Rainy Days and Random Thoughts

It is raining outside, with thunderstorms.  We are under a flash flood advisory, and a flood watch, so really, it is the right thing to do to stay in the house.  It has been raining for the last hour and a half, and will rain for at least another two hours.

There is something about having to stay in the house that makes it feel confining, and makes me want to get out of the house.  This is really funny in a way, because usually, I just want to be in my house.

And that makes me think about how contrary we humans are.  So often we want something until we have it.  We want a job, or a house, or a car, or a person, and then when we get what we wanted, we feel empty instead of pleased.

Sometimes we are happy when we get what we want.  I still love my 2001 PT Cruiser, and I still love my kitchen that we remodeled in 2002, and I still love my red washer and dryer that I got in 2008.  (I guess I should mention I still think my daughter is the best human ever born and that has lasted nearly forty years, and I still love my husband to distraction after nearly twenty-nine years.)

But I am as guilty as the next person of "when" thinking.  When I retire, when I finish my novel, when I finish this crochet project, when we remodel the house, when I weigh "X", when something, everything will be wonderful.

And it just never works that way.

Those who read my blog regularly know that I am an essentially happy person.  I know I have a great life.  I am eternally grateful for that.  But on some days, and especially rainy days when good sense and caution demand I stay in the house, I start to get restless.

I question everything.  I seek distraction.  I have the attention span of a flea.  (Or a mosquito as Sharon would say.)

So far today, I have tried reading, writing and crocheting.  None held my interest.

I find myself thinking about a book I read years ago, "The Mirror of Her Dreams" in which the heroine felt like she was fading away, and that her image in the mirror was becoming more and more vague.

On days like today, I feel like I am fading.  I feel like I am not myself. I feel like an imposter in my own life.

I think about the movie "Key Largo" and how the tension built and built while the storm raged.  It isn't any wonder thunderstorms are used so frequently in fiction for dramatic effect. They do create an unmistakable tension.

And as all these random thoughts chase themselves around and around in my head, I start to think about the strangest things.

Like how everyone is so worked up about whether or not an athlete stands for the playing of the US National Anthem, but hardly anyone is worked up about the Syrian refugee crisis.

About how so many people have an opinion on the privileged athlete who served a three month sentence for rape, but hardly anyone cares about the 306 people who are shot everyday in America.  (Statistics courtesy of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.)

I think about how for the last at least eight years, Congress and the Senate have actively worked to prevent progress, and yet most of those Congressmen and Senators will be reelected.  And people blame the President for what is wrong, and believe a new President can fix what they want fixed, but without Congress funding things, and the Senate confirming judicial appointments, nothing will change.

I think about how easily manipulated we Americans are by the news media, and how most people have lost the ability to differentiate between fact and opinion.

I think about how people are so eager to believe anything bad about someone they don't like, and how eager they are to refute anything bad about someone they like.  When all humans are a mixture of positive and negative traits.

I think about how much I want to be outside and moving.  Because for me, being outside and moving restores my equilibrium.  It makes me more substantive.  It calms my restlessness.

I hope the rain stops soon.  Until then, I'll just keep looking for something to distract me from my disjointed thoughts.........