It’s not very often that you experience the combination of feelings
reminiscent of your junior high school dance.
Suffering through the social vulnerability of the environment, thousands
of swirling emotions cramped into an hour long adrenaline rush, stifled by the
necessity to appear cool, and the onslaught of intense self-consciousness from
a brief glance of a certain someone, was a rite of passage. Of course you didn’t know that at the
time. You thought “A Night Under the
Stars” was some type of medieval tradition marketed to the students as the not
to be missed social event of the year by a faculty that was obviously unfazed,
or distortedly entertained, by the idiosyncrasies of preteens. In hindsight that combustible, unpredictable
energy you gulped down with your Hawaiian Punch represented something big happening
in your life.
After years of memories, accomplishments, failures, good
times and bad you’ve learned to foresee the future. You don’t get so worked up when something or
someone potentially good for you crosses your path. You handle things with maturity and
wisdom. You understand that there is a
balance to life that can land you on your face if it is not treated with
respect. Or do you?
Who am I kidding? We’re
all like pimple faced preteens just doing the best we can! We try to prepare dinners that go over well
with diverse and picky palates. We
secretly take a skipped opportunity for a coworker to compliment a new
hairstyle as, “Wow, your hair really looks like crap.” We cry over Folgers coffee commercials when
the college cutie surprises the parents on Christmas morning because we hope
our own parenting efforts will be rewarded with that type of loyalty. We are constantly ebbing and flowing on this roller
coaster called life. But there are no
crests at the top of giant, looming hills slapping us in the face with an
imminent need to be fully aware of what comes next. Man, I wish there was!
Wouldn’t it be fantastic if you got that rush in the produce
aisle because the avocados were, for the first time in the history of all
grocery stores, perfectly ripe for guacamole?
Or if there actually was only a single time in your life that fireworks
would explode from every nerve in your body when you met your soul mate? What if you were leaving for work but your
feet froze and your gut sent you into a tizzy because you almost forgot your
wallet, which was sitting right next you?
How about a good old spell of vertigo when you considered buying an
adorable companion puppy for your aging parents that would grow up to be a 100
pound, hip fracturing, blood pressure raising, critter from the deep beyond? What if your feet started dancing uncontrollably,
your fist pumped the air with complete confidence, and you started yelling, “That
is so AWSOME!” when you came across Leaping Sheep Wool Dryer Balls and their
amazing ability to fluff your laundry without the added chemicals of dryer
sheets? Life would be a cake walk.
Unfortunately (or fortunately if you’re the glass is half
full type of person) life, the necessity of the emotional torment of a junior high
school dance, and the health benefits of Hawaiian Punch, will always remain a
mystery. We know that not every single
thing that’s good for us is going to smack us in the face like The Three
Stooges. And we’re perfectly aware that
with the good comes the bad. We just do
our best and hope we don’t miss out on any subtle clues along the journey.
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