OYM Day 89: Dumb

I’ve done a lot of dumb stuff in my life. I got my first tattoo at 17 at a roadside shop in Kentucky. An “artist” by the name of “Wild Man” came out from behind a shower curtain used as a door and didn’t ask to see my ID. I left 45 minutes later with a hummingbird tattooed on my lower hip. People often mistake it for a butterfly, or a praying mantis, or a comet. That should tell you something about Wild Man’s work.

I have plenty of blurry tattoos. I had my belly buttoned pierced at a souvenir shop in Texas (you bet it got infected). I played hooky in high school and would spend the day drinking coffee at Denny’s. I’ve bought international plane tickets, drunk at a bar, on many occasions, forgetting what I had done until the next morning (seeing “your itinerary” emails in my inbox still gives me a scare, even when I know I’ve booked a trip). I’ve jumped off a bridge into dangerous waters, high as a kite. I’ve driven across the country alone, multiple times. I’ve hitchhiked in Central America. I’ve dyed my hair green, dated DJ’s, and fallen asleep on the subway.

Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.

Now that I’m a parent, I constantly have to remind myself not to do that dumb thing I was just about to do. My brain has always done this thing where it wants to gravitate towards the worst option, just to see what happens. The majority of the time I know better and will opt for something standard, but still… it would be kind of neat to rollerblade straight into the swimming pool, pretending not to notice.

Dumb. Really dumb. Not even funny. Just dumb.

I can remember once getting into a fight with my husband when we were riding the bus in Chicago. I don’t remember what he said to make me upset, but as my temper started to flare, I looked him dead in the eye, and without hesitation I jumped out of the back passenger exit right before the doors shut. The bus scuttled forward and I waived farewell to him through the back window. He looked…stunned. Also annoyed. We were 30 minutes late for dinner that evening.

Dumb. And childish.

When my grandmother passed away, I wrote her a letter to stick in her casket, in hopes she’d read it in heaven, all knowing and wise, and send me messages in my dreams. She was a wonderful woman and always gave me little, precious gifts. They’d be made of glass or porcelain and I’d keep them on a shelf in my room, dusting them and rotating them every so often, a lovely past-time for a child with OCD. One item she gave me was a small, white, porcelain chest. It fit in my palm. To this day, things this dainty still bring me satisfaction in an odd way. My birthstone was set into the chest with a small inscription. A tiny gold key hung from a ribbon on the side of it. I unraveled the ribbon and took the key in my hand. I put it in the envelope along with the letter to my grandmother. I told myself I would whisper secrets and messages into the chest and she would have the key to open it and listen. Just as I was licking the envelope to ensure a safe delivery, I stopped. What was the key made out of? Was it solid gold? Was it glass? It was so tiny. And precious. Tiny and precious. The need to hold the key was overwhelming so I fished it out of the envelope and held it between 2 fingers. Then, I snapped it right in half. Turns out, it was plastic. My heart sank and I couldn’t believe I had broken this special key all for the sake of wanting to know if it would break under pressure or not. It certainly did. I put it in the envelope anyways and it’s likely still with her, decades later.

I was too busy thinking about the moment and not the consequences. Do you do this, too? I know people exist that think heavily towards the future and base their decisions on whether or not it will effect it. Then, there are people like me, that are convinced they could get hit by a bus at any moment (even in bed, as I type!) and want to live each moment as if it were their last.

You might say I have a problem with impulse control. But you’d be wrong. I just want a good story. I want to live and experience something that I’m going to be able to talk about later. I like unfamiliar situations and “seeing where it goes.” I like breathing in all the observations and creating my characters as I observe them in live-time.

So, sure. I’ll go to that party. I’ll break up that fight on the bus (there is definitely a bus theme here). I’ll do that thing I don’t even like doing. But I’ll do it, because I bet I can get a story out of it.

So, back to my point: I’ve done a lot of dumb stuff in my life. But would I be able to write nearly 90 stories if I made better choices? Probably not.

Drunken tubing on a lake at high speed. Dumb.