Monotony

Sometimes life is really funny. Do you ever look around you and find it hard not to laugh. It isn’t that there is anything inherently funny in the scene around you, but just the ironies of life happening all the time around us. That happened just a minute ago for me as I was sitting here at my dining room table reading a book for the class I am auditing at Wheaton College this semester. Anyway, I am sitting here and I look over to my left and see three little sets golden retriever eyes staring at me. All three of them are huddled together just standing there watching me read. I couldn’t help but laugh.

Mostly I was laughing at myself. Laughing at the reality that at the moment my house is inhabited by three golden retrievers, a really fluffy cat, and myself. Laughing at how my friends think I am weird for volunteering to watch two full size golden retrievers. Laughing at the strange comfort I feel at having these dogs snuggled around my feet.

I love that about life. I love how weirdly entertaining it can be. I think that is why I really love the new show “Arrested Development.” Various people have been telling me for months that I HAVE TO WATCH IT!!! Sometimes that kind of thing can actually keep me from ever giving it a try, but for some strange reason my Tivo just started recording it. Seriously, I’ve asked everyone who regularly comes into my house if they set up Tivo to record Arrested Development and everyone swears it wasn’t them, so I guess I was meant to watch it. I’m glad that the Tivo gods decided I needed to see it, because I love it.

Maybe you’ve been reading this blog saying to yourself, what the heck are you talking about, and what the heck is funny about three golden retrievers. I understand if that’s what you’re thinking, because I often feel like I am most free and alive in the weirdest moments of life that other people are annoyed by or think is just stupid. I think that I got this from my dad. Thanks a lot daddy, for making me certifiably abstractly disoriented emotionally. I wonder if there is an official diagnosis for this problem. (I remember in college seeing the ridiculously, hideously, thick, small printed book of diagnoses for psychological disorders. There must be something in there for me.)

So I grew up in a world of imaginative scenarios, and make-believe words. Here’s one of my favorites: When we would be on a road trip and the weather would start looking ominous, my dad would predict our impending arrival into a pig’s belly. Yes a Pig’s Belly. As the rain and wind would start to come we would all yell, “Are we in the pig’s belly yet?” And he would reply, “not yet.” It wasn’t until we would almost be forced off the road by the weather when my dad would finally and emphatically insist that we had officially entered the pig’s belly. He would make no small show about it. Hands waving in the air. Yelps of anxiety ridden excitement. Maybe this was a way for me dad to escape reality, but it became easy and comfortable for me.

So, I’ve found that when watching shows like Arrested Development that I feel a sense of commonality with the world around me. That even if there is a diagnosis for me in that book for psychological disorders, there are other people who could be similarly diagnosed. My husband for example would be one. That is actually something that I thank God for regularly. I’m so thankful that I am married to a man who not only really genuinely appreciates my strangeness, but has a lot of strangeness to add to the world himself. One thing that I always remember my dad saying to me, is that one of his worst fears in the world was being bored. That could explain a lot. But as I take this into my own life I realize a couple things. One, there are worse things in life than being bored. Two, I hate being bored, and I am continually thankful for people in this world who just by living are putting boredom on the endangered species list.

As I have gotten older, (I recognize that 25 is not old at all), I think I have gotten better at letting who I really am live more and more. I like that. And, I like that in other people. I think the boredom and monotony (a better word I think for what I am getting at) comes in as we are so often trying to assimilate, be accepted, make no waves, fly under the radar, keep up with the Joneses.

Just for clarification, I’m not really trying to make any philosophical point with this blog. If I was, I think I’d be in trouble. I’m just putting words to some things that float through my head from time to time.

As I post blogs I really go back and forth between hoping there might actually be some people out there who read this, and hoping that I’m the only one who reads this. Maybe most people feel that way about their blogs. I haven’t yet mastered the art of the blog.

p.s. I just decided to include a pic of RJ with this blog because; 1. I like putting pictures with blogs, 2. I think RJ is one of the lease monotonous people I have ever known. 3. The look on RJ's face is one of complete boredom (that's what spending time with the fam over christmas can do to a 19 year old boy.)