Things I am Obsessed With:
1. Scarves (Mostly semi-sheer organza, but I also love knit scarves)
2. Patchwork Purses
3. Patchwork Clothing
4. The color Purple (the actual color, not the book or movie. I've somehow ended up with more purple in my wardrobe than black. I even own purple pants. Of course, I'd never wear them in public.)
5. Jeweled Perfume Bottles
6. Seasonal Home Decor (mostly Autumn and Christmas, but a bit of everything, really)
7. Cheese (All kinds, even American)
8. Sweet Wine
9. Cookbooks
10. Poetry
11. Log Homes, Log Home Decor, Log Home magazines, etc.
12. The Blue Ridge Mountains (specifically in Georgia)
13. The Eiffel Tower
14. See's Chocolates
15. Damask
16. Paisley
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Thursday, June 10, 2010
What brought this on was partially a dream about a confrontation between my former friends Jessica, Jennifer, and I, and partially a conversation with a friend of mine about them (probably what brought on the dream.) I've been trying not to think about this very much because when I do, I get angry. I don't even like to talk about it because of how upset it makes me that two people I once considered best friends have treated me so poorly. But I probably need to get this down so I can get some of it out of my system.
I do not and have never taken kindly to having my sanity questioned. Mostly because I've only ever really felt insane and out of control about one thing in my life... And it wasn't Dan, Jessica, or Jennifer. Dan, as far as I'm concerned, is irrelevant. I was only attracted to him because he was there and have since (actually, almost immediately after) realized so. He was a fuck-up in the highest degree with no reasonable chance at ever forming meaningful attachment to anyone, and it didn't take me long to realize it. The aftermath of "Dan," however, has much more to do with the quality and caliber of people who once called themselves my friends than it did or does with him. He's detritus to me, a passing, regrettable fancy whose life and interactions with mine have ultimately proven unimportant. Dan, who Jennifer can only barely tolerate most of the time, whose company she's chosen over someone who's done so much for her and on her behalf, is not what this is about. It's not that she's still in contact with him that even bothers me, it's that she so callously insulted me to him that bothered me. It makes me honestly wonder how many times she's bad-mouthed me to other people, how many times she and Jessica have made fun of me or otherwise belittled me when I have never done nor would consider doing so to either of them. But, in spite of this, Dan didn't make me crazy. Even realizing that my friends were backstabbing self-absorbed assholes didn't make me crazy. The only thing (person, instance) in my life that I've ever questioned my reaction to was Darren, and that is and remains the only time in my life I've felt "out of control." I know the feeling well, and I know this isn't and wasn't it- not even close.
I suppose the starting point of all this has to have been JB. JB who Jennifer had it in her ridiculously jealous head I had some sort of interest in. I do not, have not, and most likely never will have anything other than ill-concealed contempt for that pathetic excuse for a human being. I pretended, briefly, to be his friend- on Jennifer's behalf. Any contact I had with JB up to and including the point of our (Jennifer's and my) break of contact was on her behalf and I never, at any point had anything other than her interests on my mind. My point was to prove that JB was an unfaithful bastard incapable of forming meaningful romantic attachment to her. I did that and then some. That Jennifer assigned some purposes to my behavior other than what it was speaks volumes more of her own mental instability and unwillingness to trust than mine. I certainly didn't enjoy, at any point, my conversations with JB. Not even when I talked to him after I dissolved my friendship with Jennifer. His usefulness was of a different nature- a body for a trivia team, perhaps holding some unimportant, esoteric nerdy knowledge I do not possess. I have been, was always, and never intended to become more than a distant acquaintance to him. I have no use for him, I know his type far too well and I don't need them in my life in any position of substance. I neither tried to hide nor intentionally flaunted my contact with him outside of my former relationship with Jennifer. When her sister, Jessica asked me who I was going to trivia with, I answered her truthfully without any form of embellishment.
Therein is where our own (that being, Jessica's and my) troubles began. Apparently answering such a question truthfully,in Jessica's psychotic frame of mind, was tantamount to flaunting some deeply secret liason with her sister's former love interest... (Which, first of all, he wasn't. At least, according to him. And never intended to be.) So, apparently by meeting JB for trivia (which, it turns out, didn't even happen. I just wasn't aware of it at the time), I'd done some unforgiveable betrayal to Jennifer (who, by all counts, at that point, I'd already made clear I wanted no further contact with anyway). If I had had it in mind to betray Jennifer, it's certainly not like she wasn't owed a betrayal on my behalf. After what she did to me, it would've been fair... But I'd already done her a like kindness, so that was far from my intention. My intentions were just as I've said they were. Apparently after finding out about my secret betrayal, Jennifer couldn't wait to write JB some ridiculous mea culpa in the form of a "birthday card" to try to rope him back in. I'm sure she thought that, in doing so, she was somehow hurting me... Reality is, I couldn't give a fuck. I'm sure she'll give him another chance and maybe, after he's fucked her and given her some disease or got her pregnant or killed her cat, she'll finally realize that I was right all along. Though it's really unlikely since it's hard for her to admit that anyone else can be right. Or, I suppose more accurately, that her "finely tuned sense of other people's intentions" is pretty much bullshit. That's why she keeps latching on to men she doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell with.
That all said, the fact that Jessica chose to question my mental stability is where things really went to hell. For one thing, in an e-mail I composed, I accused her of several things- which I'm choosing, for the sake of brevity (not that this will be that brief, but it's much shorter this way), not to go into. She denied them all, calling me paranoid. By the end of our round of discussions, she'd admitted that every single one of them was true, thereby making herself either wishy-washy as hell, or simply put, a liar. I wouldn't put either one past her, to be honest. She'd admitted in diary entries, e-mails, and conversations that she questioned her own mental well-being, stating that she thought she needed therapy. I hardly think she was in a place to be making judgment calls about anyone else's psychoses. She continually ignored and flagrantly challenged my own insistence that I was, mentally speaking, just fine. And still am. For reasons I've yet to work out, she thinks I think all my friends are "plotting against me." (Never have I suggested or implied by belief in any such thing. I don't think I'm important enough that people sit around thinking up ways to hurt me. I think she and Jennifer are independently thoughtless self-absorbed people and the fact that they're sisters means they united against me because of their loyalty to one another. No plotting necessary.) I assume, based on her reaction to my statement that Jennifer and Dan could get married and have kids if they wanted, that Jessica thought I'm secretly jealous of Jennifer's relationship with Dan, that I think they have some secret affair going on. I was being sarcastic, as I've always been, and Jessica took it literally. I'm pretty certain Jennifer doesn't want to have any form of sexual contact with Dan. Considering that he's been with a dog, I think that's probably a pretty solid decision on her part. But I don't have some paranoid delusion that they're in love and the fact that Jessica thought I was serious about that makes me think she's got paranoia of her own. Much the way she assumed that my comments about some "Christians" needing to learn how they were supposed to act were directed at her and Jennifer. God knows, they're not the only Christians who are backstabbing liars, but she chose to assume that I was talking about her. (I guess if the shoe fits, you can certainly put it on.) Much the way she accused me of "thinking I'm better than her" in some way that I've yet to work out and she's not yet managed to satisfactorily explain. So far, her recordable level of paranoia is looking leaps and bounds greater than my own. But then, I've always known I wasn't paranoid.
The biggest annoyance of all was her claim that people "walk on eggshells around me." Jessica, Jennifer, nor anyone else in our group of friends has ever walked on eggshells in my presence. Of us all, I am, as far as controlling my anger and being good natured and not moody, the best of the bunch, and anyone who denies that is completely full of shit. I challenged her to please give one instance in which I blew up about anything, and she never did. I assume that's because she couldn't think of one... probably because no such thing exists. I am far more stable, emotionally, than Jessica ever considered being. I don't take everything anyone says and try to warp it into a personal attack on myself or my family. I don't throw potentially lethal objects at people. I don't throw tantrums with firearms in my hands. I never have. It's not something I do. With my family, I yell. Sometimes I throw things (NOT heavy objects like baseball bats, and NOT at people) or punch walls if I'm particularly angry. But with my friends, not even that. I have a feeling, up until now, my friends would be hard pressed to think of a time I've been really mad at them, even when they deserved it.
So what is, if anything, wrong with me? I spend too much time alone, I admit it. I do not, as Jessica seems to have somehow surmised, spend too much time online. In truth, I spend very little time online, and certainly not in communicating with random people I meet there. I have dial-up internet at this point and honestly don't have the patience to sit around for hours waiting for pages to load and chats to lag. In the time that all this "spending too much time online" was supposed to be occurring, I've communicated with two people I didn't already know- two men I met on an online dating site and effectively gave them both the brush off. I read, I watch movies, and I job hunt. I clean my house. Sometimes, I go shopping. Online, I check e-mail and Facebook, sometimes Twitter, and that's about the culmination of what I do "online." Whatever I do, I find my own company far preferable to that of people who stab me in the back and attempt to derail my extremely valid anger as psychotic episodes simply because much of their own anger is a result of psychosis. Miranda, a mutual friend of Jessica, Jennifer, and myself seems to think that we just "need some time." The truth is, the longer this goes without the apologies I'm owed, the less likely there is to ever be an amicable resolution. I currently have nothing but resentment and contempt for both Jessica and Jennifer, and I do not forsee that changing. Ever. Honestly told, I don't miss them. There's no degree of lying to myself or anyone else in that. I miss having people nearby to do things with, but the fact of the matter is, I'd prefer to do things with just about anyone BUT the two of them. I don't trust them, have no good or positive feelings toward them, and generally think that my life is better off without them in it. Even if, by some miracale, they were to manage to make me want to be friends with them again, I'm not sure I'd do things with them the way we did... Because apparently, even though I've payed for gas and driven to meet them, they expect me to be beholden to them because my parents don't allow me to drive all over the countryside. (Not something that's in my control, I'm afraid. I don't know why they're this way, as they let my brother go pretty much anywhere...) The fact that they've belittled my driving (nevermind that they both, on a regular basis, run over curbs, run red lights and run off the road... none of which are things I do with anything like frequency- or that they've had more wrecks, dings, pings and scrapes than I've ever thought about) certainly hasn't made me want to offer to do the transporting any.
By logging into her facebook account, I did nothing to Jennifer that Jessica hadn't done to me, and I forgave her for it with barely an apology. Twice. (I haven't forgotten the incident where she took pictures of my room, invading my privacy without anything LIKE my permission, in case the incident where she read my private message on Facebook (which I also never gave her permission to do) wasn't enough.) The fact of the matter is, again, I forgave her for both of those things. My sins are no worse than hers, and I won't accept that they are. I won't do any extra penance for something as inoccuous as what I did was. That Jennifer has offered a half-assed apology, excluding most of what she did wrong "because she said it because she was worried about me" (I'm not sure how threatening someone with legal ramifications that don't exist is considered showing concern) does not absolve her. Partial apologies are not accepted. I honestly can't say whether I'd even accept any apologies offered at this point, and I'm certainly not accepting blame for anything that I haven't already. I apologized for my part in all this long ago and that's all I owed anyone... in retrospect, more than I owed Jennifer and more than she deserved. I owe Jessica no form of apology at all, and don't and won't offer any. The possibility that one or both of them might someday soon try to communicate with me honestly makes me sick to my stomach as I can't think of two people I'd less like to see or speak to. Having such a possible reunion looming over my head just makes me angry all over again, especially in light of the accusations of further bullshit I'm sure they're likely to throw at me. When the two of them can be wrong and admit they were wrong without trying to convince me it's my fault in any way, form, or fashion, then perhaps I will be willing to talk to them. Until then, I hope they just forget me and I'll continue forgetting them. I've already forgotten why I was ever friends with people like that.
I do not and have never taken kindly to having my sanity questioned. Mostly because I've only ever really felt insane and out of control about one thing in my life... And it wasn't Dan, Jessica, or Jennifer. Dan, as far as I'm concerned, is irrelevant. I was only attracted to him because he was there and have since (actually, almost immediately after) realized so. He was a fuck-up in the highest degree with no reasonable chance at ever forming meaningful attachment to anyone, and it didn't take me long to realize it. The aftermath of "Dan," however, has much more to do with the quality and caliber of people who once called themselves my friends than it did or does with him. He's detritus to me, a passing, regrettable fancy whose life and interactions with mine have ultimately proven unimportant. Dan, who Jennifer can only barely tolerate most of the time, whose company she's chosen over someone who's done so much for her and on her behalf, is not what this is about. It's not that she's still in contact with him that even bothers me, it's that she so callously insulted me to him that bothered me. It makes me honestly wonder how many times she's bad-mouthed me to other people, how many times she and Jessica have made fun of me or otherwise belittled me when I have never done nor would consider doing so to either of them. But, in spite of this, Dan didn't make me crazy. Even realizing that my friends were backstabbing self-absorbed assholes didn't make me crazy. The only thing (person, instance) in my life that I've ever questioned my reaction to was Darren, and that is and remains the only time in my life I've felt "out of control." I know the feeling well, and I know this isn't and wasn't it- not even close.
I suppose the starting point of all this has to have been JB. JB who Jennifer had it in her ridiculously jealous head I had some sort of interest in. I do not, have not, and most likely never will have anything other than ill-concealed contempt for that pathetic excuse for a human being. I pretended, briefly, to be his friend- on Jennifer's behalf. Any contact I had with JB up to and including the point of our (Jennifer's and my) break of contact was on her behalf and I never, at any point had anything other than her interests on my mind. My point was to prove that JB was an unfaithful bastard incapable of forming meaningful romantic attachment to her. I did that and then some. That Jennifer assigned some purposes to my behavior other than what it was speaks volumes more of her own mental instability and unwillingness to trust than mine. I certainly didn't enjoy, at any point, my conversations with JB. Not even when I talked to him after I dissolved my friendship with Jennifer. His usefulness was of a different nature- a body for a trivia team, perhaps holding some unimportant, esoteric nerdy knowledge I do not possess. I have been, was always, and never intended to become more than a distant acquaintance to him. I have no use for him, I know his type far too well and I don't need them in my life in any position of substance. I neither tried to hide nor intentionally flaunted my contact with him outside of my former relationship with Jennifer. When her sister, Jessica asked me who I was going to trivia with, I answered her truthfully without any form of embellishment.
Therein is where our own (that being, Jessica's and my) troubles began. Apparently answering such a question truthfully,in Jessica's psychotic frame of mind, was tantamount to flaunting some deeply secret liason with her sister's former love interest... (Which, first of all, he wasn't. At least, according to him. And never intended to be.) So, apparently by meeting JB for trivia (which, it turns out, didn't even happen. I just wasn't aware of it at the time), I'd done some unforgiveable betrayal to Jennifer (who, by all counts, at that point, I'd already made clear I wanted no further contact with anyway). If I had had it in mind to betray Jennifer, it's certainly not like she wasn't owed a betrayal on my behalf. After what she did to me, it would've been fair... But I'd already done her a like kindness, so that was far from my intention. My intentions were just as I've said they were. Apparently after finding out about my secret betrayal, Jennifer couldn't wait to write JB some ridiculous mea culpa in the form of a "birthday card" to try to rope him back in. I'm sure she thought that, in doing so, she was somehow hurting me... Reality is, I couldn't give a fuck. I'm sure she'll give him another chance and maybe, after he's fucked her and given her some disease or got her pregnant or killed her cat, she'll finally realize that I was right all along. Though it's really unlikely since it's hard for her to admit that anyone else can be right. Or, I suppose more accurately, that her "finely tuned sense of other people's intentions" is pretty much bullshit. That's why she keeps latching on to men she doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell with.
That all said, the fact that Jessica chose to question my mental stability is where things really went to hell. For one thing, in an e-mail I composed, I accused her of several things- which I'm choosing, for the sake of brevity (not that this will be that brief, but it's much shorter this way), not to go into. She denied them all, calling me paranoid. By the end of our round of discussions, she'd admitted that every single one of them was true, thereby making herself either wishy-washy as hell, or simply put, a liar. I wouldn't put either one past her, to be honest. She'd admitted in diary entries, e-mails, and conversations that she questioned her own mental well-being, stating that she thought she needed therapy. I hardly think she was in a place to be making judgment calls about anyone else's psychoses. She continually ignored and flagrantly challenged my own insistence that I was, mentally speaking, just fine. And still am. For reasons I've yet to work out, she thinks I think all my friends are "plotting against me." (Never have I suggested or implied by belief in any such thing. I don't think I'm important enough that people sit around thinking up ways to hurt me. I think she and Jennifer are independently thoughtless self-absorbed people and the fact that they're sisters means they united against me because of their loyalty to one another. No plotting necessary.) I assume, based on her reaction to my statement that Jennifer and Dan could get married and have kids if they wanted, that Jessica thought I'm secretly jealous of Jennifer's relationship with Dan, that I think they have some secret affair going on. I was being sarcastic, as I've always been, and Jessica took it literally. I'm pretty certain Jennifer doesn't want to have any form of sexual contact with Dan. Considering that he's been with a dog, I think that's probably a pretty solid decision on her part. But I don't have some paranoid delusion that they're in love and the fact that Jessica thought I was serious about that makes me think she's got paranoia of her own. Much the way she assumed that my comments about some "Christians" needing to learn how they were supposed to act were directed at her and Jennifer. God knows, they're not the only Christians who are backstabbing liars, but she chose to assume that I was talking about her. (I guess if the shoe fits, you can certainly put it on.) Much the way she accused me of "thinking I'm better than her" in some way that I've yet to work out and she's not yet managed to satisfactorily explain. So far, her recordable level of paranoia is looking leaps and bounds greater than my own. But then, I've always known I wasn't paranoid.
The biggest annoyance of all was her claim that people "walk on eggshells around me." Jessica, Jennifer, nor anyone else in our group of friends has ever walked on eggshells in my presence. Of us all, I am, as far as controlling my anger and being good natured and not moody, the best of the bunch, and anyone who denies that is completely full of shit. I challenged her to please give one instance in which I blew up about anything, and she never did. I assume that's because she couldn't think of one... probably because no such thing exists. I am far more stable, emotionally, than Jessica ever considered being. I don't take everything anyone says and try to warp it into a personal attack on myself or my family. I don't throw potentially lethal objects at people. I don't throw tantrums with firearms in my hands. I never have. It's not something I do. With my family, I yell. Sometimes I throw things (NOT heavy objects like baseball bats, and NOT at people) or punch walls if I'm particularly angry. But with my friends, not even that. I have a feeling, up until now, my friends would be hard pressed to think of a time I've been really mad at them, even when they deserved it.
So what is, if anything, wrong with me? I spend too much time alone, I admit it. I do not, as Jessica seems to have somehow surmised, spend too much time online. In truth, I spend very little time online, and certainly not in communicating with random people I meet there. I have dial-up internet at this point and honestly don't have the patience to sit around for hours waiting for pages to load and chats to lag. In the time that all this "spending too much time online" was supposed to be occurring, I've communicated with two people I didn't already know- two men I met on an online dating site and effectively gave them both the brush off. I read, I watch movies, and I job hunt. I clean my house. Sometimes, I go shopping. Online, I check e-mail and Facebook, sometimes Twitter, and that's about the culmination of what I do "online." Whatever I do, I find my own company far preferable to that of people who stab me in the back and attempt to derail my extremely valid anger as psychotic episodes simply because much of their own anger is a result of psychosis. Miranda, a mutual friend of Jessica, Jennifer, and myself seems to think that we just "need some time." The truth is, the longer this goes without the apologies I'm owed, the less likely there is to ever be an amicable resolution. I currently have nothing but resentment and contempt for both Jessica and Jennifer, and I do not forsee that changing. Ever. Honestly told, I don't miss them. There's no degree of lying to myself or anyone else in that. I miss having people nearby to do things with, but the fact of the matter is, I'd prefer to do things with just about anyone BUT the two of them. I don't trust them, have no good or positive feelings toward them, and generally think that my life is better off without them in it. Even if, by some miracale, they were to manage to make me want to be friends with them again, I'm not sure I'd do things with them the way we did... Because apparently, even though I've payed for gas and driven to meet them, they expect me to be beholden to them because my parents don't allow me to drive all over the countryside. (Not something that's in my control, I'm afraid. I don't know why they're this way, as they let my brother go pretty much anywhere...) The fact that they've belittled my driving (nevermind that they both, on a regular basis, run over curbs, run red lights and run off the road... none of which are things I do with anything like frequency- or that they've had more wrecks, dings, pings and scrapes than I've ever thought about) certainly hasn't made me want to offer to do the transporting any.
By logging into her facebook account, I did nothing to Jennifer that Jessica hadn't done to me, and I forgave her for it with barely an apology. Twice. (I haven't forgotten the incident where she took pictures of my room, invading my privacy without anything LIKE my permission, in case the incident where she read my private message on Facebook (which I also never gave her permission to do) wasn't enough.) The fact of the matter is, again, I forgave her for both of those things. My sins are no worse than hers, and I won't accept that they are. I won't do any extra penance for something as inoccuous as what I did was. That Jennifer has offered a half-assed apology, excluding most of what she did wrong "because she said it because she was worried about me" (I'm not sure how threatening someone with legal ramifications that don't exist is considered showing concern) does not absolve her. Partial apologies are not accepted. I honestly can't say whether I'd even accept any apologies offered at this point, and I'm certainly not accepting blame for anything that I haven't already. I apologized for my part in all this long ago and that's all I owed anyone... in retrospect, more than I owed Jennifer and more than she deserved. I owe Jessica no form of apology at all, and don't and won't offer any. The possibility that one or both of them might someday soon try to communicate with me honestly makes me sick to my stomach as I can't think of two people I'd less like to see or speak to. Having such a possible reunion looming over my head just makes me angry all over again, especially in light of the accusations of further bullshit I'm sure they're likely to throw at me. When the two of them can be wrong and admit they were wrong without trying to convince me it's my fault in any way, form, or fashion, then perhaps I will be willing to talk to them. Until then, I hope they just forget me and I'll continue forgetting them. I've already forgotten why I was ever friends with people like that.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
So, I had a bit of an epiphany today.
I have a ridiculously hard time believing in evolution for many reasons. I won't go into them all right now, but suffice it to say I'm not a backwoods Bible thumper. I've read all about why evolution should exist, and I find the argument low on evidence. It doesn't make sense to me and never has. Furthermore, it pisses me off that schools are forced to teach it when, much like intelligent design, it's only a theory. I agree that schools shouldn't teach the Bible, specifically... But I think the idea that the earth was created by SOMETHING is at least as legitimate as evolution. But that's an entirely different story.
Anyway, my realization today (probably not new to people who spend lots of time thinking about these things) is this: if evolution does exist, why isn't there life on other planets? I mean, if there was a big explosion from the ether and the solar system was invented, logically the particles that make up Earth are the same particles that make up all the other planets. Everything is made from the same basic stuff. So, the very same "stuff" that supposedly came together to create a cell here on Earth has to be on other planets as well. What stopped that stuff from coming together on Jupiter or Venus? Okay, one could argue that our atmosphere was the only one conducive to life forming, but that's not really the case- the atmosphere on Mars is reasonably similar to our own- similar enough that it could support life. Besides, Evolutionists claim that species adapt to their conditions- there are bacteria that live inside volcanoes, even bacteria that can survive without oxygen! So why couldn't cells adapt to conditions on any other planet, even though those conditions might be less than ideal? It just doesn't make sense!
This isn't the only reason I believe what I do, by far... But it's a reason I hadn't considered until today. I'm certainly not the world's greatest Christian. In fact, I don't even really like Fundamentalism, per se. I just don't think we got here by accident, and to me there's simply more evidence to support this notion than there is to the contrary.
I have a ridiculously hard time believing in evolution for many reasons. I won't go into them all right now, but suffice it to say I'm not a backwoods Bible thumper. I've read all about why evolution should exist, and I find the argument low on evidence. It doesn't make sense to me and never has. Furthermore, it pisses me off that schools are forced to teach it when, much like intelligent design, it's only a theory. I agree that schools shouldn't teach the Bible, specifically... But I think the idea that the earth was created by SOMETHING is at least as legitimate as evolution. But that's an entirely different story.
Anyway, my realization today (probably not new to people who spend lots of time thinking about these things) is this: if evolution does exist, why isn't there life on other planets? I mean, if there was a big explosion from the ether and the solar system was invented, logically the particles that make up Earth are the same particles that make up all the other planets. Everything is made from the same basic stuff. So, the very same "stuff" that supposedly came together to create a cell here on Earth has to be on other planets as well. What stopped that stuff from coming together on Jupiter or Venus? Okay, one could argue that our atmosphere was the only one conducive to life forming, but that's not really the case- the atmosphere on Mars is reasonably similar to our own- similar enough that it could support life. Besides, Evolutionists claim that species adapt to their conditions- there are bacteria that live inside volcanoes, even bacteria that can survive without oxygen! So why couldn't cells adapt to conditions on any other planet, even though those conditions might be less than ideal? It just doesn't make sense!
This isn't the only reason I believe what I do, by far... But it's a reason I hadn't considered until today. I'm certainly not the world's greatest Christian. In fact, I don't even really like Fundamentalism, per se. I just don't think we got here by accident, and to me there's simply more evidence to support this notion than there is to the contrary.
Monday, March 29, 2010
I frequently wonder about how memory works. I can't count the number of times I've sat with my parents on any given evening and listened to them tell stories about their childhood. My mother, she can listen to a song on an oldies station and tell you what year it was popular, what grade she was in in school, and a lot of times, some memory associated with it.
My memory is nothing like that. There is nothing that clear from my childhood. I don't know if I've blocked it out (I didn't have a particularly painful childhood, but I was made fun of some for being overweight), or if my memory just doesn't work that way. When I hear a song from my childhood, I usually can't tell you what year it was popular or any particular memory associated with it, but I can tell you exactly how hearing that song made me feel. There are songs that I associate with crushes, with depression, with anger, with death... I can tell you not necessarily what season a song was popular, but what season the song evokes in my mind. "Tiny Dancer" is Summer. So is "Brown Eyed Girl." "What a Wonderful World" is spring... but maybe that one's obvious. "Imitation of Life" by REM is fall. A lot of eighties songs are winter. I don't know why. So is anything by Tool. And there are songs that evoke a very specific moment... so much so that I can almost see the actual memory in my mind.
Smells and tastes can do this, too. I have strong, clear flashes of memory... a lot of times, I can't tell you when they happened, but I can usually tell you who was there, the smells I associate with them, the sounds, what the sky looked like. They are overwhelmingly clear, but they're brief... they last a few seconds or minutes, but once they're over, I don't know anything else that might've happened that day, or even what year they're from. I can usually tell you what season they're from... because overwhelmingly, they're almost all from spring or summer. I think sometimes that my brain actually shuts down in winter. This is why I can never tell you what my best Christmas was, but I can tell you about my favorite birthdays (I was born in August) and why I remember winning the prize egg at the Easter Egg Hunt at my grandpa's three or four years in a row. I can remember what it looked like one year, even. (It was plastic, about the size my hand is now, light purple, had a light-brown rabbit with a fluffy white tail on top. I'm pretty sure the rabbit had an Easter basket, and there were either pastel flowers or pastel easter eggs on the front. I think eggs.) In certain memories, I can tell you what clothes I was wearing. (Distant memories, even. I remember a pair of pink plaid shorts I got at a yard sale one Easter because I was wearing pants and I was hot, and it was the only thing that was open. I was eight or nine that year. Or the oversized purple polka dot sweatshirt I kept pulled over my hips to hide a blood stain on my pants in 6th grade in PE. I'm pretty sure we were playing volleyball that day.)
My favorite memories I sometimes can't place in time. I just remember as a young child, taking Sunday afternoon naps on my parent's bed, the windows open and an oscillating fan lulling me to sleep. I don't know how old I was. The way the smell of gasoline and coffee or a certain slant of light (to borrow a phrase from Emily Dickinson) in the sky reminds me of going on vacation. The way the smell of fresh tomatoes or a pound cake with a crisp crust makes me think of my dead grandmother and sometimes makes me cry. The way honeysuckle reminds me of taking walks on the red dirt road near my house. Photo ops from my mind, though not always visual. A flash here, a flash there...
Maybe this is the way memory is for most people, and my mother, who seems to remember everything so clearly, right down to how much a can of coke cost when she was in third grade, is an anomaly. On the other hand, maybe it just seems like her memories are clearer than mine, that she remembers songs that way because when she was growing up, there weren't 300 stations playing different music, but four or five that all played top 40. Maybe she can tell you what a can of coke cost because, when she was my age, Coca-Cola was a treat, and her mother actually let her walk to the store and buy things herself.
Overall, it seems like I don't really have exceptionally clear memories about anything until I got in college. Maybe I was subconsciously really unhappy, and I didn't even realize it. Or maybe I did realize it, and I've blocked the memory of that too. But that doesn't explain what does get through- the good and the bad. I know it's not that I have a bad memory. I have the lyrics to at least a few thousand songs and the verses of at least a dozen favorite poems all stored in my brain. I remember a few thousand totally useless facts that makes me really good at trivia. Maybe, in all honesty, I've just never really tried to remember. I don't have someone wanting to know what my childhood was like, so I've never had to really think about it. Or maybe memories come later, that you slowly begin to remember things you didn't know you'd forgotten. This past fall, I think it was, I suddenly and very clearly remembered a Sunday dinner at mema's house that, until that point, I had no recollection of... I checked with my mother to make sure I hadn't somehow invented it, and she confirmed that the timing was right. There was nothing special about it, but all the details flashed into my mind with alarming clarity- again, no idea how old I was, but I know what we were eating and that it was summer, and I remember us all being there.
Maybe there'll be more like that, later. If the need arises. In case someone, somewhere down the line, wants to know my past.
My memory is nothing like that. There is nothing that clear from my childhood. I don't know if I've blocked it out (I didn't have a particularly painful childhood, but I was made fun of some for being overweight), or if my memory just doesn't work that way. When I hear a song from my childhood, I usually can't tell you what year it was popular or any particular memory associated with it, but I can tell you exactly how hearing that song made me feel. There are songs that I associate with crushes, with depression, with anger, with death... I can tell you not necessarily what season a song was popular, but what season the song evokes in my mind. "Tiny Dancer" is Summer. So is "Brown Eyed Girl." "What a Wonderful World" is spring... but maybe that one's obvious. "Imitation of Life" by REM is fall. A lot of eighties songs are winter. I don't know why. So is anything by Tool. And there are songs that evoke a very specific moment... so much so that I can almost see the actual memory in my mind.
Smells and tastes can do this, too. I have strong, clear flashes of memory... a lot of times, I can't tell you when they happened, but I can usually tell you who was there, the smells I associate with them, the sounds, what the sky looked like. They are overwhelmingly clear, but they're brief... they last a few seconds or minutes, but once they're over, I don't know anything else that might've happened that day, or even what year they're from. I can usually tell you what season they're from... because overwhelmingly, they're almost all from spring or summer. I think sometimes that my brain actually shuts down in winter. This is why I can never tell you what my best Christmas was, but I can tell you about my favorite birthdays (I was born in August) and why I remember winning the prize egg at the Easter Egg Hunt at my grandpa's three or four years in a row. I can remember what it looked like one year, even. (It was plastic, about the size my hand is now, light purple, had a light-brown rabbit with a fluffy white tail on top. I'm pretty sure the rabbit had an Easter basket, and there were either pastel flowers or pastel easter eggs on the front. I think eggs.) In certain memories, I can tell you what clothes I was wearing. (Distant memories, even. I remember a pair of pink plaid shorts I got at a yard sale one Easter because I was wearing pants and I was hot, and it was the only thing that was open. I was eight or nine that year. Or the oversized purple polka dot sweatshirt I kept pulled over my hips to hide a blood stain on my pants in 6th grade in PE. I'm pretty sure we were playing volleyball that day.)
My favorite memories I sometimes can't place in time. I just remember as a young child, taking Sunday afternoon naps on my parent's bed, the windows open and an oscillating fan lulling me to sleep. I don't know how old I was. The way the smell of gasoline and coffee or a certain slant of light (to borrow a phrase from Emily Dickinson) in the sky reminds me of going on vacation. The way the smell of fresh tomatoes or a pound cake with a crisp crust makes me think of my dead grandmother and sometimes makes me cry. The way honeysuckle reminds me of taking walks on the red dirt road near my house. Photo ops from my mind, though not always visual. A flash here, a flash there...
Maybe this is the way memory is for most people, and my mother, who seems to remember everything so clearly, right down to how much a can of coke cost when she was in third grade, is an anomaly. On the other hand, maybe it just seems like her memories are clearer than mine, that she remembers songs that way because when she was growing up, there weren't 300 stations playing different music, but four or five that all played top 40. Maybe she can tell you what a can of coke cost because, when she was my age, Coca-Cola was a treat, and her mother actually let her walk to the store and buy things herself.
Overall, it seems like I don't really have exceptionally clear memories about anything until I got in college. Maybe I was subconsciously really unhappy, and I didn't even realize it. Or maybe I did realize it, and I've blocked the memory of that too. But that doesn't explain what does get through- the good and the bad. I know it's not that I have a bad memory. I have the lyrics to at least a few thousand songs and the verses of at least a dozen favorite poems all stored in my brain. I remember a few thousand totally useless facts that makes me really good at trivia. Maybe, in all honesty, I've just never really tried to remember. I don't have someone wanting to know what my childhood was like, so I've never had to really think about it. Or maybe memories come later, that you slowly begin to remember things you didn't know you'd forgotten. This past fall, I think it was, I suddenly and very clearly remembered a Sunday dinner at mema's house that, until that point, I had no recollection of... I checked with my mother to make sure I hadn't somehow invented it, and she confirmed that the timing was right. There was nothing special about it, but all the details flashed into my mind with alarming clarity- again, no idea how old I was, but I know what we were eating and that it was summer, and I remember us all being there.
Maybe there'll be more like that, later. If the need arises. In case someone, somewhere down the line, wants to know my past.
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