E DAY

I was going to make the title of this post 'Happy E Day' and wish you all a Happy Earth Day. But suddenly a memory flashed like lightning of a different E day. I can't believe I ever let this slip into the corner of my mind.

I'm not sure when it began, probably somewhere around elementary school when you got letter marks on your report card instead of number grades. Marks like E for Excellent, G for Good, N for Needs Improvement. My Dad started telling me to "Have an E Day!" short for Excellent Day. It didn't just mean to have a super-good day. It also meant Be Excellent. Reach for Excellence in all you do. Expect Excellence from yourself and others. It was our thing. He would ask me if I had an E Day; or he'd wish me an E Day; or he would say it was an E Day. Wow. It's been a long time since I thought about that.

He also used to hold up his hand in the 'stop' position in front of my face when I was being poopy for no good reason; when I was just feeling sorry for myself or being mad that life wasn't fair. The idea was that his palm held an invisible mirror that reflected to me what my 'poopy face' looked like, how unpleasant it was to go around showing the world my poopy face. I would be sitting there sulking and he would sneak up and flash the poopy face mirror at me and I could not help but let a smile slide across my face. Kind of like when you are trying so hard to be mad and someone keeps saying, "don't smile, don't you dare smile, you better not smile, if you smile you're going to get it" and you end up smiling.

So if you're ever feeling down, hold your hand up in front of your visage and imagine what you look like in the poopy face mirror, and know that even though life is not fair and the world may have hurt you or things didn't go your way; it feels much better to smile as you work through it.

Have an E Day!