On Letting Go

Rule Number 9: Don't make mountains out of molehills...and the other maternal slogan greatest hits

I have an absurdly good memory about some things, although this usually doesn't help me. Sure I can talk your ears off about the revolving door band theorem behind Queens of the Stone Age or the artistic merit of American Pie, but this usually does more destruction to my image than good. One of the things that I've never forgotten, though, are the sayings that my mother used to badger into my head as a child. How about a quick tracklist, while we're at it.

Ellen Bill's Motherly Slogans - The Greatest Hits
1.Don't beat a dead horse - All greatest hits records need to start with a classic. And I was damn good as a child at beating a topic until it eventually had an aneurysm and had to be taken to the overripe subject hospital. Much like I did with that metaphor.

2. Watch your door - Because seriously, when you get out of a car...watch it.

3. You aren't doing anything stupid, right? - And as any son knows, this isn't really a question that has a right answer.

4. You can't always get what you want, Travis - I still don't think I've learned this one...

5. Don't make mountains out of molehills

Alright, so this is a Greatest Hits work in progress, but it got me to my main point, which is that I am an absolute legend at taking minute details and turning them into catastrophes. Like my mother, I'm a perfectionist and a bit of a control freak. Hence the repetition of "you can't always get what you want." I really didn't (and often still don't) understand that concept. And really, why should I? This is America dammit. We pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and claim all that is ours! Ronald Reagan baby!

Just kidding. In any case, inability to let things go and move on is much less becoming on a person when he's in college, in his twenties, and a business major. At a certain age people are supposed to learn to let the little things go and focus on the big picture. However, I'm better at creating invisible checklists in my head of all the times that a person or situation has wronged me. Eventually, the smallest detail can send this thesis of grievances snowballing into flat out stupid destruction. Ever had somebody erupt over an innocuous tone in your voice or a strange look. I'm that guy. I believe everything is pregnant with meaning and symbolism and that perhaps if I remember every detail, I'll be able to piece it all together into something perfect. The problem is, of course, that not everything has meaning. In fact, most things do not have an intentional meaning behind them. The way that I merge through traffic doesn't seem to me like it should be important to the passengers in the vehicle, but that is how I've treated life for a long time. Simply put, I cannot let things go, and this is wrong.

Two weeks ago, my ex-girlfriend Jenna passed away after a long bout with cancer. She was an incredible human being, and I was devastated over the time I had spent on trivial crap that I could have spent reconnecting with her. Of course, it also put a lot of other things from my semester into perspective. The minute details that I tend to complain about disappeared for a little while, and I saw the big picture. At the time, though, I knew that this transcendent understanding couldn't last forever. I wrote a lyric to a new song that said "I was a fool to think our youth was so invincible, and I'll be a fool again this time next month." It only took two weeks. I found myself snapping about little things and complaining about minutia less than a month after I had supposedly sworn out of my hyper-controlling ways.

Unfortunately, this blog doesn't have a happy ending. I mainly posted it because I was doing it again yesterday, and I woke up pretty frustrated about my inability to deal with my Achilles Heel. By this point, I've realized that you can't change people to the point where their major battles simply disappear. This is something that will always plague me, just like other things plague other people. Those slogans that your mother tells you as a child are important though. They're meant to be roadblocks to help you find your difficulties, and then weave through them. As it happens, my mom had to say either "don't make mountains out of molehills" or "don't sweat the small stuff" more than any other childhood slogan. And although this looks like it may be an incurable disease for me, I know that with that memory I can do my best to treat it.

Earlier this week I made a joke that my exorbitant complaints were like global warming. Everyone knows it exists by now, though it can't be stopped immediately. I need some sort of Kyoto Protocol to slowly diminish my impact on the world. From what I hear, the UN's working on it.