Why I Need To Just Shut Up & Enjoy

Yes yes yes. I know I blogged yesterday. But I was grumpy. And depressed. And possibly hormonal. Now it’s a new day and I’m none of those things. (Except I’m probably still hormonal.) I don’t know if it’s because it’s pretty outside or that I went for a run today and wasn’t in horrible pain, or if I’ve finally had an afternoon to my selfish little self. It’s probably all of the above. And my cold medicine has made me very relaxed.

Okay. So I went for a run today in my cute new running shoes in the hopes that my shooting bone-pain in my foot would stop shooting. I put on the soundtrack to Glee (Yes. Yes.  I did.) and started running. Once I got over the oh-god-my-boobs-move-like-juggling-cantaloupes I started to think. Thinking is good. Obsessing, not so good. This thankfully was just run-of-the-mill thinking (with no horrible bone pain).

In my Intro to Literature class we’ve been talking a lot about irony or, you know, the difference between reality and fantasy. So if Willy Loman in a “Death of a Salesman” knew earlier and accepted that he was just a mediocre salesman, an average guy, could he have been okay? Was it his desire to be #1, to be well-liked that ultimately destroyed him?

It occurred to me that the beauty and drama in writing happens not with actions between characters, but with their emotions. It’s the things in life that we want but cannot have, the lies we tell ourselves, the dreams we have that keep us interesting and involved…and sometimes they can break our hearts.

It’s hard to live in the moment and be happy with what you have. My mind is always onto the next thing. Always wanting more, wondering if I’ve made the right decision. Mostly it’s good. It keeps me striving. But in relationships it gets especially tough. If you have an image in your mind of Mr. Right then how can you recognize your friend Harry waiting in the wings? Yes, that’s a reference to When Harry Met Sally. One of the greatest love stories ever. Here are these two people who are perfectly compatible, but they’re so stupid they don’t even realize it. Doesn’t everyone wonder if they’re standing right next to the One, but you don’t see him because you’re looking in the opposite direction?

I don’t know where I was going with this.

Oh, yeah. Reality. Fantasy. Sometimes though if we’re looking so hard for that movie fantasy, then we miss out on the life we’re having. Maybe if we’re looking for Harry we don’t notice the tall, skinny guy in the corner. It’s so confusing. And if we’re always focused on the life we want instead of have, then we don’t enjoy our friends or our jobs because we’re so busy trying to do something else.

I’m really close to an epiphany. Don’t stop don’t stop don’t stop…

Hmm. Not going to happen today.

I probably need to run a little more. It calms me down and helps me focus. I don’t know exactly what I’m trying to say right now except even with all my neuroses and obsessing and questioning, I really am happy with my reality. Today I got to sit in my backyard and read a magazine. How decadent! I got to talk about literature this morning. Tomorrow I’ll have my kids and I’ll narrate an audio book. Tonight I might go see a movie with Biff (he doesn’t know this yet because I just decided). Next week I’m hanging out with my girlfriends and a hopefully a dear friend who likes to talk to me about soup.

Then why don’t I just shut up and enjoy myself for a while, huh?

Awwww, yeah. That’s the epiphany! I need to shut up and enjoy. I’m going to go sit back outside. Crack open a bottle of wine. Sit back and…

It feels gooooood.

Cheers.