Why not celebrate your bad day?


Here is one poem from Lucille Clifton poem, “won’t you celebrate with me,”that I just read it from a website:
won’t you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.
How strong the punch was hit on my heart after reading it. Tears soon followed. The poem reminded me that around these two months. I was struggling in “looking for everything” including looking for new place, new social group, new weekend job except the editor. And frineds around me somehow even ask me to “look for “ a boyfriend. I know they were just joking but you know when your heart is weak, anything small could stuck your mind and breath. At the time, I started to complained and doubted my ability or personality because it took me so long to look for these things (not including bf I swear that was just a joke). It was hard to think of reasons to celebrate but I always got so many invitations at the end of the year. I think this is because I have always linked celebration with joy, and how does one turn to joy when pain is so present?
I was moved by this poem that it inspirited me to redefine “celebration”. Shouldn’t we celebrate the bad day or bad mood as well since it is also part of our life and will defiantly repetitively appear while you try to make change. In our culture, the act of celebrating is very tied to specific reasons for celebration — birthdays, graduations, marriages and the like. There are certain markers that are universally understood: We eat cake. We dance. We break piñatas. We dress up. “But shame-eating a cake in your crib because you’re stressed and lonely is different than eating cake with your best friends because someone had a baby,” Sarah says. “In that sense, celebration is an energy, an awareness, it is possible at all times and is present wherever there is a human spirit.”
Clifton’s poem reframes what celebration can mean because it expands the reasons for doing so in the first place. Embodying the idea that resistance itself is a reason to celebrate, celebration becomes not just about turning to joy, but about overcoming — a reframing that has been incredibly useful to me.
The other day, I brought home a silk red dress and delicious brownie.You dont have to have a party as a reason to buy a dress, you can always juts get it and dress up yourself. Then you will find that even dressing up is not the only way to make you happy but while you spend time on yourself there is always good outcome. And I believe that it is the most beneficial investment. “Not turning away from yourself.” Even you feel bad during the time, dont just lock yourself in the room and keep questioning yourself. Trying to celebrate your bad day, dressing up, buying a nice candle, having delicious dessert or dinner then you will find that you can easily get through the time. And I don’t know, maybe it’s reductive to think of celebration in this way, but when existence is actually persistence, it’s hard to think of a more worthy cause.

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