Two Hours In My Head

On a whim, I bought a tiny notebook today after seeing Benjamin Button at the dollar theater and decided to try to write down every tangible thought as it occurred during my trek back to my apartment. 

-Indigo child becomes indighost adult

-Empathetic to a fault breeds numbness in defense

-Faced with apathy I will take action

-I wonder if we're attracted to the idea of people before we're attracted to the people themselves 

-Is true love the realization you love someone more than the role they fulfill?

-Do I feel my own pain ever or is it easier to just carry others' and make it my own?

-There was a man in the movie theater today who twice answered his phone to tell the person who called that he couldn't talk because he was watching a movie. This made me sad and angry. No one has even three hours to give to themselves anymore. Or to everyone else around them who is physically present. Human contact has become pixelated or solely auditory.

-Spring has never looked so foreign. The budding trees are oddly unwelcomed this year. I preferred the trees in their skeletal state. I like watching the sky.

-Cities feel more urban on gray days

-I hate the loneliness of being a non-smoker

-Dad's love-style is "The Provider". Last night he kept refilling my water glass. It was really sweet

-I don't think I can ever go back to MY New Orleans. When I go, it will be a new city

-The more I get out--words, emotions, thoughts, sweat--the less empty I feel

-If I don't go for a run today I'm likely to explode

-Apathy and hesitation are reactions to repeated disappointment

-Young love happens between two people uncorrupted by heartbreak ready to dive in without a second thought

-Trust can be regained with time

-Delayed honesty breeds doubt

-I feel really hurt by my mom's actions last week and wonder how long has this been going on? Could I have ever seen it when I was a kid? How deep into the rabbit hole are we now and how much further do we have to fall?

-Remember: it's not your fall to take. You don't have to fall, too. Do what you can, but you cannot leave the sidelines without making this worse. Yup. You're grounded, Missy. Says who? Yourself

-I feel like I've aged a decade in the last two months

-I have to be the most stable person in my life. Our closest most stable friends will only seem as stable as we ourselves are

[I have terrible handwriting and tend to cluster letters together li kethi s sometimes. That's relevant for the next thought]

-Ass table! Haha!! I will always be thirteen

-We are every age we've ever been. 1-19 never really went away. Sometimes I feel like some of the ages to come are already here

-Late at night my face looks like a real life Picasso painting--eye droop, slanted smile edged to the left, etc. The longer I study it, the less it feels like my own. I get the same feeling when I try to examine my life. Perhaps some things are best viewed in fleeting glances

-I think I believe in symbolism in real life. Or at least that it's worth taking note of if I ever write a fictionalized memoir. A lot of things have broken or been lost lately. My take is that they are all symbolizing a break from the past, moving on, and new directions. Or possibly just absent-mindedness. And sentimental pack-ratism has expiration dates for the products involved

-Urban Apathy: Learned numbness after repeated exposure to blatant pain and suffering

-My bicycle is my most valuable form of transit. It's finally surpassed my car. Sorry Olga.

I'm not always this dark. But I can't pretend like it's never there. And I think there were some interesting thoughts lurking in my brain during that walk and bus ride home. I'm glad they're here too because I give myself I week before I lose or accidentally destroy the mini notebook I bought today.

The Key To Happiness

I have found the key to happiness. Actually, I've suspected it all along, but this last week I've been feeling it with enough certainty to commit it to writing. Ready for it?

Hindsight.

Sorry if that came as a let down. Doesn't do much for the present does it?

I've noticed that the best times of my life occur simultaneously with the worst. And then those times are broken up by fugue states where my mind is focused on recalling the times before and the ones to come. Kind of a less memorable span of life where reflection is essential. But when it's all over, we have the ability to pick the lenses through which we wish to view our past. And which memories we're going to file at the front of our brain. And it gets better--we can adopt a more positive hindsight view. 

Our current experiences can change the way in which we view the past. I think this is one of the reasons I work with kids. It jogs the happier memories of my childhood, many I thought I'd permanently forgotten. I guess in a way it's life therapy. 

What's A Drink Or Two? Or Three?

Someone very close to me told me today that she's going to start going back to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. We had dinner the day before and it was after that evening she decided to seek help.

I don't think rock bottom has to happen to decide to make things better. Not everyone waits  until they're diagnosed with cancer to quit smoking.

But still. She had a few drinks before dinner and then two with the meal. Not terribly impaired afterward and after all, it was a stressful day. And I'd grown up never really thinking twice about that kind of thing. Okay. I lied. In a high school psych class alcoholism was defined as something to the effect of not being able to go without alcohol. I thought about my dad taking martinis with him on a backpacking trip and an accusatory lightbulb went off in my head that shined on everyone around me. But then, when I left school, I noticed the way a lot of twenty-somethings drink. And I stopped thinking about it.

This person had done AA before, but edged out of sobriety eventually. Never really seemed a big problem that she was drinking. Then again, I only learned a few months ago that she'd done AA before. And another reason not to worry is that she's always been high functioning. Never lost a job because of drinking. Might have fallen behind on a lot of deadlines, but that could've easily been attributed to a lot of life factors. I've known a lot of high functioning alcoholics, to use the diagnostic jargon. So nothing seemed too abnormal.

Thoughts are running through my head. I'm proud of her for taking this step again. And maybe this should be reason to stop worrying, because things are getting worked out. But I can't help thinking that I should've been worrying before. And guilty that I wasn't. And then I feel guilty for feeling guilty because this isn't about me.

Since I left this persons house today, the thought has crossed my mind several times that I'd like to talk to someone about this. First, I think 'I don't really know who I'd call.' But then I think 'There's nothing to talk about. "Person" drinks. We know. "Person" is seeking help. This is fantastic. So what's there to tell?' 

Last week, I felt more emotions than words, so I melted crayons in my oven and used them to put the emotions onto paper. And I fingerpainted with watercolors. Today, hard as they were to get out, I'm glad I chose to use words. This is an event I need to revisit and it's better to leave something less abstract.

Looking

I walked into a store the other day. It doesn't matter what store because this happens a lot and could easily be any store. I wander around for a few minutes before a salesperson comes up to me and asks:

Are you looking for anything in particular?

No. 

It's an honest answer. So why am I in there in the first place? What could I possibly be looking for in a store when I don't even have my wallet with me?

Later that afternoon, I come home to my apartment, read a page of a book, and then head to the kitchen. I open the fridge and scan the shelves. I peek in the freezer and open up the cabinets. I even sift through the fruit bowl. But I'm not even hungry. I go back to my book and a chapter later, I'm back in the kitchen. A couple of grapes find their way into my mouth, but they weren't what I was looking for. I knew that before I popped them in my mouth. I even knew that before I got up off the couch.

Night falls and I go to work. After I put the kids to bed, I roam my client's home, ducking my head into each room. Maybe I'll pick up a toy or fold a blanket, but I know that's not what I was really searching for. 

Some days, I ride my bike around the city. Other days I run. But however I'm traveling, I'm rubbernecking every step of the way. But I never stay any place long. And neither do my eyes. They keep scanning.

It's a long path to finding what you're looking for by using process of elimination. That seems to be all I'm going off of these days.

And all this looking must be leading somewhere. What the hell do I keep looking for?!

Answers?

Myself?

Perhaps I'm just looking for the sake of looking.

Sympathy For The Sole

I remember a time when I boycotted footwear altogether and would roam the halls of my high school barefoot. Occasionally, a security guard would bark at me and I would pretend to reach into my bag as if looking for shoes, turn the corner, and keep walking with nothing between my body and the linoleum. I felt connected to the world. I intimately knew every surface I walked on and felt like the earth was imparting its wisdom onto me.

Later, after I'd been kicked out of many establishments, I came to a personal compromise of sandals only. Chacos to be specific. I figured that feeling the wind on my toes was still feeling something. Take the texture out and temperature still prevails.

I had to compromise even further when I entered the working world and all of a sudden, closed-toe and closed-heel footwear was required. My podalic freedom was further stifled by government issued steel toes. I'd gone from the free-footin' life to a rigid and binding one of thick wool socks and above the ankle stiff leather boots.

Today my flip flop cracked. I remember when I bought these flip flops. Last summer in New Orleans, I branched out from Chacos when I realized that the look of a dress with Chacos wasn't how I wanted to go out clubbing. So I bought this $2 pair of brown flip flops. I soon realized I could shower in them, avoid fungus, and they'd be dry ten times faster than Chacos. So I kept them. 

Today I broke out the flip flops for the first time since I've been back in Denver. It was strange how I could feel the spikes on my bike pedals through the rubber. When I crash landed at the bike rack, the toe portion of the sandal cracked and by the end of my first class the thong threw in the towel and died. I put both sandals in my bag and went about my day.

It wasn't long before memories of sensations came flooding back to me.

Asphalt is hot.

The tar strips feel like walking on Swedish Fish.

The grayish white sidewalks still remember the cold from the night before.

One pebble is painful. Many pebbles are not.

Grass in winter feels nothing like summer. It has a crunch of seasonal rigor mortis.

Linoleum feel stickier in shoes than it does barefoot.

Those who may notice the lack of footwear don't acknowledge it. I highly suspect that most people don't even look at the feet of others moving in crowds.

The muscles and bones in the feet are amazing to watch as they curl around each step on a flight of stairs. It's visible balance and forward momentum.

I rode my bike home during my three hour break between classes. What I thought I felt of the bike pedal through my sandal was nothing like pedal against callous. It's painful, but once a rhythm is established, it becomes tolerable. The arches are the worst if the foot slips, but it's better just to keep the bike moving forward. More pressure needs to be applied to gather momentum, something I hadn't thought about until today.

I'd like to make a public apology to my shoes. I'm sorry I stopped thinking about everything I put you through. Thank you for protecting my feet. Though I still do enjoy going without you, I'm grateful for your existence. And how fortunate I am to own not just one pair, but several.

Today I feel connected. To the earth. To my feet. To my former barefoot self. And to my shoes. It's been happening a lot lately, but a lot of good comes from broken things.