The other evening, my housemate, Gemma, returned home at 2:15am frantically trying to wake me up to let her into the building after having been robbed while listening to music in Barceloneta. Someone had snatched her purse, which contained a hefty sum of money, her credit cards, keys, cell phone, passport, national ID, and other important things. To my surprise, rather than pout about the annoyances and difficulties of recuperating all she had lost, Gemma soon returned to her usual smiley and happy self. Last night on the way to a party I had to ask her how she managed to stay in such good spirits despite what had taken place.
She remarked, "Look, I can either be depressed and without my purse, or I can be happy and without my purse -- either way, I won't have the purse."
"But still, Gemma, it's such a pain -- I'd have a tough time returning to my normal self."
"I believe that we can find some good in everything. I mean, I've already begun to find some good in what's happened. For instance, I lost my only pictures of my X-boyfriend, and this has helped to liberate me from the relationship. To give another example, I lost all my phone numbers, including those of people who treat me poorly. So now they can't contact me, since I won't have another phone for fifteen more days, and I can't contact them. So, you see, some good things have come from this."
If only I had such an ability to stare adversity in the eye and say, "Fuck you," like she seemingly does.
