Bubble Boy

There is a mindset that one must prod themselves into in order to be able to write hopefully-witty tidbits of literature. I'll tell you all, friends, that said mindset most preferably should be gained while drinking coffee. And there must be a certain degree of feistiness with which we write. Otherwise things become drab and dreary or, in my particular case, angry. Which is an emotion which seems to pervade the last few morsels of information about my life here. And this is so terribly unpleasant to read, I understand, so without any more ado I shall cut short my tirade of annoyances.

I happened across the path of an extremely terrifying notion last night which, for the most part, prompted the urge to explain what I encountered in this here conveniently-placed blog. I was left so confused (and still am) that in order to sort out my labyrinth of ponderings I need to talk it out.

I do believe that there is something to be said about consciousness. Now, don't go running off in a psychology-phobia fashion, I promise this will make as much sense as it can. What I mean is that we do funny, funny things. I feel like I have a selective consciousness; which is to say that there must be some part of myself and my mind that ignores half of the things that I should be aware of.

Superficially, this way of (unconsciously) choosing what I'm conscious of lives in the things like 'I'll make a grilled cheese...oh no, I left the burner on and now the apartment is burning...' Obviously my mind would like to take care of the trauma for me for burning my own apartment down.

But in a more applicable way, my head tends to repress (is that the right word for this?) things like 'your brother's in critical condition and we don't know if he'll make it' or 'your best friend's step-dad has a funeral today and you can't make it.' Things like that feel suspiciously like they'll come back to bite you in the ass because you have no time (or no coping mechanism, whichever feels right for you) to deal with them.

I haven't been there for any of the sickeningly traumatic events that directly affect me.

Am I blessed for this? Or does my head protect me from hurting? It's an upsettingly gnawing question I unearthed. It's like the Jumanji heartbeat thing, where if you don't play the game, it wakes you up in the middle of the night and won't go away until somebody wins. Damn you, Robin Williams!

My apartment didn't burn down, by the way. I just want to make sure you're not fretting about the burner I figuratively left on. Oh! There's a third part of my selective consciousness that rears its head as well, and that is the part where I have an awesome ability to see what traits I want to see in the people I meet. I'm sure it's a manifestation of an overly active imagination that I can project personality traits onto people, but its my stupid consciousness that will believe and perpetuate what I fabricate. I even do this to myself - I can convince my own mind that I love olives if I want.

Okay, that's a lie. I'm kidding myself if I think I can convince myself to love olives. Sorry, Mom.

But you get the point! It's amazingly exciting. And depressing. It's like living in a harmless bubble of ignorance and regardless of whether the 50-50 chance coin lands on bad-person or awesome-person, the surprise of who you really are is always like Christmas morning for me.

Being here in Indiana is like living in a separate reality, which is another little something I just realized the other day. One would assume that a town with an anti-abortion clinic and flyers for (there is literally a stack of them right here) the 1st Annual Cornhole Tournament would present a slightly different scene than Manhattan. Maybe it's just me. Although I do honestly phase out into a different life here in Huntington; scrolling through pictures of my semester in Italy, I nearly lost my mind trying to convince myself I actually spent a semester in Florence. Che pazzo! E capire, posso da fare molte cose in italiano, ancora!!! As one of the actresses here was (not at all forcefully) influenced to say by yours truly - mamma mia!!!

Just for contrast's sake, of course. What a different thing. It blows me away to think of the countless number of pathways to which life branches off. One minute you could be hangin' out on the unpleasantly rocky-ass beach in northern Italia and the next you'll find yourself at a coffee shop in Huntington, Indiana. Mixes things up, doesn't it?

I feel like I have everything to say but no words that sound like how I want it to come out.

Maybe that's why people spend their whole lives wishing they knew other languages. If you take the words that mean the most out of every single language, could you come up with the perfect way of expressing yourself, or would you just end up being able to say yes, no, and I love you in every single language?