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The Daring Girl on the Flying Trapeze

At times, life seems exactly like a circus, or at least a fair ground. Well my life, as it is, i suppose.

You wait in expectation as you see the big tents pop up one by one, in which, house marvels your imagination can barely come to grips with and your mind tumbles over comprehending. You breathe in the sweet and dewy air of cotton candy, popcorn and melting luscious caramel apples. Everything sparkles in day but especially at night.

You wait in line to purchase your one way ticket to the big show, to see the lion tamed, to see the bearded lady, to lose yourself in the house of mirrors, to stuff yourself with sugary confections fabricated in every wonderful form imaginable. But mostly, you buy that ticket to rekindle you childhood memories; to mount the Ferris Wheel, the Big Swing the magnifying Merry-Go-Round.

You settle yourself in line, and wait. Every time, you wait. You wait in seemingly endless lines that loop and lap and spiral for an eternity. You grow anxious and your heart races and soars with anticipation as you slowly inch your way minute by minute, second by second, breath by breath to the front of that line, because when your time comes you’ll be ready, you’ll have earned it and you’ll shine.

And now is your moment. You look up at the towering Ferris wheel that over shadows and over powers your being. You are humbled and speechless in its ever-magnificent presence. Perhaps you were not as prepared as you had hoped. You need more time. But, its too late now, as someone overtly keen and crazed with enthusiasm pushes passed you. They are as ready and prepped, as you should have been. You race to keep up and claim your own place in a bucket, on your own thrown. You harness yourself in and prepare to launch. This is your moment, the one you’ve waited for, the one you know, in your heart of heart you were born for. It is destiny. The conductor pulls the lever and you strikingly jerk backwards and as much as your brain is telling you that you are not at all equipped to handle this feat, these heights, this task, your heart over power its rational thinking with shouts of glee.

You escalate your way back, way back and then your way up, way up. You are almost at the summit of all your hopes and dreams, wants and wonders and loves and lusts with your head in the clouds or just about. And there you are on top of the world as if that is where you should have been all along. Your claim your place amongst the stars. And then. In an instant. You descend. You whip you head back around. Where did all the time go? How is this over? Already? You’ve only just got there; it only began? But, as Ferris Wheels go you know you’ll have your time to shine once more, its only a little wait, you’ve manage far worse, just grin and bare it, you’ll be there soon, and once at the bottom you know you’re half way to the top again, one can’t be at the bottom forever, or at least you hope they can’t.

Haven’t had a Dream in a Long Time…

…likely, because I have not slept in a long time. Last evening was the third night in a bout of bad sleep luck, and I have a dreadful feeling the tonight will prove no different and I can’t quite put my finger on the pulse of the problem. I manage to tucker myself out to the point of near exhaustion each evening but it seems as though just as I am about to cross the boarder to dream city I am over come with awakeness. It’s maddening.

Maybe I spend too much time during the light hours daydreaming, which has in turn forces my internal night clock from properly functioning, as it is clearly on the fritz. Could it be that all the hours I spend in a day conjuring up false scenarios and make believe conversations with factual people within the confounds of my mind have halted my nightly extended nap and kept the sandman at bay? If so perchance I’ll never sleep again.

I was once asked if, during my spare think time, I spent the while formulating fake dialogue, random banter, plots and events in my head with people, who are either true or false, (but the state of their realness was not necessarily necessary). To which I replied: Of course I do, who doesn’t? Well to my surprise, not everyone. I was stocked. Dumbfounded. Bewildered. What were all these people doing with all their free brain time? Seriously, what else was there to do but play loops of personal mockumentaries over and over in my head while I had nothing worthwhile to use my brainpower towards, like say, math or global domination/peace?

Answer, these creative geniuses use these perfectly awesome hours ‘life planning’. They think about what they will do during the day, writing little internal ‘to do’ lists and organizational tactics. They plan what to make for supper, what book to read or film to see next, where to vacation, how they’ll save the money to do so, and like the hero they are, work on that five year plan they’ve been craving out for themselves over the last I don’t know, Eon. I still don’t believe it. And, as you might suspect, like the dreamer and eternal optimist I am, I of course turned around and asked as many people as I know if they indeed spent their spare time as I did or if they were playing for team boredom.

Of course I ran into a couple of human stumbling blocks who thought that I had lost my cute little marbles and was perhaps bordering on sheer insanity. They had NO IDEA what on earth I was going on about and though I did my best to cover my tracks and laugh off the question I had just asked, I still feel as though they may be secretly judging me. They just simply did not understand and could and would never comprehend my addiction to daydreaming.

Oddly enough I think that I felt as much pity for them on the matter as they did for me. Obviously I later went on the spent the better part of my day replaying the conversation out in my head from every angle possible with every outcome possible while they went about checking of imaginary boxes of things they had accomplished within the last twenty-four hours, and I wish I could tell you which was more satisfying and fulfilling, but unfortunately I feel as though I may never experience the latter brain activity.

I was happy, however, to discover that most of the people I hold very dear to me did, as if it were second nature, spend their days as I did, up in the clouds practicing for real life conversations they might never need to regurgitate. They thought of the perfect comeback, the ideal hello, the best reaction and the most magical moment that might never happen in reality. And its true these times may never replay in the ‘real world’ but on the plus side, because they used their spare thinking time so wisely these moments and conversations could happen spontaneously throughout the day; hour by hour, minute by minute. They could be the glorious hero or tragic victim of their own story whenever they liked. They could let someone know exactly how they felt, without fear of judgment or worry or rejection or embarrassment, as they were their own peer and jury.

In daydreams the sky is the limit and you can only pigeon hole yourself. You are your own worst enemy or partner in crime as well as your cheering or jeering crowd. The (fantasy) world is you oyster; take a bite out of false life. Its cotton candy sweet and equally as filling, you’ll always have room left in the pit of your imagination. Nothing is sweeter and nothing can make you feel as wonderful.

Maybe it’s childish and silly to ‘waste’ my precious life planning moments floating in and out of these various daydreams. Maybe I really should get it together and start climbing that five-year-life-plan-mountain, because to tell you the truth I am not near even beginning that Everest. To be quite honest I haven’t even begun writing the introduction. I truly haven’t the slightly clue what I want to accomplish within the next year, heck month or even week, and to be quite frank I am perfectly content with that, well most days I am anyways. It can be a bit overwhelming at times not having the foggiest notion as to what direction my life is going, but as much terror as there is in those moment there is also so much excitement and spontaneity. I could do anything, be any where, and if for some reason by some chance, I find myself in a place in life I wasn’t wanting to end up, I can always use that time dreaming my way to another place, another life.







Aside: On the plus side of insomnia, I have managed to inch my way through a book I have been torturing myself through and am quite near completion at this point. Note to reader: Dorian Gray is a terrible person and should not be trusted. Keep your distance. I barely want to trudge my way to the final sentence of this story of self obsession and immoral lifestyle but I must see if this slimy despicable hedonist receives some sort of punishment for such blatant and evil doer narcissism. I hate Dorian Gray. Fact.