Stop Blinking At Me!

I’m sitting here, staring at this blank page, and the cursor is aggressively blinking at me. It’s so impatient! Such a nag. Blink, come on, what are you waiting for? Blink, seriously, are you gonna use me or are we just gonna stare at each other? Blink, well, this is fun! Blink, use me or lose me, woman, I don’t have all day.

Lose you? What else are you going to do? This is why you exist! You sit on this page blinking every time I take a second to think. It’s like you’re tapping your foot and glancing at your watch. It’s distracted, and you’re making it so much harder for me to think.

Which, BTW, is already an insurmountable challenge. I can’t think, and the blinking isn’t helping. Stop blinking, you bloody nuisance!

Am I arguing with an inanimate doodad? Yes. Am I anthropomorphizing random objects and projecting some of my worst traits onto a computer-generated symbol? You bet. 

In this case, it’s my complete lack of patience and my desire to snap my fingers and have all projects magically completed. Why should I have to put the time, energy, and work into creating this…thing?

Nah, I want it to be done without effort or active participation. I want to manifest my destiny by crossing my fingers, closing my eyes, and letting happy, good-time vibes drift out into the universe. By the sheer force of my will, with no physical effort, the words will appear on this page, and it will be read by at least a couple of people.

Mostly my parents and you. Unless you’re one of my parents? Hi Mom. Hi Dad. Look, I’m on the internet!

I am so grateful for your presence, and thanks for reading this far. Sincerely, from every cell in my body, thank you for your time and for not clicking off when you realized how utterly bizarre I am. You are a gem of a person.

I like to have a smooth transition between topics, but I can’t think of one so: Ta-Da!

Do you believe in manifestation, projection of desires, and universal intervention? Honest question and there are no wrong answers. Personally, I am a cynic and doubt is my default setting so, I don’t know if I really believe in that stuff. That doesn’t mean it isn’t real, or it’s a bunch of hogwash. It just means I don’t understand the concepts, or I don’t see a place for them in my life.

Except for right now because I’m feeling rather floopy. Which, I know, it isn’t a real word. It’s one I used when I was a kid and didn’t feel well. What are your symptoms? I feel floopy. I think it’s quite descriptive, but many have disagreed. 

There’s no accounting for taste.

Today, my floopy mood would love to employ the power of manifestations onto this page and will these words in existence. If that could happen without me having to write them down or think them up? I think, therefore I am so, I think that I’ve already written these words, done my laundry, and renewed my car insurance. 

Is it done? No! Of course not, and it’s annoying the hell out of me.

If you’re about to point out that I’m being an unreasonable cranky-pants, then yeah, fair. My level of annoyance is disproportionate to the reality I currently inhabit. That fact that there’s no magic chore genie or word fairy in this realm of existence is a crushing disappointment. How will I ever recover from such an emotional blow? Zeus only knows, and he hasn’t said a peep since, what, the 6th century B.C.

I hold very little hope he’ll answer, and thus I shall sit with my disappointment until the kettle boils and the leaves have steeped. How often do you get to use thus, in a sentence? Well, that was oddly satisfying.

But then the damn cursor blinks at me, and I shudder as pure aggravation slithers through my bones. What do you want from me? I don’t know what to say. I am a blank slate. The space between my ears has morphed into a wind tunnel. There’s a whistle whoosh whipping around. It’s very distracting, and I’m genuinely concerned that a tornado will form inside my skull.  

Sure, that might not be physiologically possible, but what if?

Have you ever woken up, gone about your morning, and then suddenly realized you haven’t had a single thought for at least two hours? Actually, that realization is the first thought you’ve thunk up since you fell asleep 3-8 hours ago. Sure, dreams count as subconscious thoughts, but you didn’t dream last night. You closed your eyes, there was darkness, and when your alarm went off this morning, there was light.

The space in-between? Nothing. Not a dream, nightmare, or anything associated with slumber. It was a black void, and you assume that you just died, in the abstract sense. Please don’t literally pass away. That’s not good. The world needs you.

There was a recent study that claimed we have approximately 6000 thoughts a day. Now, I don’t know how one goes about tracking every single thought, let alone calculate the average, but still, that’s a lot of thinking in a 24-hour cycle.

You’d think, and yes, I used that word deliberately, that after years of endless mental chatter, you’d run out of things to think about. How many times can one person rethink a single thought before that thought comes worn out and bursts? Like a balloon or an old tire. Bald spots would form, maybe a small leak, and eventually, it would deflate or pop. The mind would spin out or fishtail. You would have to hold onto the steering wheel real tight and pray your brain doesn’t flip over and crash.

It’s only natural that, after thinking so much for so many years, that we’d run out of things to think about, right?

Asks the person with an obsessive disorder! Yes, okay, usually my mind latches onto to unpleasant thoughts and spins them right round, right round, baby right round. I often find myself in thought spirals that trigger emotional burnout and mental ruptures — Or, is it a puncture?

That might be my problem right now. I’ve suffered a puncture, and now my brain is deflating. It probably happened ages ago, but I’m just starting to feel the effects. That explains the whooshing whistle of air! It’s the expulsion of what remains of my mental acuity and not a tornado. 

What a relief! Sorta.

The puncture has left behind an empty space devoid of thoughts or anything that resembles an idea. What do I talk about? What do I say? Did I just ramble on for, how long, about the simple fact that I can’t think right now? 

Yeah, I’m thoughtless in the literal sense of the word. I still give consideration to other people’s needs, but I’m without awareness of my own. I have fewer thoughts, more emotions, and a level of exhaustion that’s disproportionate to my level of activity. The fact that I’ve formed these words and somehow created coherent sentence structures is shocking to me.

Is it a primal response that doesn’t require a level of intellectual agility? Like how some people can run really fast on a broken foot, or a parent can lift a car off their child. Instinct takes over, and the need to survive supersedes prowess or the laws of science.

In my case, instead of a physical response to danger, I write words and form sentences. That’s my survival instinct, or my base level comeback to a punctured mind. When in doubt, sit in front of a computer, and stare at the cursor until annoyance drives me to write something down.

Seriously, that blinkity blink, blink, blink is insufferable!

On any other day, I wouldn’t be so put out, but today I’m irrationally annoyed by the smallest things. If only I’d seen the puncture earlier than I could’ve repaired the damage or avoid it altogether. Alas, I didn’t so, here we are; a random collection of wandering thoughts.

It’s like my brain is a tire with a nail stuck in the tread. It doesn’t burst like a balloon so, at least I’m not zooming around the room. Conveniently, it plugs the hole so, I don’t notice that something’s wrong until it’s too late. Yep, there it is, a flat tire. Great.

It’s not as bad as finding yourself stranded in the middle of f**k all, and your car won’t start because the battery died. It’s minus 20 degrees Celsius, and every time you exhale, your breath turns into an icicle. Oh, and you just cancelled that automotive plan that rescues people in such predicaments. Thank God for older brothers who have extensive expertise and a willingness to come to your rescue.

On that note, I love my brother very much!

I wouldn’t find myself in these predicaments if I took better care of my car and, I suppose, myself. Punctures happen, and they’re caused by small stressors that are pointy, sneaky, little creepers. Unlike the big things, that cause glaringly obvious damage. These little things slowly add up over time. Then I become irrationally angry at inanimate objects.

I just had an argument with my kettle because it wasn’t boiling fast enough. Yeah, that’s totally normal, healthy behaviour. At least I’m not yelling at people, my dog, or using obscene hand gestures while driving. Yay, small mercies!

Clearly, I need to do something about this puncture before it spreads to other aspects of my life. That would be awful, and I would feel absolutely horrid if I took my mood out on others. Don’t do that. Don’t take your problems out on anyone else. 

That’s a note to self, by the way.

The problem is, I haven’t been taking the best care of myself, and I’ve let a lot of things slide. After talking to a few people, it seems like we’ve all done that to varying extents. It’s hard to maintain a healthier lifestyle when we’re all replaying the same day over and over. After a while, I just said screw it because what’s the point?

I’ll just have to do the same thing tomorrow and the next day. It doesn’t feeling like it amounts to anything so, why not take a day off. There’s nothing wrong with that! If you need a day, take a day. Except, in my case, one day quickly turned into several months, and now I have a puncture.

I need to take better care of myself because it makes me feel better; no other reason. I just feel better when I take care of myself. That’s it. That’s the point of this — Whatever this is? 

So what if it doesn’t impact the greater good or get us out of this groundhogs day nightmare? Everything doesn’t have to have some grand-design to be meaningful. Sometimes it’s the simplest things that mean the most.

Like, being kind to yourself and nurturing the aspects of your life that are being neglected. For me, it’s been my physical and mental well-being. I’ve let that slip and slide all over the place. That needs to change.

Will it? I sincerely hope so but, in the spirit of honesty, I don’t know. I’m still feeling a bit deflated and lazy. But maybe there’s one thing I can do or change? A small thing that doesn’t require much energy. If I can find that and, you know, actually do it, then perhaps I can find the desire, momentum, and willpower to do more.

Why isn’t the kettle boiling? Stupid piece of… I really need to find a way to repair this puncture. This is getting ridiculous. Stop blinking at me you damn…