Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Symbolism Everywhere

Isn't it nice to be able to just shut your brain off, chill out, and not think about a damn thing? Your mind a blank slate, nothing running through it, and everything is just on pause... relaxing, isn't it? Be thankful if you can do it. I can't. Sure, I can try to veg out, but no matter how hard I try to flick the off switch on my brain, it never completely powers down. It's both a blessing and a curse. Some days it would be wonderful to be able to go blank, sit back, and let myself be enamored by the garbage dump of reality programming on tv, but then I realize I actually don't know if I would want that.

I'm not going to lie, having a brain that soaks up everything and whose gears are constantly turning has its benefits. There's no way I would have been valedictorian or graduated cum laude from college or made it as far in my job as I have without being able to be always thinking, processing, and analyzing everything that I take in. It's given me an advantage in life that not many people have.

It's also helped me to understand things way beyond my years. I've had multiple people tell me that I'm an "old soul", which was a phrase I had never heard before. In looking up the euphemism, I found that an old soul was someone who was wise to the world, weathered to the everyday storms of life, level-headed, empathic, and often understanding of the uniqueness of every experience. Is that really me? Probably. Is that what I really want to be? I don't know.

Sometimes it would be nice to go through life not realizing every consequence of every action you take, to live impulsively, to live selfishly, and to be ignorant when faced with a lose-lose situation. So many people do live that way, but I don't. I can't. And I don't want to, despite all of the downsides that come with it.

And this is all just my rambling in a long-winded lead up to mentioning two small events which most people wouldn't even consider worthwhile of any attention or a second thought. Ever since my freshman year of college, I have worn two necklaces--one being a cross on a silver chain and the other being any random necklace I felt like wearing for the week. If I didn't have two necklaces on, I would feel naked, incomplete, and exposed.

In the last couple of days, I've had two necklaces break on me. The first time was at home and I could have easily went to replace it, but chose not to until the next day. The second time it happened at work and I was forced to spend the entire day without it... and unlike the previous time, I craved having something back on my neck. I was forced to be open and exposed and I hated it.

They're just necklaces, and it was just a coincidence that two broke so close together. But that's not how it is for me. These seemingly insignificant events have brought about hours of analyzing the symbolism behind what this "coincidence" could mean or represent. I also reflect on how I felt to be so exposed, to have something missing that is always there. And I forced myself to go without a necklace again today, forcing myself to still be exposed, to be naked, to explore things outside of what I was used to for so long.

Yeah, I know this is a pretty lame, emo-tinged, overly dramatic rambling, but sometimes I wonder if anyone ever takes the time to sit back and think about all of the small things in life any more. I want to know I'm not the only one who sits around wondering if there's symbolism in even the tiniest events. I hope so...

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