by Erika Matic, currently accepting nominations for “Most Unlikely Optimist of 2025”
There comes a moment in every woman’s life when she stops, blinks twice, looks back at the smoking crater of the last decade, and thinks:
“Well… at least my sense of humor survived.”
This is the moment I realised I was, against all logic, an optimist.
Not a healthy optimist.
Not a vision-board optimist.
Not even a my therapist says I’m showing progress optimist.
No.
I’m the Balkan version.
The kind of optimist forged in the fires of childhood trauma, thyroid issues, inflation, and the existential crisis that comes from not getting kindergarten placement for the second year in a row. The kind of optimist who has lived through enough “Are you kidding me?” moments to fill several seasons of a prestige drama series – and yet still believes tomorrow might be… fine-ish.
Let me explain.
The Curriculum of Becoming an Unhinged Optimist
Here are some of the modules in the unaccredited, highly experiential education that produced this mentality:
Middle Childhood 101: Why your big sibling is bossy, your little sibling is feral, and you are the family Wi-Fi connection everyone relies on but nobody maintains.
Advanced Weight Struggles: How to spend 32 years fighting for your life against food.
Traumatic Relationships Practicum: The field training that leaves you with intuition sharp enough to detect red flags from space.
Pregnancy Loss & Emotional Physics: A course in gravitational heartbreak.
Covid-19 Survival: Starring you, your fridge, and your coping mechanisms.
Excessive Drinking and Eating: Thesis titled “I’ll Start Tomorrow.”
Parents’ House Fire: Elective. Involves crying on the floor, asking the universe if it’s bored or specifically targeting you.
Croatia 2025: Enough said.
Kindergarten Rejection x2: A special humiliation module.
Health Issues: A documentary filmed inside your own body.
Drama After Drama: The Balkan TED Talk.
After all this, most people would logically become pessimists, cynics, or at minimum, a permanently worried pigeon.
But me?
I woke up one day and thought:
“Well… at least I still love people. And coffee. And cheap notebooks. And hope.”
It’s delusional. It’s irrational. It’s borderline medical.
But also?
It’s survival.
Stress: The 21st Century Silent Killer (But Also My Long-Term Tenant)
People read my posts and say, “Wow, you’re such an optimist,” and I laugh because if I weren’t, I would simply dissolve into a decorative pile.
Stress used to be the silent killer. Now it’s:
- a stray notification on your phone that says “We need to talk,”
- a electrical bill that arrives folded like it’s ashamed of itself,
- or the moment your child says “Mama…” in that tone that means something stinky is involved.
Stress and I are roommates at this point.
It doesn’t knock.
It just enters my soul and opens the fridge.
But here’s the plot twist:
I refuse to let it write my story.
Because if life already feels like a chaotic telenovela written by an underpaid intern, the least I can do is show up as comic relief.
So, Am I Wrong for Being Optimistic?
Probably.
But also – no.
Optimism isn’t believing life is good.
It’s believing life might become good at some unknown time in the future, and until then you’re allowed to laugh at the absurdity.
I have cried:
- in the doctor’s office,
- in the shower,
- in the stairwell,
- during the ceiling leak,
- after stepping on a Lego,
- and during commercials.
But I’ve also laughed at things I absolutely should not have laughed at:
- The moment my elliptical told me “Good job!” after being inactive for years.
- The time I tried to breathe deeply but ended up rage-cleaning the house.
- My daughter calling me “Erika” like we’re coworkers.
- The morning my jeans fit again and I briefly became religious.
This is what people don’t understand about optimism:
It’s not a personality trait.
It’s a coping strategy.
It’s how you look at a world falling apart at the seams and think:
“Well… at least the sunset is nice.”
Resilience, But Make It Balkanic
We Balkan women are raised to survive anything – except compliments.
We can rebuild homes, hold families together with leftover soup and emotional duct tape, manage disasters with grace, bake a cake during a crisis, and survive three decades of societal nonsense.
But if someone says “You’re doing great,” we short-circuit like a toaster thrown into the sea.
Yet this same resilience is what breeds our optimism.
Because after you’ve:
- buried dreams,
- buried expectations,
- buried half your sanity…
…you eventually reach a point where you think:
“I can survive literally anything except running out of coffee and protein.”
And strangely, that feels empowering.
Life Keeps Throwing Mountains; I Keep Hiking Them in Birkenstocks
When bad things happen now, I don’t collapse.
I sigh dramatically, complain to my husband, eat some protein, pet a cat, text a friend, and then – eventually – stand up again.
Not because I’m brave.
Not because I’m strong.
Not because I’m enlightened.
But because who has the time to stay down?
There are groceries to buy.
There are blog posts to write.
There is a small child asking for sweets every 14 minutes.
Optimism is refusing to let life’s absurdity win.
The Soft Part (Yes, I Always Have One)
For all my sarcasm, all my jokes, all my Balkan melodrama… I still believe in goodness.
Not in a cheesy way. In a stubborn way.
I believe that:
- people can heal,
- bodies can recover,
- relationships can be rebuilt,
- new dreams can be grown from ashes,
- and life – even a messy, chaotic, Croatian 2025 kind of life – can feel warm again.
I believe this because I’ve lived it.
I’ve watched things fall apart, burn down, disappoint me, reject me, betray me – and I’m still here, hydrating, lifting weights, writing feelings on the Internet, and loving people loudly.
If that’s wrong, I don’t want to be right.
So Yes – I’m an Optimist
Not because life has been kind to me. But because I’ve decided to be kind back.
Because bitterness is heavy. Because hope is lighter to carry.
Because despite everything life has thrown at me – the losses, the fires, the rejections, the chaos – I still wake up and think:
“Maybe today will surprise me.”
And sometimes?
It does.
In tiny, soft, miraculous ways.
A laugh.
A hug.
A book.
A meal.
A sunrise.
A moment.
And that’s enough.
It’s more than enough.
It’s the reason I keep going.
It’s the reason I keep writing.
It’s the reason I keep choosing optimism –
again
and again
and again.
Even when I shouldn’t.
Especially when I shouldn’t.
Because surviving is one thing.
But believing things can get better?
That’s the rebellion.
Erika Matic is a Croatian wannabe writer documenting the emotional comedy of modern adulthood, female resilience, Balkan chaos, and the quiet optimism that keeps us alive even when life behaves like an unsupervised toddler. She blends satire, sincerity, and mild existential dread into essays that make you feel seen, slightly roasted, and surprisingly hopeful.
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