while I was taking a shower tonight (really where all good thinking takes place) I couldn’t help but sing this one verse from the Band of Horses song “cigarettes, wedding bands” that I’ve been listening too on repeat lately. There’s a verse that I can’t get out out my head- “if my body goes, well to hell with my soul,” that really got me thinking.

I feel like naturally we’re, as humans, encouraged and expected to inherently value the mind over the body, the intrinsic over the physical, and so on. You get the picture. Even though this may seem so counter to what we’ve been told by the media to not so blatantly love our bodies in a confusing and messy secret battle between this personal love of our external elements vs our intellect and internal experiences, this lyric very much resonates. For all I know, the song writers could have a very different interpretation of the line (as they usually do; us listeners tend to more heavily weigh each line to a deeper, personal connection) but it just seems so clear to me that we need to stop every once in awhile and recognize that while our physical bodies certainly aren’t every aspect of our human experience, we also can’t exactly have the experience without the body either.

Don’t get me wrong. I strongly believe most of how we get through life and how we sense it is highly internal and that’s how it’s different and personal for each of us. I believe pop culture places too much significance on how our bodies are seen and received in society that is completely overblown and unrealistic. But consider the pure joys of life: laughing with people you love, watching the sunset over the water, the high you get from a good run, even some hallucinatory experiences that open your mind to new levels of this world that otherwise cannot be accessed. This is all stored and replayed in the mind, but seen through the senses. So while it might be more chivalrous of us to say we wouldn’t want to live any longer part the point where our minds are with us, I think we underestimate the power the body has in terms of living. We may want to be all wise and spiritual by dismissing the importance of our flesh and bones, but we can’t begin to explore this mental journey any further without first coming into this world in a physical presence.

I’m pretty good at avoiding just about anything that makes me slightly uncomfortable.  Communication, group projects, time commitments- I can wiggle my way out of all of them pretty successfully.  While this is my go-to to deal with issues short-term, usually they end up building up and causing me even more anxiety in the long run… so not healthy and pretty counterproductive.

So I’ve resolved to continue doing exactly what I currently am! No matter how many times I read how-to’s about fixing your life or conquering those fears I can never (read: never want to) apply them to my own problems because then they become real, and I’d like to believe I don’t have anything wrong with me that I can’t fix, thankyouverymuch. 

Take, for example, my current roomie situation: her bf.  Tonight I stumbled back to the room after a solid six hour study sesh, clutching my just-purchased carrots and hummus for din, when I realize the door’s unlocked! Now, you have to understand that she also likes to keep our room locked 24/7, whether she’s in there sleeping, doing hw or taking a piss. So when the door’s unlocked it can only mean one thing: the bf is in there, unsupervised.  Which he totally was.  He just continued to watch the basketball game on my roommate’s computer, simultaneously “doing homework”, while I inhaled my veggies in one fell swoop awkwardly in the corner of MY bedroom. 

Roommate arrives after a half hour or so, and I start to get really stoked because the past two nights they’ve slept in our room, and the last few weeks they’ve been doing some unofficial one night here, one night there thing with the bf’s room, which he shares WITH HIS TWIN BROTHER. I don’t know about you, but I can say without a doubt I wouldn’t even hesitate to kick out my sister of our SHARED dorm room; I’d probably even enjoy it.  Alas, bf never stands up to his twinny, so they usually shack up with me, three to the room. Which wouldn’t be horrible if it didn’t happen five out of the seven nights a week, where I have 8:30 am classes and literally no privacy. 

So now I’m on a mission.  It’s been a solid half year that I’ve passively dealt with the bullshit, and I’m out for revenge.  Well, not revenge necessarily, that always seems like such a strong word to me, but more of a gradual release of my inner bitch.  I’m just basically going to do the same stuff they’ve been doing all year: watching movies without headphones until the wee hours of school mornings, storming around the room like a category-5 hurricane the mornings she doesn’t have an early class and I do, bringing around guys to whisper with and tickle in the dark while the other person can CLEARLY hear all this through the not-so-noise-cancelling ipod headphones.  The only really difficult part of this task will be trying to reel in a few potential slumber-buddies, considering the utter lack of interest on their behalf.  But it’s not in me to back down from a challenge, so world, here’s my declaration of independence from roomie hell.

As you can see, this is most certainly not the correct way to deal with things in the modern world in which we live, but quite frankly, I don’t give a flying fuck.  Societal norms are pretty off-kilter in terms of what everyone seems to actually be thinking, so why should I try to stifle my intuition to societies’ one-size-doesn’t-really-fit-all? If this turns out horribly for me, well, at least I learned the hard way and will be more likely to react rationally the next time something of the sort presents itself.  If it doesn’t, then I’m going to assume I ended up with the same results that I would have if I reacted responsibly, which will reinforce my thinking as of late that it’s best to listen to your inner voice! 

Either way, it’ll be a learning experience and I’ll do my best at documenting it on here, hopefully with some hilarity in attempts to garner more reads.

Namaste!