April 22, 2020

The Thing About Experiences

I have this document full of experiences: wasp stings, my first kiss, illnesses and injuries in equal measure, electric shocks, drowning, and hysterical laughter. They're all the times that I felt something and was conscious enough to then write about it. It's my "reference document" so that when I need to pull in the realness of a situation, I can.

Sometimes I forget. But this is also my way to compartmentalize and think through the things that hurt, so it's a useful tool. Each experience has its label and then there are moment by moment descriptions. I'm not trying for elegance. I'm just trying to capture what it's like for real. Of course, these are just my own subjective experiences. Everyone experiences things differently, but this just reminds me that I'm human.

This is just a small segment of my list. If you're wondering why most of them are painful experiences, it's just because I'm less attentive to the happy ones. For the most part, the experiences are in chronological order of when they happened. I've got no clue as to the exact dates, but I just let the list grow. Every new entry is added to the bottom.

Have you experienced any of these things? Did they feel different to you or do these descriptions remind you of your own experience?

Also, just as a little ending note, I am not accident prone, nor do I get injured a lot. These happened over the course of several years. I just tend to keep track of all my negatives.