When I was a kid, I didn't get in trouble because I was noisy or disruptive in class... I got in trouble because I would repeatedly be caught daydreaming and staring blankly out the window, when I should have been paying attention.
Some 50 years later, I still find myself daydreaming and staring out the window, on a regular basis.
These days, the tendency to "drift off" is typically triggered by music that reminds me of a different place and time... and I have never been very good at "ignoring" the pull, when it comes.
For convenience's sake, modern psychology likes to label my state of being "ADHD — inattentive," a label I understand but don't necessarily agree with being a "problem."
Let's just say that I have always had a very "active inner world."
When I was little, my tendency to drift away was almost invariably inspired by a combination of helplessness and wishing I were pretty much somewhere other than right here, right now.
The trouble with having "absent and/or unavailable" parents is that you typically end up having to "create your own content" to entertain yourself.
Since we spent so much time moving around and traveling to foreign countries (Denmark was really "home, in name only") the idea of "running out into the neighborhood and causing a ruckus" wasn't generally an option, so I'd retreat inside my head... constructing my own impressions of a world that felt better to live in.
It was a coping mechanism. It worked. I made it to adulthood without going to jail or (seriously) attempting suicide.
Mrs. Denmarkguy watching the sunset, Big Sur, California, circa 2005
"Aural memories" are actually among the strongest we have. We tend to remember the sound of something, someplace, sometime, quite clearly.
But sometimes the sound that sends us time traveling is actually a trick of the mind. Consider for example that the song in the following YouTube clip was written and released last year but sets off a whole series of "time traveling" memories related to the time right after I graduated from University... 1985.
Strange, isn't it?
The human mind is a strange and wonderful thing!
Sometimes I find myself drifting off and realize that I am actually longing for a time and experience that never happened; someone I knew recently but who vanished into thin air... and I "miss" our time together when we were in our 20s — which actually never happened.
It's tempting to think I might be mental, but there's actually a word for what I just described: "Anemoia."
I sometimes speculate on why I tend to "go there," rather often. The best explanation I have heard is that those whose lives have been beset by struggle, hardship and disappointment tend to seek a sort of "emotional refuge" in the memories of small islands of joy they experienced.
Makes sense to me.
Thanks for reading, and enjoy your week!
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Created at 2023-01-17 00:48 PST
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