Yay, I’m in a better mood! Okay, now to write something that isn’t word-barf. I celebrated my birthday today with my Mom + sister + step-family, and I guess I’ll celebrate it with my dad tomorrow. Heheh, it’s Mara’s Birthday Fortnight! Look up on your calendars, it’s an official holiday. It starts on July 4th and ends… eventually. But I’m very happy because guess what I got for my birthday? A belly-dancing hip scarf! This will probably mean nothing to most of you, but it’s the jingly thing belly-dancers wear around their hips. Su., P., W. and I studied belly-dancing from our English teacher last year, and it was really fun! I’ve forgotten almost everything though, so I’m planning on signing up for a class at the YMCA. Anyways…
I went to the bookstore today, and I wandered into the psychology section. And I found something absolutely wonderful. A book that is entirely devoted to the subject of talents! Now I’ll finally have one less subject keeping me up at night! But, then again, I’m sure I’ll find another perplexing subject to puzzle through with absolutely no understanding. I’m an insomniac. It’s my special talent to find completely worthless things to wonder about that keep me awake. One time I tried meditating, because sometimes people fall asleep while they meditate. Yeah… an hour later, I wasn’t asleep and I was having an argument with myself. Counting sheep doesn’t work either, since I tend to get fed up with it after forty sheep. Wait a minute, why am I talking about insomnia? Oh, right. I found a book about why we have talents and stuff.
Abrupt change of topic! (Just thought I’d warn you.) I found this song by Enya that’s really pretty. Here’s some of the lyrics:
Ever close your eyes, ever stop and listen?
Ever feel alive, and you’ve nothing missing?
You don’t need a reason
Let the day go on and on.
Last night, I listened to that song by accident and fell in love with it. It was very soothing (and pretty!). So, I created a playlist with six versions of it on youtube, and listened to it over and over. Which meant that I fell asleep at my desk for a while, but that’s okay. You know, I complain about insomnia a lot, but I must admit that occasionally I find things about it that I like. The biggest reason is that I love the knowledge that I’m the last one awake in the house. In a house of seven people, like at my Mom’s, it’s never quiet. But there’s this window of a couple of hours between when everyone else goes to sleep and when I go to sleep, and it’s completely peaceful and silent. It’s like that right now. Mmmm. I’m very happy.
I’m not quite sure what it is about me, but I love both being with people and I love being alone. I’m fine with both. When I’m with people I like, then I feel really happy. It doesn’t really matter what we talk about, or where we are, it’s just that I’m with them. I have a friend I’ve known since kindergarten, and we’ve been known to be in the same room for hours and not even talk to each other – we’ll just each be doing our own thing, reading or writing or whatever, and we’re both completely happy with it. We just like the company.
But at the same time, I’ll go batty if I’m around people for too long. I’m not talking a couple hours, I mean like… a week. It’s those times when I start thinking wistfully about becoming a hermit. When I make the mistake of voicing this dream to someone who doesn’t know me really well, they ask me “But wouldn’t you be lonely?”
But the thing is, I don’t feel lonely when I’m alone. My mom said that this is probably I just have a lot going on inside my head. I was skeptical about this at first, but I realized after a while that it’s completely true. I have so many things I want to think about. There all these things I want answers to, and a lot of these questions are individual-focused, which means that the answer is different for each person, so I can’t just look up the answer on Google. That’s how I started writing. I would have an idea for a story, and I would write it to figure out how it ended. The problem is, I almost never have the patience to write all the way to the ending. Wait a minute, am I making any sense? Sorry. I just… wanted to write. I didn’t really have a plan for this post, so I just figured that if I started writing, then it’d work itself out. I guess I just turned out writing word-barf again! Oh well. I’ll do better next time. I hope. I make no promises. Anyways, I hope everyone’s having a good time with their summer!
I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant. – Robert McCloskey
I love that quote for the sole reason that it tied my brain in knots the first time I read it. I thought I’d share it with all of you.
Bises,
Mara
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