D

D is for Despicable.

Last night I saw Despicable Me with a friend of mine. It was pretty cute and there were some hilarious scenes. While standing in line waiting to buy my ticket, there were a couple of teenagers who were turned away because they weren't old enough to see Predators without a legal guardian. As I watched them, I was hit with a strong feeling of being present. All at once I was aware that I was 24 years old, living in Nashville, going to graduate school with the intent of becoming a psychologist. Not to sound hyperbolic but it felt as if I was waking up from a coma. I imagine it was a variation to what people describe when they are middle-aged and suddenly questioning where the past 20+ years went.

To be fair, I think this realization was slowly building over the week. I don't know if it is a result of blogging more than usual (re: blogging at all) or becoming reinvigorated with my love of research but I have been feeling calmer and more aware than I have in a long time. Life has a way of dulling our senses. As days go by you start to run on cruise control. It isn't automatically a bad thing, rather a simple fact of life that we put on the blinders to our surroundings.

Let's be honest, if memoirists actually chronicled their day to day lives, their works would be as boring as paint drying. The success of this genre is due to their ability to distill those moments that shock us out of cruise control into hilarious and poignant short stories or novels. Maybe my return to blogging is helping me become more conscious of when these "shock" moments happen.