this post is not for the faint of heart

I realize that my morbidity may make a few people uncomfortable. As a courtesy to those people, I have written this disclaimer. If you don’t necessarily enjoy reading about the often graphic inner workings of a young mind, please consider perusing this website for something less obviously messed up. I wish you well on your endeavors.

This is my muse, Salvatore. He’s sassy. And before you ask, why yes, I do love unicorns.

For those of you who decided to stick around, hello. I am now going to share with you a thought process that I experience nearly every day.

Maybe I read too many books in my formative years. Maybe I spend more time in my own head than in the real world. Maybe this kind of behavior is completely normal. But sometimes, my vivid imagination gets the best of me and I have to stop and take a second to remember which is reality and which is fiction.

For example, when I’m sitting in a car, I often have to overwhelming urge to open the door and unbuckle myself. I know that it’s dangerous and I’m not supposed to do it, but I’ve always been so curious about what would happen if I did. At times, the urge has been so severe that I’ve had to lock the door and sit on my hands so I don’t do anything stupid. Or gruesome.

Although I’m not a mathematical person, I find myself considering the probability of being injured on a daily basis, and marveling at the fact that I have somehow beaten the odds.

Think, for instance, about how many times you may have walked through tanbark in open-toed shoes. Or ran through a thicket of trees without any protective eyewear. Or stepped on one of those bumpy yellow things at the corner of every intersection (I don’t actually know what they’re called, but you must know what I mean) without consciously deciding where to put your feet.

There were plenty of opportunities for the universe to flip you a huge middle finger and lodge an errant piece of wood under one of your toenails, stab you in the eye, or twist your ankle so you fall into the street.

But it didn’t. For something so horrific to happen, the circumstances would have to be exactly right (or exactly wrong, depending on whether or not you’re the recipient). And, if I can trust my mathematical skills, the odds of that happening are very slim. I suppose that also depends on the frequency with which one performs these tasks.

Even though I understand the logic, I know that I will always tread carefully on tanbark, extend both hands in front of me to catch tree branches, and place the heel of my shoes exactly between two yellow bumps on the ground. No matter how curious I get, I will lock the door and occupy my attention with something else (my phone). I’d rather not tempt fate. We’ve hung out before, and we don’t exactly get along. Fate was the one who gave me a papercut between my index and middle finger on my right hand so that I couldn’t type properly. Fate was the one who gave me a mosquito bite on the inside of my left nostril, just out of reach and making it look like I was digging for gold.