Michelle's House of Horrors

And I see newspapers, and a car in the carport,
And you’re a grownup and still unsure,
And I’m thirty, and I don’t know nothing no more.
–Everything But The Girl/25th of December

I can believe things that are true and things that aren’t true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they’re true or not.
–Neil Gaiman/American Gods

Tell people there’s an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority will believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure.
― George Carlin

In my case, I am 50 and I know less and less every year.
I’m not convinced I will ever be a grownup and I have never been particularly sure of anything in my life. Well, I have always been sure of one thing–which I could be completely wrong about, but I persist in believing anyway in spite all evidence to the contrary.

So what does that even mean?

I know a lot of people who build their whole lives around things that they believe which I think they are completely wrong about.

My life is mine, theirs is theirs.

We each do what’s best for ourselves, or we try to anyway. We ask for advice from people we love, we get opinions. Sometimes we listen. Sometimes we don’t. Sometimes, we make the wrong decision if we listen to our heart. Sometimes we do if we listen to even the best advice. No one knows what is best in every situation, and we are all sometimes wrong even if we have the best of intentions.

Most of the time, things work out the right way. For me, anyway. It seems like for other people, nothing ever does. That’s something I wonder about. Part of the very long list of things I wonder about.

Just add figuring out the balance between listening to your very infallible heart, your very infallible brain, or the advice of possibly more or less infallible people who love me to the list.

Me? I’m 50, and I don’t know nothing no more.

But I will try to believe in people, and it is a choice. It’s not something that comes easily to me. It’s something I fight with and argue with myself about.

If I’m going to be wrong about something, maybe I’d rather go down trusting than not. Maybe trusting something too much seems like a better character flaw to have than not trusting in anything at all.

It’s quite possible that I am very wrong. I have been before.

I will definitely be wrong again. It’s very likely that I’ll get hurt sometimes if I believe in people.

Maybe even a lot.

I’ll get hurt even more if I don’t believe in anyone or anything.

Monday you can hold your head
Tuesday, Wednesday stay in bed
Or Thursday watch the walls instead
It’s Friday I’m in love
–the Cure/Friday I’m In Love

It isn’t a big mystery to anyone that I like making plans. Don’t get me wrong–a spontaneous gathering or event is fantastic–but having something to look forward to is even better. I love being on vacation. Any vacation. It doesn’t have to be as major as a trip to Italy or Mexico. It could be a trip to the beach with friends. A movie. Dinner with a friend.

This time of year, of course, it’s almost all football related. I go down to Eugene for the games, and look forward to seeing everyone. I wonder who will be at the tailgater. I look forward to seeing my family. Having dinner with friends maybe on Friday night, or going for a walk on Sunday.

When your plans involve the weekend, Friday is the best day for anticipation.

The freakish twist with me is that although I love anticipation, I am also a natural born what-iffer. What if a flash flood prevents me from getting to Eugene? What if there is a big party on Friday night and no one tells me?What if people at the tailgater don’t like me? What if a wild boar gets loose inside the stadium on Saturday and gores Devon Allen in the red zone? What if Sharkey’s runs out of booze?

But…and this is the weird part…the what-iffing never interferes with the anticipation. My worries are so over the top that I am always very pleasantly surprised to find out that everything was even better than I thought it might be.

It’s optimistic pessimism.

Honestly? I think I just enjoy making up the things that might go wrong. It’s not worrying, it’s storytelling. I do the same thing with astoundingly good things that will never happen. Devon Allen is NOT going to wiggle his ears at me after a game and tell me he wants to take me home with him.

What it all means is that when it’s Friday, I’m in love with the weekend that’s coming up and the people in it. If we do some stargazing, it is very unlikely that a meteor will crash anywhere in our vicinity. If a meteor does crash in Kyle’s back yard, we will all have a hell of a story to tell everyone at the tailgater at 0700 on Saturday.

Either way?

I can guarantee you that we will all be laughing, and that unless our phones are all hit by the meteor there will be a lot of pictures of it on Facebook.