Don't mess with Mister In-Between...

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Originally uploaded by sweetmondaygirl.

Somewhere along the way, I got a reputation, both with myself and with some of the people in my life, of being a sort of pessimistic person. Not negative, exactly, or not fun to be around, but a bit Eeyorish.(Did you know "eeyorish" is an actual word now? Check the Oxford dictionary.) Certainly there were instances when I earned this. I hear I was a challenging child, and I KNOW I was a challenging teenager at times. (I have my own theories about this, but that is for another post. Or not.) But for some reason I've never really been able to fully embrace this supposed trait of mine. It's never quite felt like the truth.

It turns out that maybe there was a reason. Lately I've had the opportunity, in several different situations, to take a smattering of personality tests. Having nothing to lose, and always enjoying a chance to gain a little personal insight, I was completely honest when answering the questions. Every single one declared me to be, among other things, an optimistic person who looks on the bright side of life. Mind you, these were not tests from Cosmopolitan or Glamour, asking me what shade of lipstick I prefer or what my dream vacation would be, therefore deducing if I'm sunshine and roses or a dark gloomy rain cloud. These were tests that in some cases took me an hour to finish. So there's gotta be some merit. My first instinct was to think that clearly they must just be wrong, their methodology must be off, because otherwise they would see that I AM A GLASS HALF EMPTY GIRL FOR GOD'S SAKE!

Except they're right. They're just confirming something I've figured out about myself, slowly, over the past few years. It turns out that beneath the sometimes dark exterior, I'm more hopeful than what most people see. I just get shy, after all this time, all this eeyorishness, about admitting it.