This is Sheriff Peanut Butter Brickle. Mornings are a bit slow around here.

I used to like getting up at the crack of dawn and watching all the happenings at camp thru my front window. But lately, Deputy Digby and I prefer to just wake up as slow as we want to. Girl Person always asks me if I need to go outside before she makes her mud in a cup.

But I like waiting until she has her cup of mud and we go outside together while Digby snores and dreams some more. He says there is never enough dreaming in life.

As the years have went on, you would think that Depression Monster that lurks around here would get tired. But he never does. Girl Person says camping helps in some ways, because the more we move the harder it is to find us. And she recognizes what she has to do to shut out the darkness of the monster. She has to find her switch. Every day.

For Girl Person, she needs the light. Sunshiney and fresh air has to wake her up more than coffee. She says that if she walks outside first, she can literally feel that switch being flipped.

For Boy Person, he likes to make sure he fills the bird feeder up for the birds and hungry, hungry pigeons. That is his switch.

Have you ever wondered how things truly affect us each day? One thing can make our switches go dim or go out completely. Like stress of work, traffic, the news or sadness. If we have figured out what can switch our lights back on, that’s the first step when we find ourselves in the dark.

Seems to me that persons have two things that fight a lot in their heads. Negativity and positivity. Kind of like electricity and that switch. Some of them can turn on the positive faster. Some have to search and search to find it in the first place. So can those in the light help those in the darkness find their switch too? Together, can we all guide each other when one of us gets down?

We all have a responsibility to know what affects us. What may bring me down, like a lack of peanut butter cookies, may not matter to many others. What you feel is important is important to you too.

When we realize that all of us have a switch inside us, it can be comforting. It’s comforting because each of us have the power to feel better. And that can make us feel strong. Some of us like the snow. Some of us like the beach. Some of us like the desert. Some of us like dessert. Oh. That’s Digby.

And if all of us find our happy, that’s a lot of switches being turned on. That’s a lot of light. And you can’t have darkness with light. So as we gear up for our trip, we’ve got the lights on. Thanks for helping us find the switch. It was hard to see.

–Sheriff Peanut Butter Brickle