Monday, September 19, 2011

do not obsess over this.

this is another creative writing prompt. do not blame me, blame dr. vivian and his creativity for making prompts (and his rose. don't forget that rose he brought to the first day of class).

today's objective: write a sprawling list of your obsessions.

here are my main obsessions.

1. serial killers. they're a hobby.
2. the lion king. we've had blogs about this.
3. harry potter. once again. i have blogged about this.
4. criminal minds. i just keep blogging about my obsessions, don't i?
5. chuck. we've touched on this. (last night was my chuck marathon. it was awesome.)
6. blogging. twitter. tumblr. facebook. social networking in a nutshell.

that's about it. for true obsessions.

sprawling obsessions are different. a sprawling obsession list is just anything that comes to your head that you think about. tics. little things. things you do. we had ten minutes to write on this.

ten minutes was not enough time. after i wrote out a three page list of things and had left class, i thought of about ten hundred more. i didn't even mention harry potter because i was so caught up in some of the things i had written down.

some of them were these: my hair. my feet. hands. tapping my toothbrush seven times. mismatching my socks. illness. the conviction i will die young. sticky notes. poetry. blogging. having my bed in a certain spot. shoes. ordering my fruit snacks. balloons. my computer. quotations. my glasses. bows that i put in my hair.

i didn't even get into some of the big stuff. little things. nitpicky things. things i didn't even realize were tiny obsessions.

from there i had to pick one (out of this sprawling incomplete list!) and write about why i think i have this obsession. does it stem from something deeper? how do i work around it in my daily life? what does it say about me?

lucky you, i'm about to to do that with one of my obsessions. and probably copy and paste it and turn it in as my paper on wednesday. you are now dr. vivian. grab your rose and recite a poem (or prayer).

the obsession: i absolutely have to know how a shower functions before i can use it. i have to understand how to turn the faucet on and off and how to turn the shower head on and off. i have to understand which way the knobs twist to make it hot or cold. i have to know if moving the knobs a teeny bit will make a big difference or i have to twist forever to achieve a tiny temperature change. i absolutely cannot shower until i know all of this. what makes it worse: i can't figure it out on my own. i have to have somebody physically come into the bathroom and show me. and they can't just tell me, they have to actually turn on the water and demonstrate.

if i do not know these things, i will not use that shower.

i want to come up with some logical explanation for this. some deep-centered fear or irrationality. maybe that's what it really is and i just can't place it. maybe. i'm not sure.

to shower is to be vulnerable. being vulnerable is hard for nearly everyone. nobody likes to be vulnerable. when you get into a shower, you're completely naked. that's just the truth of it. you are never physically more vulnerable. i also find that i'm more emotionally vulnerable. no lie, i cry in the shower. a lot. being in the shower is that one time when you're completely by yourself (unless you're into that showering together thing), you're naked, and you have that time to think while you get yourself clean.

when i have that daily time of naked vulnerability, i need to be comfortable.

i can't focus on everything that i think about when i shower if i don't know how the shower works. i can't even get into the shower without understanding this. how am i supposed to enter a time of vulnerability if i don't even know how to enter it? i'm not going to hover around naked in a bathroom trying to get the shower to work. this is too vulnerable. too uncomfortable. i need to be comfortable with my vulnerability.

there's something hypocritical about this. extremely hypocritical. remember when i said that i couldn't test these things out myself, that i had to have somebody demonstrate to me how a shower works?

this, to me, shows vulnerability. i'm letting my guard down and explaining (usually with embarrassment) that i absolutely have to understand how this works and i am too afraid to try it out on my own. i need this to be spoon-fed to me. i can't be responsible and be adult and figure this all out for myself. i need to ask for help. vulnerability.

i have to be vulnerable to be comfortable in what will later be my own different type of vulnerability.

living around this is decently easy. for one thing, i spent sixteen years in the same house with the same shower. that's my shower. that's my vulernable shower clean time. no problems there.

when i moved, i had my father show me how the new shower works. he wasn't entirely surprised by this.

i don't think he truly understands all of the stipulations that come with this obsession, but he understands that i have a problem. every year we take a vacation and every time we do, there is a new shower. on the first day of vacation, i call him into the bathroom and demand to know how the shower works.

i do this with every new shower. i have even had my boyfriend demonstrate a shower for me when i spent the night at his house. once i know how a shower works, i will remember it. i am fine with showers at my grandparents' houses. at my cousins', at my boyfriend's. they have been shown to me and now i am comfortable.

the first day of having my own bathroom here at school posed a problem. i had my boyfriend walk all the way across campus to figure out how my shower worked before i would even consider showering. once he figured it out, he showed me and then i was able to adopt the bathroom as my own.

i enjoy showering. showering is one of my favorite activities. if it did not waste water and take up time, i would shower three or four times a day. when i have terrible days and throwing textbooks isn't enough (i really do through textbooks) i take a nice, hot, relaxing shower. it's getting back to the vulnerable time. that time to let your guard down and cry and just be surrounded by hot water and as weird as this sounds, your own nakedness and vulnerability.

half of this was written as a blog and half of this was written as an english paper. it's a rather taboo subject. i've spent a decent amount of time writing about the one time that you're naked all day, unless you're in a nudist colony. if you are, that's totally legit.

i'm not really sure what this says about me. maybe i need to step out of my comfort zone. i honestly think that showering in a shower outside of my own shower is stepping out of my comfort zone. i need to push my limits. maybe i do have some deep weird fear and it's just manifesting in a shower obsession.

i don't know.

it's something i can live with. it's something i have lived with for twenty years. it's something i will live with. i don't think i can change it.

what does this obsession mean? i have absolutely no idea. i will be open and honest with this in my paper. unless suddenly i come to a realization tomorrow. then i'll probably leave a comment about it for your viewing enjoyment.

until then, i really do encourage you to make a sprawling list. it's actually very fun to make and you learn a lot about yourself.

if you're interested, i have a few more things from my list. but if you just honestly don't care, this blog is over. :)

the cd changer of my car. being tall. my mortality. having large feet. my brother. being liked. airports. wishing that life was a gigantic musical. my car. my college fridge. how many times i brush my teeth. my hair. having college ruled paper. color coding my classes. using specific pens. harry potter. the music i listen to. how often i blog. how my facebook looks to other people. speaking spanish. my fear of being murdered by a serial killer. how often i tweet. my grandmother. blindness.

i do have a decently large obsession with blindness. i think i might blog about that soon. :)

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