Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Brainspew

I just read this post by Danielle and decided to blog my thoughts on and related to it, in a very unstructured, chain-of-thought, rambley kind of way.

Danielle writes about thinking a lot. Me too. All the freaking time. In my interview for my job, I remember being asked questions about my personality, and launching into a nervous mini-ramble about how I’m always thinking. I guess it’s human to think and over think, though my difference is that I don’t speak aloud 99% of my thoughts. If you know me you’ll understand that, and if you don’t then yeah, I probably am as weird as that makes me sound!

I really love this lyric she quoted by Death Cab for Cutie: “And it came to me then that every plan is a tiny prayer to Father Time.” I’m not familiar with the song to be honest but wow, brilliant. Engrave it on my headstone please.

I have thoughts like she describes a lot too, but about the stupidest things. Like after the Dexter season finale last year, I had the most horrible thought- what if I die and don’t get to see season five?! Totally the end of the world.

Seriously though, as a child I had so much fear of something happening to my parents. My Dad used to drive a truck over the Rimutaka Hill every day, both ways (best video I could find here, 23 seconds long) and I was absolutely terrified that he was going to be in an accident, and roll the truck off the road. I know some people think that if they say some horrible fear aloud then it will happen, but as a kid I thought that if I said something aloud then it wouldn’t happen, because that would be too much of a coincidence. When I worried so much that I cried, I would go and talk to my parents, but say I’d dreamed it. With retrospect I was embarrassed and I think that I believed having these bad thoughts consciously made me a bad person.

I deliberately force myself not to think about stuff like that anymore, it’s too upsetting. Sometimes a storyline in a TV show will make me think about what would happen and how I’d react if it happened to my equivalent loved one, but in all honesty that’s usually in order to critique an actor’s performance!

Last year one of my closest friends lost her little brother in a totally random, ridiculous accident. I’d only met him a handful of times, but I went to his tragic, beautiful funeral for her, and I think it was the first time in my life that I’d actually realised how short and fragile life is. I’d already used up 20 years of my life before I understood that it really could be over, any day. I’d known people to die before, even known people who were murdered, and I’ve heard “life’s short” all the time. But I’d never truly realised until he died, that sometimes there are no warnings and it’s just over.

Since then, have I changed the way I live my life everyday, stopping to smell the flowers and dancing in the rain? No. I’m human, I’m fickle, I bitch and argue about stupid things, am too embarrassed to say “I love you” 24/7 and my hair frizzes up like an afro in the rain. But it has changed me in subtle ways; I’ll write things I can’t say out loud to my loved ones in birthday cards and emails, so they’re at least communicated. I spend more time doing things I enjoy. Funnily enough it’s made me worry less than ever about random tragic things happening, because I’ve realised there’s absolutely nothing we can do to stop them. I’m fortunate to be here, I’m fortunate that everything’s going so well for me, and I’m aware that this won’t always be the case. Life is so unpredictable, we can’t possibly prepare ourselves for everything, so why worry? Let’s just enjoy.

2 comments:

Sarah said... Best Blogger Tips[Reply to comment]Best Blogger Templates

I really liked that post!!!! I don't even know why, but I couldn't stop reading!

Teddi said... Best Blogger Tips[Reply to comment]Best Blogger Templates

precious sigh