“Don’t you understand your mind is not your friend?” The repeated lyrics fill the car, an unknown song to me momentarily frees me from my deep thoughts. Thoughts that feel inescapable, a rat’s maze that hits dead ends without cheese or water in sight. What’s wrong with me? This seems to be the question guiding the maze. The lyrics wake me. Oh yeah! My thoughts can be mean.
It’s funny I fell into my mind’s trap, as just two days ago in a counseling session, I told a client, “You know your thoughts lie to you?” They looked up with tears streaming down their face, on the brink of wanting to end their life, their eyes meeting mine, “Really?” they said. “Really,” I replied with a nod.
It’s Friday. Society’s workday that’s not mine. I feel rebellious, always happy to get one back at the man. Not reporting the tips I made as a poker dealer was something I did for years. Tens of thousands of untaxed dollars and getting free healthcare due to my supposed “minimum wage”. It wasn’t until I needed a loan to buy a house that I straightened my tie, loop-swooped my laces, and got down to business reporting every tip.
After getting the loan, I shifted back to my old ways, but the wild west of casino dealer life had changed. The man, aka the gambling commission, slammed down the trump card of performing audits.
So although it’s just a Friday, my rebellious free self kicks out my hindlegs like a newly released racehorse to pasture. Like when I breeze into a half-filled grocery store of senior citizens, and feel a light feeling that comes with having aisle after shopping aisle all to myself.
I remember the first time I felt this powerful eff you-like feeling. It was when my Mom marched down to the principal’s office after I told her Mrs. Dixon had spanked Robert Denney in front of the whole class. I was terrified of her reaction to do something, mostly because I thought I’d become the teacher’s target. When the result was an apology from the teacher and learning she almost got fired, I learned something. The hierarchy, the pedestal for teachers and schools had shifted. My Mom? She had the power? Cool!
I know I’ve discussed aspects of the time I took off for months and lived out of my car. That alternative lifestyle, whether sitting on a bench at a rest area or laying on a blanket on the bank of a lake, those days of freedom of a truly untethered life hit into my main vein of the outer banks of the human spirit. True unbridled freedom.
I still get my hits. Not for months on end, but on Fridays. A day taken back. Like a miserly Scrooge with all his money flung in the air, “Muahahaha. Mine, all mine!”
Happy Friday. Love, Jaclynn
Going On 40 