I spend a lot of time in my head.
I did an inventory of myself recently, and I discovered that I’m pretty much always writing a story about something in my mind during every hour that I’m awake. If I’m listening to a podcast, I’m always thinking about how the topic makes me feel, and what that story is inspiring me to write. If I’m listening to a song, then I’m tabulating thoughts about what the lyrics mean to me, or I’m projecting into the words what I think the songwriter must’ve been going through when he or she wrote the song.
No matter what I’m doing — even if it’s wiping down a countertop or ironing a shirt, a rumble of sentences, thoughts, and ideas are constantly rolling around inside of me at all times…
Currently, I’ve been working on some new material for a workshop series I’m developing, and I’ve really been thinking about how quick I am to write a narrative in my head. Most of my narratives these days are more like queries I’m teasing out to help me better understand the current state of the world so I can figure out my place in it as an author. But other narratives that are moving through my mental processor seem to be guiding me into a better understanding of how I tend to assign meaning to the things I’m noticing in my life.
Today, I was jamming out to Sting while washing my bathroom floors (Cinderella-style) with a lovely lemon scented cleaner, and I was thinking about a time when I assigned a totally inaccurate meaning to something when I was just a kid.
My dad used to referee high school wrestling tournaments. (Really? Yep.) Sweaty, sinewy boys flipping and flopping around in rubbery-looking onesies was certainly of no interest to me. But going to the gym to do some exploring with my older sister was always something I wanted to do. I loved following her around because her hair was so long and bouncy, and she had a cautious curiosity that was exactly the right balance of careful ambition for an interested six-year-old like me.
I have this very clear memory of a big evening of adventure while my dad was completely focused on two middle-weight pubescents trying to pin each other for the two-point takedown.
We were tired of watching my dad slapping the mat and blowing his whistle, so my sister and I decided to see what it was like in the boy’s locker room — since no one was looking. It turns out, it was not all that different from the girl’s locker room, but it smelled even more sweaty and gross, and the shower area didn’t have any curtains.
Not long after my sister and I had thoroughly explored the boy’s locker room, my mom showed up to take us home. I remember being very excited to see her because I wanted to show her this amazing new discovery we made that night during our exploring expedition.
I don’t remember how we convinced our mom to follow us into the boy’s locker room, but I know she did because I can still see the look on her face when my sister and I showed her the “amazing hand washer sinks” lining the back wall next to all of the toilet stalls. I even remember pulling down the handle to make the water rush into the basin of the “sink” just before I asked my mom about the “sticky soap thing” stuck to the bottom of the basin.
The look of horror on my mom’s face — and her immediate reaction to rush my sister and me into the girl’s locker room for a very thorough hand washing — almost makes me feel like I should be wearing some protective gloves as I type out this memory! And when my mom explained that the “amazing hand washer sink” was where boys pee, it was suddenly very clear to me that assigning the wrong meaning to something can be very problematic when you’re an OCD girl like me.
While I know that is a ridiculous memory, the lesson of that story is perfectly exaggerated in my mind these days, and that exaggeration is very useful. When I was a kid, I had wandered off into an unknown space and used only my childish intellect to understand something new that I encountered. But as an adult, I find that I’m not as willing to wander into the unknown anymore. I suppose that is because I know more than I used to, but if I’m being honest with myself, it’s also because I’ve been hiding for such a long time.
And… If I’m being really, really honest with myself, I recognize how easily I can assign the “wrong meaning” to things if I’m not careful.
This is the last full week I have to prep myself for my first very big step back into the mix of things as an author. I know attending one giant media conference isn’t going to suddenly launch me into some kind of frenzied success. But for me, it’s a lot like sneaking into the boy’s locker room while no one is looking. It’s a room I think I can imagine with some degree of accuracy, but I know there will be things I don’t understand, and experiences I don’t know how to anticipate.
My voice has been constantly writing stories and thinking thoughts for more than a decade now, but very few people have heard me share my musing out loud. I’ve been a shadow of myself for a reason. I called the reason “survival,” but the real meaning of my hiatus was more accurately, “self-protection.” But the careful ambition of my youth is still part of who I am, and so I’m getting pretty excited about attending CPAC next week! A little step forward into a busy, bustling world where everyone has a clarified sense of purpose is a good step forward for me, I believe!
The main thing is when I get there, I really don’t want to make any huge mistakes — like washing my hands in the wrong places… However, I do want to be open and curious.
