I take the same approach to life that many type-A personalities take to driving. Impatient, frustrated… that’s really only the beginning. There’s the break-tapping and the swerving and the obscene gestures out the window.
Outta their way! They want to get there already!
I have gripped the ‘oh shit’ handle in the passenger seat of my mother’s Saturn wishing to god that woman would just relax. I mean, we’ll get there when we get there. No sense in dying in a fiery inferno just to be the next in line to get the Old Navy item of the week, right?
In much the same way, my friends must have been sitting by, watching me careen through the last few months thinking, "Shit woman, can’t you just relax?”
The answer, of course, being no. No I can’t. Not in the grand scheme of things anyway.
When life takes a new direction, I want to get there, and I want to get there now.
You know, wherever ‘there’ is.
In 1980-something, when the summers saw me shuttling between my house and her Bear Valley condo, my grandmother bought me a red Care Bear suitcase that, next to smiling bears with iconic tummies, bore the words, “Getting there is half the fun.” And I remember thinking even then that, no, getting there was not half the fun. Getting there is a whole lot of waiting.
And I hate waiting.
Take picking up and moving to New York, for example. I was completely mystified, when after day two or three, I wasn’t fully established in my new life. It was a full out assault to my pride -- an insult to my life-coping skills -- that I was still emotionally (and very often physically) lost.
(Stupid R train.)
At any rate, it occurred to me just now, sitting with Kitten the Second curled up in my lap, that I will never quite agree with those smug, portly bears with sunshines and rainbows on their bellies, and that had I ever really been the sort to just relax, I may never have made it this far at all.
Being compulsive, neurotic and having irrationally high expectations for myself works for me. So put that in your Care Bear Stare and uh…
smoke it?
Those care bears always creeped me out too. I was forced to watch this one episode where the parents forgot the son's birthday and the care bears were like, forgiveness is AWESOME! And i couldn't take it. they forgot his birthday! he was turning seven! No!
So forget care bear life lessons. Besides, relaxing is boring.
Posted by: janna at April 27, 2004 09:37 AMJanna is right. I used to apologize for my frenetic, hyperactive, neurotic personality until I realized that this is just how I am naturally. I embraced it and anyone who doesn't like it can sod off.
Anyway, I believe it makes us much more interesting. Relaxing IS boring. Couldn't have said it better myself.
Posted by: nongirlfriend at April 27, 2004 11:15 AMi'm not touching that shwaggy brick weed.
Posted by: hubs at April 27, 2004 02:15 PMI'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, a leisurely walk to nowhere (or the store or something) can be nice (especially now that the weather's warm) but on the other hand I have times when I wish they would hurry up with the teleportation technology (do you remember/know about the ads IBM put out years ago hinting that they were working on such technology?).
An ex of mine and I found that we were diametrically opposed on one respect: I found that the first time I took a long trip (say PA to NH) I was fine with the distance because it was all new. Every time after I couldn't wait to just GET THERE. She felt the opposite; that the journey was always longest the first time.
Posted by: Michael at April 27, 2004 02:26 PMi'm pretty sure care bears are supposed to be a terrifying animated version of the Religious Right.
good thing you're dismissing their Stare.
Posted by: k at April 27, 2004 03:30 PM
My best friend and I have our own care bare stare, or we did when we were in college. We would lift up our shirts and bras and flash passerbys out of windows or flash the vastness of the ocean during school breaks while we shouted "care bare stare!" Why? Well we were 20 and this seemed like a good thing to do. There are no more care bare stares in my life.
"I take the same approach to life that many type-A personalities take to driving."
High speed, egocentric, me-first, drunk, and in a stretch limo?
Cooooooooooooooooooooooooooool.
Well, I'd like that approach to life, anyway.
;-)
Posted by: Stuart at April 28, 2004 10:06 AMOh, hang on.
'Type-A personalities' - is that American for A-list celebrities, or is it some kind of psychological class?
Posted by: Stuart at April 28, 2004 10:07 AM