Dangerous Thoughts

This is what I get for listening to Evanescence's beautiful but mostly depressing debut album. It seems like nearly all of the songs mention suicide in some way or another. But the songs are really great, so you find yourself sucked into tunes of pain, anger, and loss. It's the kind of stuff that makes you start thinking about things you were very happy not thinking about. Thoughts like, "What the hell am I doing?"

I got to thinking about my life on my drive home from work yesterday as track 4 - "My Immortal" - was playing. The thought process started innocuously enough. For the writing contest to which I sent Human Dignity, we'll get a phone call by Aug 15 if we advanced to the final judging round. Yesterday being Aug 12, I decided it was time to face up to reality and realize that what I sent in would not advance. If I had been able to revise those first 20 pages to what they are now, then it would be a possibility. But not in the shape they were in in May. I'm still glad I did the contest. I got the experience of submitting something. I was forced to write my first synopsis ever - that was fun. And the judges will send back my submission with their comments in the margins - feedback is always a plus. I also told myself to stop expecting my cell phone to ring by Aug 15 because there was a small part of me that believed I might increase my chances of getting said call by convincing myself I would not be getting the call. I love logic.

From this little nugget came all sorts of thoughts. It was one of those moments when you feel like you're really close to figuring out something, to getting something right. But you have no idea what, so you end up thinking about everything in your life, all at once. OK, maybe you don't have this experience, but trust me on this - it's not fun. You doubt everything, you question everything, you wonder if you should be doing what you're doing. And out of this extremely loud and draining jumble of thoughts, you're supposed to figure out something. But you have no idea what.

So I went home and opened the new issue of Jane and turned off the brain. Nice when you have reading material that complies with your desire not to think.

And maybe that's what my brain was trying to tell me. That I need to stop thinking so much. I'm doing something that makes me happy, something that I enjoy, something that I can do passingly well right now and something that I'm improving daily. It's something I can do for the rest of my life and tweak it to fit what's most imporant in my life at any given time. It's something that allows the most complete expression of myself that I've ever experienced. Maybe I should just start trusting in that more.