Good things come to those who wait--

-- or not.

I'm beginning to be wary of good things happening because they are often followed by problems, like having to pay for major repairs on my car. It's wearing on my usually optimistic nature and dragging me back into a more realistically pessimistic arena that makes me uncomfortable. Granted, I seem to have led a charmed life, and in many ways I have, but it has not been without cost.

For example: Yesterday, the CEO of a website read my post on looters and producers and contacted me to ask if I would let them run the post as a column on their website for which I would be paid. That's the good news. I'm still waiting for the bad news.

That's what I mean. Most of the time when I receive good news I enjoy the moment and get back to work making more opportunities for good news to come my way: raises, selling stories, articles and books, etc. But last week's unexpected expense has undermined my usual attitude and I wonder when I'll be able to get back to normal.

Death affects me this way, especially when the death is in my family or among close friends, hitting me with sharp cracks on the jaw, followed by hard body punches that leave me reeling and out of breath. I know this feeling will pass because it always has in the past, and I'm still here. My only recourse is to rely on the benchmarks that get me through each and every day: work, meals, paying bills, writing, spending time with family and friends and sleep, blessed sleep where I plunge gratefully into the dream stream to work out plot points, characterization and go to those places that remain out of my reach in the waking world. In dreams I am not hampered by anything but imagination and my imagination is a fertile and productive ground where anything and everything is possible.

For now, there is work and the daily round of mundane activities that ground and center me, reminding me that no matter what happens, it too will soon pass.