, hey, at least I’m asking, right?

Today, I would say I’m a realist. One who suffers soggy moments of cynicism and poisonous bouts of pessimism. But one who is committed to optimism. Optimistic about optimism.

Today, I am awake. Alert. Aware of the robust reality of existential wind. Poised for change. Even cruel change. Always adjusting the sails of my own expectations.

Because I must. We all must.

(How can I possibly look at this sunshine-soaked picture of my three creatures in the fountains outside the museum where I celebrated my wedding and be anything but optimistic?)

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• Do you think optimism is a choice?
• Do you agree with President Clinton that pessimism and cynicism are self-fulfilling prophecies and cop-outs?
  
• Where do you fall on the optimism/pessimism/realism spectrum?
• Are you more or less positive about life and love than you used to be? What has affected your outlook?
• Are you suspicious (like I am) of people who seem optimistic all the time?

** Today is the very first day of the LIFE AFTER YES book club discussion over at Motherese. Click and come on by!**

** For a chance to win a signed copy of LIFE AFTER YES, please click over to BlogHer at Home and leave a comment! (Thanks, Nic!)**

Rumor has it that a certain something helps tremendously in the optimism department. That something? Book sales