life is like/but a dream

the other day in the car, my second sister rosemary and her daughter baby krissa and i were singing.

"row, row row your boat, gently down the stream"

"merrily, merrily, merrily"

and then the group splintered into

me: "life is LIKE a dream"

rosy&krissa: "life is BUT a dream"

for about 25 years of my life, i've been singing "like" - while it seems the rest of the world had and has the word "but" on their lips.

"what do you mean BUT?" i lamented.
"it has to be like"
"what kind of a depressing song is that? why would anyone want to depress a young kid?"

rosemary laughed incessantly. krissa laughed too, cos her mom was.

"you have been singing the wrong word!!!!" my sister points out, as her sniggering threatened to morph into a snort.

"i don't care, i'm gonna sing it with a like and not a but!" I was really miffed...


and quietly wondered to myself...

just as i've always wondered if a mad person knows he is mad, now i am thinking:

"does a person wearing rose-tinted glasses know he is wearing rose tinted glasses?"

a friend was once sharing with me the woes of dating life.

"when you've made a mistake in love - you'll find yourself like a small ship drifting in the dark waiting to get picked up by a big ship!"

i listened. and was again hit by the then yet-to-be discovered like-NOT-But syndrome.

"why that's no problem at all," i cried out with joy.

"why do you see yourself as a small ship? what if you ARE the big ship? just be the big ship and you will pick up the small ship..."

we both looked at each other and laughed.

and so it seems: i think i am a serial optimist.

but i'm beginning to wonder now if that comes with a heavy price sometimes.

in my compulsive optimistic ways - i have been let down gravely several times, real BIG TIME, to the tune of pessimists' saying "i told you so" or "you're TOO trusting" and one has even ventured to declare that i should strive to become a "selfish bitch"

my eldest sister, who has always protected me and would want me to be my authentic myself at all times (ie, optimistic and trusting) - has even come up with the novel idea of bubble wrapping me.

i see now how there is likely a fine line between being an optimist and being in denial.

i could be both at the same for all you know. and dependent on the context - i would be delivered with varied sets of results/outcomes.

a like-minded serial trusting-optimist friend of mine and I were talking a little about this debacle yesterday.

he said: "we must learn to see reality"

i was struck.

i'm wondering now if i should then strive to be a realistic optimist.

but then again, i never knew i even had rose tinted glasses on.

someone, please pass me that bubble wrap.