At least two bloggers this week have admitted they over-think things. Such confessions may clog our spheres, but I think, rather (in my over-thinking way), that I gravitate to posts by these types.
What else can be said for a woman nearing 50 who posits motives for her actions 30-plus years ago, on paper, submitting them for critique? Yet I’m pleased about this place and these doings. I’ve come to understand that my motto in this season is, to quote the great Weird Al Yankovich, “Dare to be Stupid.”
This morning my love, my only, about whose care, concern, and humanity I write so much lately, left our home with the proverbial weight of the world on his shoulders. Though I have done everything of which I’m capable to relieve financial stress, it’s still suspended above us. We wait for what comes next. And in the meantime, we have everything we need. Only when, it seems, my over-thinking and what-ifs get through to him, does the anchor drag.
So, for a positive thought. Finally, years into this, I can picture almost exactly the person I’m writing my memoir for. She’s like me, in her 20s or 40s or 60s, but living her unique story, not even necessarily over-thinking anything. She’s someone poised on the overlook, or maybe scrambling down the craggy cliff-face, but in any case she has entered a season of trial. Maybe outside forces brought her here, maybe, like me, she plunged into it herself, but within the maelstrom brewing she will be given a test, as were biblical Hannah and Mary and Jacob and Abraham.
I’m writing for her, but not to teach her how to decide or overcome. I’m simply sharing a story, my own. She can slurp it up in an afternoon, or come back for sips over many days. What she finds will be me finding out what I’m truly interested in, such stuff as will make me ponder, decide, and dare for decades hence. Because that’s what a story does. She might forget it tomorrow, but she may remember points of it for ages and draw strength from them, when she sees herself choosing the pathway everything is showing her she was always meant to take.
I read this yesterday, and then didn’t want to comment first, like a new stalker or something :),
but your words stayed with me , and so I am back.
This was stunning.
And I cannot wait to read your memoir.
I’m so glad to see deb@talkatthetable here. Your two voices are in my ears like an exquisite antiphonal choir.
I just read your guest piece at Relief’s editor’s blog. Wonderful.
I’m with deb — can’t wait to read your memoir.
I like to think of us writerly blog types as meandering, reflective voices in a sound bite world, and that (hopefully) we will all have a long shelf life. . .
Hi, Deanna,
My favorite representative of the tribe of “over-thinkers” is Saint Augustine, whose “Confessions” is an exploration of his motives for youthful actions (he wrote it ten+ years after the events described).
He would never label it negatively like “over-thinking” of course! He sees the power to philosophize and employ memory as a great and good gift from God to humans and pities those who don’t have much of it:
“”The power of memory is great… It is a vast and infinite profundity. …This is my mind’s power… but I cannot grasp the totality of what I am. Is the mind too restricted to compass itself…?
“This question moves me to great astonishment. People are moved to wonder by mountain peaks, by the vast waves of the sea… by the revolutions of the stars. But in themselves they are uninterested.”
Deb, you’re welcome to comment first any time. :o) (But I know that feeling.)
Beth, I hope as well for the long shelf life. We seem to keep at it, anyway.
Fresca, thanks for the quote from dear Augustine. I think he and Socrates might have gotten along capitally. And I admit to loving those inner peaks and vast waves and galaxies.
Yeah, Augustine—talk about a long shelf life!