Dream States

Reading a book about 23 year old regaling her life story and affair with being a bit of a drinker. It's called Smashed. She seems to be confident that she wasn't an alcoholic and she didn't drink alone so I guess that's something. I thought it would be a fun read. 

Why do I assume I can laugh at other people's misfortune? I get quite invested and emotional and then tie it all into my my own experience. Why do I make comparisons? Is it particularly myopic? It probably isn't anything, nothing to worry about. I assume most people do this subconsciously, hence the vicarious thrills of reading about other people's lives, be it a biography, confessional or gossip mag.

It took me back to my recollections of my teen years. They are an amalgam of memories where things happen and I can't remember the feelings or sensations. I can remember some pretty weird things. My mind takes me to places where I've walked. I can roam the streets of my hometown, like Google Earth but slower and more deliberate and completely empty of cars and people. 

I prefer to pick across the cliffs and walk the gravelled paths by the sea. I'll wander familiar places and find the spot where I can see the most coastline. It could be a clear day, a drizzly one, a golden sunshine. I can feel the grass as I lie in it. I feel the sea breeze on my face. I can hear the rolling waves.

All those hours I spent exploring my hometown, riding my bike for miles to the outskirts, up and down the coast, along the river, to landmarks I could revisit in my dreams, where was everyone else? Why was I alone? What were my family doing? My friends? Why did I spend so many hours just roaming alone? A part of me misses the adventure. I used to love riding my bike and exploring and feeling the sensation of existing within a whoosh of wind.

I can't remember my first drink, unlike this girl who can describe her experiences in adjective laden clarity. She can't recall her first time having sex (she claims this is the case, but I have a feeling we'll get to that soon enough in some hindsight laden exposition). My first time, I turned it into a punchline. It was a shameful idiotic experience and hindsight just colours in the loneliness quite explicitly but wow... As a formative experience it was terrible but a big part of me tried with some sheer desperation to chalk it up to one those things that just happened. Then I felt guilty about it for many years subconsciously fuelling my self loathing.

Maybe my lack of filter goes back to my lack of being able to read a situation in any given moment and engaging with people without being to sense how to react. Hindsight is 20/20 I suppose. I just can't keep up with my mouth before my brain kicks in.

Anyways, this musing nonsense is brought to you by lazy Sundays and aching brains.