Saturday, May 14, 2016

Talking To Myself


I have been known to, from time to time, talk to myself.  Ok, I talk to myself daily, many times a day.  I give myself positive feedback, praise, scoldings (when needed), and make myself laugh.  I like myself and I do not see anything wrong with talking to myself.  My co-workers, however, will say, "Debbie's talking to herself again"; this makes me smile but I'm not sure why.  I kind of like being the weird one in the office; I do different well.

I have been a self-talker for as long as I remember.  I believe it to be a strong quality of self assurance that as enabled me to problem solve throughout my life.  I have talked myself through times of extreme grief and over-the-top stressful situations.  I have told myself to stop dwelling on past events that have caused me regret and remorse.  I have spent a considerable amount of time explaining to myself why something is or is not a logical decision.  I have stopped myself from falling prey to whatever BS somebody might spew by telling myself, out loud, "Leave it alone Debbie".  I have complimented myself when I achieve a goal or complete a difficult task.  I will often, and I mean often, talk myself through an everyday task at work to ensure I do not become too complacent and miss an important detail.  I talk to myself a lot and I listen to myself a lot.

You see, your heart and emotions will sometimes cause you to do or say things that your brain knows better than to do or say.  When I talk to myself, it is my brain self that does the talking because the emotion and heart self can't be trusted.  My brain self is calm, logical, and damn smart.  My emotion and heart self is often just plain stupid.  Thankfully, over the years, my brain self has become the strongest of the selves and will almost always get me or keep me out of trouble.  With exception to the self-tanning lotion I used a few years back that turned me a brilliant shade of orange and lasted way longer than it should have.  My brain self still laughs at me about that and is often one of its strongest logical points as to why I should always listen to it.

Aside from talking to myself, another quirky turret-type behavior I have is to break out in song at any given moment.  I have this uncanny ability, from any conversation, to pick up lyrics from any song ever recorded and then blurt them out, in song and in perfect tune.  It is an impulsive and, to be honest, impressive quality I have grown to love about myself.  Don't think I haven't noticed the strange looks I get from others when this happens; I know it's weird but it is also fabulous and I am sure, by the time I reach the full onset of dementia, I will spend 80% of my time singing one song or another.  Dang, it will be awesome to be 90 years old and break into "Who Let The Dogs Out", "Baby Got Back", or "Purple Rain".

Life is seriously difficult so much of the time.  We all walk a fine line between sanity and the edge of insanity.  Sometimes, some of us, step over the line, just for fun.  I call these my moments of pure delight when I let go of inhibitions and social norms and just be a human dancing close to the fire and enjoying it for all it is.  As I get older, that fire has become ever-so-comforting and I find myself tinged, smokey, and happily exhausted by the dance.  I hope you dance.






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