I am normally a pretty happy person. I don't run around with pom-poms and do back flips, but I'm a pretty happy person most of the time :-)  

I also have a great deal of darkness. My mother suffered from mental illness. She was verbally and emotionally abusive. She was also my favorite person in the world. When she was dying, she was beyond cruel to me. I understood she was in pain, I didn't take it personally. I just wanted her to be better.

She's also the same person that sang Carol King & Patsy Cline while cleaning the house.  I use to look forward to Saturday mornings, the smell of Lemon Pledge and her soprano floating through the house, the aroma of pancakes and bacon rising to the top of the stairs. She never missed one of my theatre performances in college, despite having to drive 5 hours, after working an overnight shift at the police station. People are not black and white. My mother was, in a word, complex.

Despite how loving she could be, she would flip like a switch. She held my face in her hands one day and told me what a pretty face I had. Then she said, "sometimes, I'd like to gouge your F#$% eyes out!"

It may sound horrible to some. I had my grandmother, too, who was my protector and stood up for me. My bio-dad was in prison my entire life and died there. I never really knew him

My mother's mania was sometimes hard to watch. The highs were so high. The lows, well, it was pretty dark.

She overcame a lot as a single parent. I don't know how she did it, but we went to Disney World every summer. We always spent summers at the beach. As an adult, I grew to enjoy her letters. She told me she was single-handedly bringing back the art of letter writing. Her letters were hysterical. Our phone calls were even better. I miss those.

My dark moods don't last long. I do my best to shake them. Usually, music will snap me out of it. My go to are boy bands :-) Yesterday was particularly hard, though. Her anniversary is a month away. It will be 7 years since she passed. I went to class, as Zumba always puts me in good spirits. The dark cloud dampened my mood in class. I refused to give in. I ran on the treadmill for 2 miles, determined to "shake it". By the end, I was sweaty and feeling a lot better.

I'm not saying you alway have to be "on" and be the life of the party. When you have sadness, allow it and then push through.