Friday, March 4, 2011

Captured Thought: Documenting Daily Life

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday: Wake up at 7, brush my teeth, wash my face, drive to school, go to classes, drive home, do homework, eat, shower, brush my teeth, wash my face, go to sleep.
Saturday, Sunday: catch up on sleep, do more homework, see friends.

My life, like the chorus of a dull song, tends to be ridiculously repetitive. It is as if I live everyday the same way, and I'm so entirely sick of it. If only there were some way that I could excite my days- change this rhythmic pace and disrupt the consistency.
Recently, I've been thinking a lot about how to do that, and I've decided that there is definitely something I could do, or anyone looking for a bit of change could do, to make their cake of life a little less vanilla-y:
Often, as I sit in class or at the dinner table or in the car, I try to think of interesting or out of the ordinary occurrences of my usually repetitive day. Surprisingly enough, there is always something. Yes, it's typically something small and silly, but it makes me feel better, knowing that there has been a change- some addition of rainbow sprinkles to my stale cake of life. Sadly, I tend to forget these moments- caught up in homework or too bored to think of anything except nothing.
Therefore, if I were to document these moments, say by writing about them or taking a picture of them, I could remember the reasons I have for living this dull life. It is the little, unexpected, spontaneous moments that occur during the course of my too regular day that remind me that this life isn't so bad, after all.

No day, no matter how invariable it may seem, is ever the same.

3/4/11: Today's unusual event: the cookies and cream cupcake that I got for free at a new place called Cup of Cake... Who doesn't get excited over a delectable (free) cupcake?
No One.

3 comments:

  1. Huh. I never thought of that before, at least about documenting strange moments, even if one sentence. Each day blends together with the next and I feel like I can't differentiate between events, or if there even were any. It feels like I'm sleeping all the time, and I'm sleepwalking through life. Maybe I'll try out this method of recording unusual happenings.
    4/22/11
    Today I found out that it turns out I didn't destroy ALL my playpens as a toddler (about 3), but rather the last one, my brother broke while he got in to take a nap with me. He was 9 years old at the time. Go figure. My parents don't know about this.
    The things you learn.
    ~Liz

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  2. Marlee! This is great! Seriously solid metaphors in here and just good flow-y writing. I liked reading it. Anyway, I totally understand exactly what you mean. Almost a hundred percent of the time when the question, “What happened at school today?” is posed at me, I answer, “nothing”; and almost a hundred percent of the time I actually feel like I am telling the truth. The days are so similar that they blend together, and I oftentimes for the life of me can not even remember what occurred in my school day that ended mere hours earlier. I do try to go out of my way to change it though. I get extremely over-involved with extra curricular activities but this eventually ends up just becoming part of the bland, dry, extra vanilla-y cake of life.

    But you are right. No day is ever the same as the last. And every day is great, and great things probably happened as well as some that weren’t. Especially now as we’re graduating I’ve been doing a ton of reflecting on high school and it’s the small random memories that probably meant nothing to me at the time, that I probably didn’t even remember when my mom asked what I did that day, that I am going to miss the most.

    The thing that scares me is that sure, some will stay, but the majority of the great, incredible memories that we’ve had in our lives so far will probably fade away. People forget things as they grow older, and the thought of that pains me. I had an epiphany the other day though, that forgetting memories (paradox?), is actually a choice. I thought about how everyone has the complete freedom and opportunity to write down everything, to keep scrapbooks, to end the day with a diary entry, but how few of people actually do so. It makes me wish that I could go back in time and tell my past self to actually keep a diary, or a blog if a diary isn’t cool enough, so my current self will be able to remember all the “little, unexpected, spontaneous moments that occur during the course of my too regular day that remind me that this life isn't so bad, after all” (Pahos. haha.). We all have the freedom to do this, but I honestly don’t think many people do. Facebook helps. A little. But yeah maybe I’ll go start one right now. But unfortunately, I know I won’t.

    Sorry that was so damn long.

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  3. Marlee, this blog was really freaking awesome! The way you started it off was really unique I honestly thought i was about to start reading Rebecca Black lyrics or something, i know thats really sad :(

    Anyways the topic you chose for you blog was, was a really great point to hit on. Day after day people always complain about the boring lives we lead and how easily we can fall into ruts (transendentalism?). But you roused a point that no day is the same we are just so concerned with our routines that we don't reflect enough over our days to truly realize the significance of each one and how the are not alike in any way.

    This diary idea you have is really good, it reminds me of people writing down the dreams and trying to have lucid ones. Thats kind of what you are trying to just become more aware in reality thought instead of the dream world.

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