Messing with my Mind
Messing with my Sleep Mind
I am not accustomed to this— waking up EARLY and not being able to fall asleep again. It’s only 4:57 and I get that a gazillion doughnuts have already been made and the people at Panera have been at work on those bagels for a while now too, but I am usually sleeping about now. And if I ever do wake up at this point and see the clock, I get a little happy in my drowsy state because THERE IS MORE TIME TO SLEEP— especially in the summer. BUT here I am thinking that, today, I need to call my mother. I want us to send notes to Doodle, Jeff’s dad, before his surgery. I need to get a wedding gift in the mail AND get that last graduation gift out before the fall semester begins. I’d like to stop by Home Goods today to see if I can find some ultra skinny lamps for an ultra skinny buffet table I purchased so people could actually get out of their chairs, if need be, in my dining room- because now my lamp shades are deeper than my buffet table. I need to go pick up the calendars I ordered from Office Depot for the {I can’t type it} "organized learning that usually starts in August". And guess what I also realized somewhere between 4:30 and now? I left the Little People stuff in B’s window seat in our old house. Never had remembered that. The kids were, like, 2 and 4 when we moved in on Park Arbor so Little People got lots of playing time but when they graduated to other toys, I couldn’t part with them. So I stored them in the window seat in B’s room. And I left them.
I really think I’m going to blame this on the movie I saw last night. I saw the previews months ago and it messed with my mind then……and I really wasn’t sure I wanted to see it. Inside Out. It’s that Pixar production that has to do with your brain and your memories. It’s sort of hard to explain, but when you see 5 core emotions with little human bodies running around {inside a brain that resembles the interior of Starship Enterprise} in charge of how you respond to everything in life and in charge of protecting your memories of the deepest kind that make your life up for what it is, I was and am completely wigged out. I don’t think I breathed remotely regularly until Bing Bong gave Joy a knapsack of sorts in which to carry {run, fall off mountains, trip, ride magic wagons, wreck on the Train of Thought etc} the little girl’s core memories around. STRESSFUL. Everything that made this very loved little girl who she was, was being bounced all over brain land and she, Riley, was struggling to live her pretty normal life.
So yes, it sounds dramatic— and it was, but it was also Pixar. And we laughed. So hard. If as a parent with children under 10, you see this movie, you need to see it again in about 3 more years and you too can laugh like hyenas as Jeff and I did. There is such comfort in knowing that there is camaraderie among moms and dads in this parenting thing— even with Pixar writers. When Riley’s “Joy” is gone- trying to carry/juggle all those “core memories” back to “headquarters” that finally went in the knapsack— her parents experience their sweet, happy little girl’s anger, disgust and fear and their reaction was Little Red Wagon CLASSIC. Just spot on. Funny. Jeff’s high pitched cackle didn’t help but no one knows how hysterical that scene is except a mom and a dad trying to parent as best as they know how. Pixar, you nailed us. “The. foot. is. down.” {And for those of you with teenagers, after the last line in the movie, “What could possibly go wrong now?” I thought surely the next scene would be someone pressing the “red button” that was on Riley's new dashboard. Sequel?}
So back to messing with my mind— disturbing, I tell you, to think my core memories might be lost. I know this can actually happen— tragically, by accidents or even disease— and it’s devastating in every way, but this was a child and it was because of emotions inside her brain with human characteristics - IMPERFECT- that were messing things up. Joy and Sadness were gone and she was left with only Fear, Anger and Disgust. Sounds like a party, right? And, in this movie, unlike us, she seemed to have no control over her emotions. And she suffered and had no idea why. Her safe world began to crumble.
Memories are precious, comparable to nothing I own, and as a mom, I feel “making” memories has been one of my main “occupations” over the last 13 years— helping create them, being a part of them, attaching music to certain events, cooking certain foods, creating smells that ring in a season, looking days, weeks and months ahead to make time for them— so that they have some good memories and so some can be beautiful in every sense. And to think that those could be “lost” — especially the ones that bring our kids comfort and a sense a security or identity, I can’t handle it. It’s too sad. It’s not right. It makes me want to yell, “Quit messing with my mind!!” And this is when I remind myself, it was a movie. And it had the ending we all wanted. But……
It was only when Joy realized the value of Sadness was Riley’s world put back together again and I was able, once again, to breathe steadily.
I love Plugged In’s last lines in its review:
What a brave message that is—that our goal isn't to be happy all the time. We're supposed to be … us. We're supposed to experience life in its wholeness, even in its sadness. Happy smiles don't get us all the way there. Running clear of anything that might potentially upset us doesn't either. Sometimes we need to be sad. And that sadness—indeed, all of those prickly emotions we see in Inside Out—can be catalysts for a much deeper joy down the line. {Paul Asay}
Seriously. Hurray!
As the movie ended I was reminded of a quote that was taped up several places as I was waiting on these babies I have with whom I was excited to make memories—-
“Sorrows come to stretch out spaces in the heart for joy.” {Streams in the Desert, January 18th entry}
How I experienced that. My sorrow was big— and it did stretch my heart. Even though it was painful, I know it made my joy fuller, richer, more abundant. One is more beautiful, more meaningful with the other. More.
So Pixar, thank you for a great movie and a great reminder even though I believe it messed with my mind...... and my sleep. Being tired stretches out a great place for an afternoon nap.
I am not accustomed to this— waking up EARLY and not being able to fall asleep again. It’s only 4:57 and I get that a gazillion doughnuts have already been made and the people at Panera have been at work on those bagels for a while now too, but I am usually sleeping about now. And if I ever do wake up at this point and see the clock, I get a little happy in my drowsy state because THERE IS MORE TIME TO SLEEP— especially in the summer. BUT here I am thinking that, today, I need to call my mother. I want us to send notes to Doodle, Jeff’s dad, before his surgery. I need to get a wedding gift in the mail AND get that last graduation gift out before the fall semester begins. I’d like to stop by Home Goods today to see if I can find some ultra skinny lamps for an ultra skinny buffet table I purchased so people could actually get out of their chairs, if need be, in my dining room- because now my lamp shades are deeper than my buffet table. I need to go pick up the calendars I ordered from Office Depot for the {I can’t type it} "organized learning that usually starts in August". And guess what I also realized somewhere between 4:30 and now? I left the Little People stuff in B’s window seat in our old house. Never had remembered that. The kids were, like, 2 and 4 when we moved in on Park Arbor so Little People got lots of playing time but when they graduated to other toys, I couldn’t part with them. So I stored them in the window seat in B’s room. And I left them.
 |
| Making a memory with these at the Coyote Drive-In |
So yes, it sounds dramatic— and it was, but it was also Pixar. And we laughed. So hard. If as a parent with children under 10, you see this movie, you need to see it again in about 3 more years and you too can laugh like hyenas as Jeff and I did. There is such comfort in knowing that there is camaraderie among moms and dads in this parenting thing— even with Pixar writers. When Riley’s “Joy” is gone- trying to carry/juggle all those “core memories” back to “headquarters” that finally went in the knapsack— her parents experience their sweet, happy little girl’s anger, disgust and fear and their reaction was Little Red Wagon CLASSIC. Just spot on. Funny. Jeff’s high pitched cackle didn’t help but no one knows how hysterical that scene is except a mom and a dad trying to parent as best as they know how. Pixar, you nailed us. “The. foot. is. down.” {And for those of you with teenagers, after the last line in the movie, “What could possibly go wrong now?” I thought surely the next scene would be someone pressing the “red button” that was on Riley's new dashboard. Sequel?}
So back to messing with my mind— disturbing, I tell you, to think my core memories might be lost. I know this can actually happen— tragically, by accidents or even disease— and it’s devastating in every way, but this was a child and it was because of emotions inside her brain with human characteristics - IMPERFECT- that were messing things up. Joy and Sadness were gone and she was left with only Fear, Anger and Disgust. Sounds like a party, right? And, in this movie, unlike us, she seemed to have no control over her emotions. And she suffered and had no idea why. Her safe world began to crumble.
Memories are precious, comparable to nothing I own, and as a mom, I feel “making” memories has been one of my main “occupations” over the last 13 years— helping create them, being a part of them, attaching music to certain events, cooking certain foods, creating smells that ring in a season, looking days, weeks and months ahead to make time for them— so that they have some good memories and so some can be beautiful in every sense. And to think that those could be “lost” — especially the ones that bring our kids comfort and a sense a security or identity, I can’t handle it. It’s too sad. It’s not right. It makes me want to yell, “Quit messing with my mind!!” And this is when I remind myself, it was a movie. And it had the ending we all wanted. But……
It was only when Joy realized the value of Sadness was Riley’s world put back together again and I was able, once again, to breathe steadily.
I love Plugged In’s last lines in its review:
What a brave message that is—that our goal isn't to be happy all the time. We're supposed to be … us. We're supposed to experience life in its wholeness, even in its sadness. Happy smiles don't get us all the way there. Running clear of anything that might potentially upset us doesn't either. Sometimes we need to be sad. And that sadness—indeed, all of those prickly emotions we see in Inside Out—can be catalysts for a much deeper joy down the line. {Paul Asay}
Seriously. Hurray!
As the movie ended I was reminded of a quote that was taped up several places as I was waiting on these babies I have with whom I was excited to make memories—-
“Sorrows come to stretch out spaces in the heart for joy.” {Streams in the Desert, January 18th entry}
How I experienced that. My sorrow was big— and it did stretch my heart. Even though it was painful, I know it made my joy fuller, richer, more abundant. One is more beautiful, more meaningful with the other. More.
So Pixar, thank you for a great movie and a great reminder even though I believe it messed with my mind...... and my sleep. Being tired stretches out a great place for an afternoon nap.
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