After a whole day of being calm under pressure and pleasant under a loss that hurt, I got the kind of shocking good news that people write Hallmark films about. After a whole day of calmly working through sorrow and continuing to work with kids like I was okay, after a day of calmly BEING okay, I panicked. I broke. I lost my composure and went to pieces and cried like a little kid in front of people I don't cry in front of and I didn't calm down till someone gave me a soda.
Good news can be scary. Good news can take more energy and pain to process and accept than the bad stuff does. And good news can destroy the composure you think you have.
Write about a moment of good news, but don't write, "and she was happy." Write the terror of relief. Write the shock of something going right. Write what is scary and horrible and hard. Good news is eventually good, but sometimes to get to that we have to go through quite a bit of bad.
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