So I am talking to Booty this morning on video chat and she explained to me that I am in a bargaining phase. How so one might ask (or maybe one might not...who knows), well Booty explained to me that all these questions that are all of a sudden popping up in my head (by the way, all of a sudden there are so many questions popping up in my head) about random things that have occurred in the past year combined with the insane dreams I have been having (ya having lots of insane dreams again, for example, ones where I am meeting friends late at night and I have until Midnight to convince them all the decisions they are making are berserk) are me trying to change the actuality of situations that are mostly in the past. I am essentially trying to bargain for change which as we all know can't happen, the past is the past, whats done is done, move on right? oh how it sounds so simple.
How do you put the past in the past and focus on the future when the past is in your face all the flippin' time (yes, getting out of Dodge is very helpful but eventually you have to go back to Dodge). We are so fantastic at recording our lives these days with photos and videos and email and I think we all believe that these mementos we are taking with us are so wonderful but the fact is, they aren't always. We used to just put photos in albums on shelves, or boxes in closets and take them out when we wanted, look at the ones we wanted to, smile, laugh, scream at bad haircuts and it was fantastic, but it isn't that simple anymore. They are on our computers, our social networks, our phones AND everyone else's computers, networks and phones and no matter where you store them, they are always there and you see them all the time whether you want to or not and something special is lost in that because maybe you don't want to see them all the time and no there is no reason to get excited about digging through photos in a box because that box no longer exists. The other thing, is that it changes history by omitting anything unpleasant. Digital is cheap so we record absolutely everything, to the point where we could all probably do flip books of our lives and it would play in real time (k, I know that is a little bit of an exaggeration). The thing is though, we don't photograph and video experiences that don't make us happy so in digital hindsight, everything can often seem better than it was and convince our small little brains that our not-so-great memories aren't real. This I believe is bargaining, using anything we/I can to convince ourselves/myself that things may have been different than what I thought a minute ago and different than what I will think in the next minute or so when I am inundated with some cyber reminder of something. What am I going to do, cut myself off completely from the world and go live with pandas? I really do love a nice panda....it's a thought.
p.s. I was video chatting (my new obsession in case anyone was wondering, I'm late to this game) with a dear friend Captain Hook(er), and he was showing me all these photos from years ago and it was wonderful because I would never have seen them anywhere as they were taken on a camera that uses film (FILM: a cellulose nitrate or cellulose acetate composition made in thin sheets or strips and coated with a sensitive emulsion for taking photographs.) Thanks for making me smile so much Captain Hook(er)!!!
p.p.s. What I forgot to mention, and part of my point, wass that I didn't bring a camera with me on this journey. I have questioned if that was the right thing to do or not, but the fact is, a picture cannot capture the journey I am on right now and I don't want to remember it if it isn't worth remembering. My feeling is that I will one day look back on this experience and remember what a profound time in my life it is, not how I was living in the middle of the strangest city I have ever been in or the the painfully beautiful mountains around me. If I don't remember it, that will be ok too, but I have to trust my mind on this one, I want to experience this, go through it, as uncomfortable as it can be at times, and hopefully I will remember how amazingly I survived and came out on top and I won't want to change a thing about it or wish it was different in any way.
p.p.p.s. I have a camera on my phone and I'm not afraid to use it!
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