Shocking Realizations/ verbal thinking

The title of this is stolen from my friend Sean's blog, who is one of the three people who read this. Anyway, normally I would title it after it's been written, and I could use the material to draw up a clever name, but today I've had a shocking realization, hence the title.

My lameness leaves me alone this Friday night, and instead of trying to make plans or going out to do something "college", I sit at home skypeing with the long distance boyfriend and surfing the Internet. My news feeds home page on facebook leads me to an old friend of mine who I haven't talked to in about 5 or so years. We were good childhood friends before she moved to Chicago, and I always thought of her as a creative, artsy person. I clicked on her name and started looking around her profile. She's doing the typical college thing, going to parties, playing beer pong, being an art major etc etc... but then I got to her information page. Under interest she talks about music and how much she loves to follow it by going to live concerts and keeping up on her local music scene.

That's when it hit me. What am I interested in? Have I been so preoccupied with my own personal problems that I couldn't step out of it for a moment to develop real interest? If you're reading this, and you know me really well, you probably have a question mark spewed across your forehead, but let me explain.

Yes, I have a high interest in literature, but is it fair to call reading and writing a real interest of mine if it's primary use is to take me to a world not my own, and let me escape my own pain if only for awhile? Who's to say? I also really enjoy writing; I love tapping into that creative outlet to let go of anything and everything that's bothering me, but is that a real interest?

Now I'm starting to think even more. Maybe now that this chronic pain is gone I can turn my therapeutic placebo interests into full blown, gone with the wind, rip at your heart, kind of insane passions? But at the same time, I'm also beginning to wonder if my creativity was sparked only from the pain, not from myself. What if I read so much just because I didn't want to deal with the relentless thoughts that circled my head like a centaur that has been nailed to a merry-go -round to serve as a seat for booger-covered children, and has developed an extreme migraine from the high pitched music that will never end and the constant spinning of the world that never seems to settle? Once again, who's to say?

I certainly hope that with my diagnosis, and therefore an end to a lot of significant torture and spinning, my love for reading and writing will blossom. Maybe now I can finally take off, and soar free among my bird of hope (who by the way is doing well keeping her eggs warm). Now that my head is finally cleared of any ridiculous metaphor that I could come up for obsession, I can make room for what I will only dream as my own true passions... interests.