We should BUY A BAR.

Lately, I’ve been trying this new thing where I write a post and then let it sit for a day (or at least half a day) and revise it later. It’s much different than how I used to post things to my blog. I would just open Blogger, spew my word vomit into a draft, MAYBE read it a couple of times, and then hit publish.

So now I write something and try to forget about it for a bit. Which is nice. But it also leads to a new problem. I now catch myself just writing any old thing, really letting the stream of consciousness thing get away from me, and thinking, “oh, don’t worry about what you’re writing right now, Future!Jennie can fix it,” which is great and all, at the time, but I eventually turn into Future!Jennie and wish I hadn’t left a mess of words on my hands.

I guess, if nothing else, Future!Jennie is at least a day or two smarter than me, so that’s something.

This is a common occurrence, really, and not just with writing. I pretty much live my life by a code and that code is, “I’ll worry about it later.” AND BOY DO I. Here are some things I’ve worried about in the last 24 hours:

1. Whether Max sleeps too much.

2. What Phoebe's meows mean. Is she in pain? Hungry? Lonely?

3. Where Joe was, because he wasn’t home yet and OMG WHAT IF HE GOT IN A CAR ACCIDENT AND DIDN’T HAVE HIS PHONE OR WALLET AND THEY HAD NO IDEA WHO HE WAS.

4. Whether pulling a muscle in my neck while doing NOTHING means that I have a debilitating illness of some kind.

5. The stray(ish) cats that live in our neighborhood, namely one gray cat with giant balls (important detail) that used to hang out in our yard who I haven’t seen since the beginning of the winter. :(

6. That the deer who came back to our street are too cold at night. I wanted to put out some blankets but Joe wouldn’t let me. HE THINKS THEY LIVE IN A CAVE.

7. That I’ll bite into a carrot wrong and chip a tooth.

8. That if I can’t log into our bank accounts, it means someone has hacked us and stolen our identities, not that I typed my password wrong.

9. That River Song is going to show back up on Doctor Who. 

10. Life, The Universe, and Everything, obviously.

Aren’t you glad you’re not me right now? One might think, that if someone was prone to worrying about everything in the world, she might be more responsible about planning ahead and not procrastinating on everything in her life, but you’d be wrong. It’s the procrastination that leads to excessive worrying but if I didn’t have all this stuff to worry about, how would I spend my time? Productively? Perish that thought!

Last night, on my way to volunteering, I was complaining to my mom about how my day was so busy and I had to use my lunch break to put together my volunteering activity. She very wisely pointed out that the only reason I’d had to use my lunch break was because I’d procrastinated. I could have very easily come up with an activity over the weekend or last week or FREAKING WHENEVER, but did I? (No, obviously. Weren’t you listening just now?)

I’ve always been this way. In elementary school, I used to put off doing my homework each night until the last possible minute, and sometimes that minute was after bedtime, when I’d then sneak into the bathroom next to my bedroom and do my homework in the light of the bathroom nightlight. I can remember standing in line at school in the morning, waiting behind the other kids, to hand in my spelling book or whatever, and quickly finishing the assignment WHILE IN THE LINE. WTF?

I guess it’s comforting to know I’ve always been this way and will probably always be this way and it’s OK, because it’s who I am and I’d probably be even worse at being someone else. So I’ll just continue to let Future!Jennie worry about everything and deal with the consequences later. It’s probably not healthy but at least I’m not alone.

"I already feel like an idiot most of the time anyway."

Your mind is a pretty effective time machine, provided you have a good memory and at least a little bit of an imagination. The only drawback is that you can't really change anything unless you can somehow change your own memories AND the memories of all the people who were involved in whatever you're changing. So you can see how that might be difficult. It's one thing to impose your will on your own self, but on other people? Unless you have an Inception-machine or know Joseph Gordon-Levitt, you can just forget it.

But you can pretend things changed. You can even change your own memories enough, just for yourself, that it helps you in the future. Some may call this denial, but I just call it playing the system. I find myself so often hung up on things that have happened to me, things that I no longer have any control over, if I ever did, things that I cannot change now, no matter how hard I wish for it, and yet I dwell on them, well, forever. The whole making mistakes and learning from them has always been hard for me. Like most people, I'd rather not make mistakes, I'd rather just do things perfectly the first time, otherwise aren't I wasting time?

No. Duh, NO. Everyone knows it’s important to make mistakes, because at least you're trying, but it's hard to really take that to heart, to do something about it. Much easier, really, to stay still, doing the things you know how to do and not having to worry about messing up or looking foolish.

I'm not sure why this is something I ever worry about. I try so hard NOT to make a fool of myself and it's usually all for nothing. I end up looking like an idiot at some point during the day, it's just going to happen. That’s just who I am. I'M AN IDIOT. And I'm not trying to demean myself or anything, I like being an idiot. It's much more fun than being serious all the time. And yet, it bothers me sometimes that people don’t seem to take me all that seriously.

This is mostly my fault, I’m pretty sure. I'm more likely to joke and make sarcastic comments and belittle myself than I am to actually offer helpful advice or suggestions. I’m not sure why I do that. Chandler Bing my way through life. (Oh, right, defense mechanism. Duh. Plus, Chandler is the funniest Friend. Who doesn't want to be the funniest?)

I wish I spent less time worrying about the past, I really do, if only because it does no good. Sure, it's helpful to remember your mistakes (if you've been brave enough to make any), but there comes a point when you have to stop dwelling and start thinking about what you're going to do next. Hopefully, it doesn't involve sitting and moping and getting all verklempt while you listen to The National, unless you're me and today is today*. No. Stop that. Get up, take a walk, sit down, read a book, write some nonsense, just do SOMETHING.

Your mind is a time machine after all, bigger on the inside, so just imagine what it can do. 

*I actually wrote this like a month ago, so I feel the need to point out that today I am not moping and listening to The National, today I am high on cold medicine and enjoying Spotify 90s radio.

Dear Way-in-the-FutureMe

Do you think we'll still be blogging in 100 years? Or even 50? 10? Or, at some point, maybe our brains will just be injected into the mainframe (LIKE THE X-FILES) and they'll go whizzing by each other, all speedy quick and fancy free, which means we'll all be able to hang out together, in real life, only real life will be way different because it all exists inside your computer-brain. I mean, really, we're halfway there, if you think about it.

I think I keep mentioning this, but I'm still working on a FutureMe Project, which consists of writing my future-self letters every week and sending them a year into the future. It's actually been really fun, sort of like keeping a journal that I don't get to read (at least not for a while), which is nice because it keeps the navel-gazing down to the bare minimum. I'm actually pretty impressed with myself (honestly, it doesn't take much) because I've actually stuck with this project for over six months and, for most projects I dream up, that's almost unheard of. Anyway, I feel like if I keep talking about it, it'll keep me accountable, even though no one but me cares if I stop doing it. (Dear PresentMe: DON'T STOP THIS PROJECT OR I WILL PUNCH YOU IN THE THROAT. LOVE YOU!)

Sometimes I think about sending myself a letter fifty years into the future. Maybe I already did, and I don't remember, and I'll get it in, like, 49 years, I don't know. I don't know what kind of shit Past!Jennie was up to a year ago, because I haven't started getting my weekly updates yet. Though, if I were to write a letter to myself, 50 years into the future, it'd probably be something like this. And if I did send one, I really, really hope I get it in 50 years because otherwise that means A) email no longer exists or B) I'm dead, and both of those options sound like a major bummer:

Dear Me/You,

Hello! How are you? You're, like, super old now. 80! Do you feel 80? Cause you look 80 AHAHAHAHA jk, I have no idea what you look like. Because I don't have a crystal ball. OMG DO YOU HAVE A CRYSTAL BALL IN THE FUTURE? Anyway, I assume you look super old. Because you're old. SO OLD. OMG, how did you get that old? I don't even feel like I'm 30, but you probably remember that since you were me at one time. Or maybe you don't remember, because that was 50 years ago.

What's the world like now? Because here is what I imagine: Everyone drives flying cars and rides around on hoverboards, you take pills in the morning that contain all of the food you need for the day (which solved the world's obesity crisis, right?), and you can surf the internet WITH YOUR BRAIN. Am I close? I also hope that you've somehow figured out how to build a time machine and used it to travel back and play with baby dinosaurs. And the only reason you didn't come back to say hi to me at some point is because you didn't want to destroy the space-time continuum. Fingers crossed!

I hope you've had a good life. I mean, obviously. Why would I hope that you had a shitty life? That would be a dick move. I wonder if you had any kids or grandkids or if you just stuck with puppies and grandpuppies. Have you ever been to the moon? OH MY GOD DO YOU LIVE ON THE MOON? I wish you could write a letter to the past so I know what the future is like. I'm very impatient, as you know, and I don't want to wait 50 years to see for myself.

Anyway, I hope you're having a good day/week/year/half-a-century! Also, I hope you don't have to wear diapers. That seems like it'd be a drag.

Love,

You-Minus-50-Years

PS: Do you still laugh when people say butt or fart or poop or duty (heh, DOODY) etcetera etcetera? I hope so.