bitter & cynical

two things that i never want to become: bitter and cynical

i was looking at a picture of two of my friends that i used to be really close with, and it hit me. bitterness and cynicism are not at all attractive. in fact, it's quite likely that those two attributes are what drove us apart. i'm not talking about the occasional dose of bitterness and cynicism but the perpetual pessimism that leaks from a soul. just like you cannot separate peanut butter and jam once they've hit the bread, i was unable to ever scrape the bitterness and cynicism off of these two friends. i cannot quite pinpoint what it is about these two attributes that makes me cringe, but i can picture how my body curls and squirms at their very idea.

i wish that i could sit down right now and type up a contract about never reaching a point where bitterness and cyncism have taken over my life. that i could declare in times new roman size 12 that i will not become old, withered and bitter, but i just can't seem to type those words. i'm not afraid of those words (you're sure to have noted their somewhat senseless repetition) but i just can't guarantee that those words wont ever be me. i don't know what i'm even going to be like tomorrow. for all i know my pituitary could suddenly release a cocktail of hormones that makes me the cruelest teacher my grade 8's have ever seen. or maybe i'll close up and become that shy girl for the second time in my life. or maybe i'll be crazed, angry, teary, or ecstatic. i just don't quite know what tomorrow is going to bring. but i can tell you one thing. if there is anything that i long not to be, it's bitter and cynical. there is too much hope, too much love and too much joy in my life for that. i never want there to come a day when someone sits down to look at my picture and chooses the words "bitter and cynical" as the most apt descriptors of my life.

because salt is supposed to add flavor, not bitterness.