Anxieties of the responsibly incapable.

You know those dreams that are just really great? The ones where you're flying or you're a gajillionaire or the whole world is made of candy or you're a tyrannosaurus at the top of the food chain with all the power you could ever imagine? And then you wake up and feel the most potent kind of depression because your dream wasn't real, and at the same time feel completely idiotic for genuinely believing something so ridiculous could actually exist for that entire time you were in dreamland? Well, that's how I feel whenever I get in my mood where I legitimately start to think that I am capable of being a responsible young adult, and then I wake up and remember that I am Bri Herter.

If you read Armageddon of the Mind a couple months ago, and I sincerely hope you did (you should probably go read it right now if you didn't. By "probably" I mean "there really isn't a question about it"), then you might understand how my mind is a little chaotic.  In fact, if you go to Google Images and type in "chaos," it will give you a few pictures that resemble my mind. One of which being:

Replace those human soldiers with little demonic gremlins, as described in Armageddon of the Mind, which you have ALL read by now, and it is somewhat close. Anyway, the point is, my mind likes to make itself have way too much going on at once. But when it gets pushed to the edge and tries to take on more than it can physically handle, it malfunctions. As in, it shuts down. Actually, it goes into "toddler mode." The sensation of acute overwhelmsion (this is my blog, I'll make up words when I want) is so drastically traumatizing for it, that it temporarily erases all memories and abilities that ever existed beyond the age of three. Meaning, the only thing I know how to do to cope at a time like this is crawl up in the fetal position with a blanket and make very pitiful sounds.

The things in my mind that trigger "toddler mode" do not so much depend on quantity as they do the specific topic. For example, I can typically contain an ample amount of brain-teasers, social drama, and life-changing decisions without spiraling into it. However, anything pertaining to behaving like an actual adult is completely off limits, whether I had already been thinking about a lot or just a little. If someone were to tell me I had seven seconds to save the earth from an asteroid the size of Betelgeuse, I would probably handle it in a more mature fashion than if they told me I had to find a job, a functioning car, and go to college without flunking (that last one is killer). I truly wish I was exaggerating.

Like I said at the beginning, sometimes I do get in these silly moods where I actually start to believe I am capable of adult responsibility. I accomplish something like cleaning out my car, and I think, "Dang, that didn't take so long. Way to go, Bri." And then I finally manage to SELL my car, and I think, "Look at me go! Bring it on, life!" I grasp that $1250 cash and feel limitless. And then suddenly, the crushing defeat of real life hits me like a freight train. I realize that $1250 is the most money I've ever touched, but I can not survive on that for the rest of my life. Soon I will have to buy another car with that money, a car that I will probably not luck out as much with as I did with Beast. It will probably break down on some back road where I'll get mugged. I will probably lock my keys in it when I'm trapped in close proximity to a bomb and need a quick getaway. And even if neither of these scenarios come true, I will still have no money again. That means I will have to make some sort of income, which means application and rejection and even if I got hired, it still means crabby co-workers and probably early mornings and sore feet and unhappy customers. And even then, all that money will get sucked up by... by... by school. I have a hard time even typing, much less speaking, much less LIVING OUT this word. The sound of it makes my ear drums bleed and the thought of it happening to me makes me want to go sky diving without a parachute. Even thinking about it right now as I type this I am fighting the urge to start whimpering and making other puppy-like sounds that tend to emerge when this specific subject presents itself. 

The problem with me and school is, I have a deep, analytical mind AND am a ten year old trapped in an 18 year old's body at the same time. So, that deep mind convinces me that there are way more important things I should be doing than sitting in a classroom and doing homework. Like, going across the world to share the gospel, or maybe other not-as-major things that will still matter in eternity. On top of that, my childish self means I have the attention span of gnat. I mean, I can't even read a book that I WANT to read because I get so distracted with playing DuckTales2 on my gameboy for three hours instead. A gameboy that I bought on ebay like, last year, mind you, simply because I woke up one morning and HAD to have a gameboy. A gameboy color, actually. But besides all that, I am also just really bad at listening to people who get paid to talk at me. I would much rather spend all day finding my own sources and teaching myself what I need to know, because that way it would at least be my choice. As a wise scholar (not as much a scholar as a Lauren Kilmartin) once told me, "You like to learn, you just don't like to be taught." So true. So problematic.

Shawn thought it was a good idea to capture my toddler-minded misery on camera a couple days ago when the need to figure out my financial aid arose. (I didn't even know what website to go to, I forgot all my log-ins and PINs and everything else... hiii lost puppy speaking.)