What do you think about when you are just thinking during the day or in the middle of the night or as the sun falls flat against the horizon? Out here in the woods I had time to ask myself that and found the answer to be as disappointing as possible.
I call them Pillars of Thought. It remains one of the toughest things in my relationship. My Pillars include my relationship but they don’t swirl around it as I suppose they would or perhaps should for everyone. I know my partner thinks about us. Just this morning we were lying in bed and I’d been thinking about us and then my mind shifted away to this blog and what dark places my mind often wanders towards when left alone and just like that she asked me what I was thinking about. It wasn’t us.
It wasn’t anything it should be. I’d been thinking about my job. I’d been working plans in my mind for what I needed to do during the week and the plan to write this very blog. I’d been thinking about my own pillars of thought and what else was up there beyond work. They change. Weight falls heavier on some more than others and then the world shifts and the weight shifts again. There are reasons for all of this. Right now I’m thinking the most about the writing center, the youth football league, Exactly how long and what I need to do till retirement, and ways to see my partner this weekend while I am off with the kids but still spend enough time with the kids to really get my fill of them (they are missed).
I think it is more telling what I am not thinking about. I am not really thinking about classes at all. When I think about stories my mind shifts away from that mental conversation. I’m not thinking about the weekly date night. When I try my mind does what it does with stories. It skitters. Odd isn’t it? The two most important things in my life are the things I’m least able to think long about?
That itself led me down a rabbit hole. I wondered how classes factored into that conversation as well. Here is what I fear is happening. The sports stuff, the work stuff, all of that is pure speculation. There aren’t actionable items rising out of those thought sessions. On the other hand, when I think about stories I think in scenes and moments and conversations. I open the door to that place where the stories live and that world comes streaming in. If I’m just lying there and thinking or in the shower or on the road or just even about my day, I am not able to capture anything that comes flooding through my mental door. I lose it all. The date night stuff is the same way. I’m not capturing these rare ideas of romance and as a result they’ll be lost as well. Sounds like an excuse when I put it on paper, but I’m not much for excuses. I’m for reasons and moving past reasons to understanding how to make things better and how to spend more time thinking about what matters.