I thought about something this week that I haven't thought about in years.
When I was around 14 or 15 years old, I was sitting right inside the entrance of the Mystic Mall in Chelsea, MA, just talking with a friend. A guy came through the entrance and when he was a few feet away from me, we happened to catch each other's eyes.
Apparently he didn’t like the way I looked at him because then he walked over, smacked the shit out of me on the side of my head, and then just kept on walking.
No argument. No warning. No explanation. Afterwards, I remember just sitting there, dumbfounded, embarrassed as hell, trying to figure out what the hell had just happened.
From there on out, I consciously paid attention to where I sat. In a restaurant, a mall, or pretty much anywhere else, I had to be able to see the door.
That went on for most of my life until probably my late 30s or early 40s. Eventually, I started sitting with my back to the door on purpose. Just trying to teach myself that there wasn't a threat.
It didn't take as long as I thought it would to get over it but, to this day, every time I sit down somewhere, there's still a fraction of a second where I notice where my seat is in relation to the door.
It doesn't change my behavior and I don't move my seat or anything, but I find it interesting that after all this time I still notice it
I honestly don't know what the hell to make of that but I do know that one random moment seemed to change where I sat for decades.
Life is weird I guess.
From the Workbench
Capture First. I turned the system I use to catch thoughts before they disappear into a free kit. It's for anybody who's tired of trusting, “I'll remember that later.”
Should This Be AI? A quick tool to help you decide whether you actually need AI for the job/task before you start using it. Sometimes it helps but a lot of the time, all it does is make things more complicated.
Both are free on my Resources page.
What Has My Attention
The price of wanting something. I've been circling around this uncomfortable truth a lot lately: Most of what you want is sitting behind work you don't want to do. The stronger body is behind the workouts you'd rather skip. The better relationship is behind the conversation you keep putting off. I resisted this for decades but over the last several years, I’m coming to grips with the reality that there’s usually no secret answer. All there is is a price. Eventually you have to decide whether what you want is worth paying for.
Old music and memory. I've been listening to a lot of nostalgic music lately. One day it was 90s R&B. Another day it was 80s rock ballads, because apparently that's where my head is right now. I found a playlist with songs I literally haven't heard since I was a teenager, and man, the memories came flooding back.
For most of my life I've struggled to remember much of my childhood. Usually I chalked some of that up to trauma blocking it out, and from what I've read there's probably some truth to that. Now, I'm wondering if music might help me get past some of those blocks. The next time I sit down to work on my memoir, I might put on music from that part of my life and see what comes back.
I'll let you know how it works out.
Trail Marker
What's something you still catch yourself doing because of something that happened years ago?