Black and White Monotony

I have, indeed, been a lucky person. My life has been colorful and filled with interesting people and places and stories. I never imagined a time when I could understand how poetry and art and color could be stripped away from a person. "They just aren't looking for it...they have given up...they aren't as special as we are..."

I was wrong. People who are lucky enough to have color, art, stories, people and places are lucky, not special. Certainly, a certain personality type will look for and find these vital elements in life more easily, but I can understand how people lose their way, their will, their care. Sometimes, the monotony of "sign this form", "fill this out", "read your email", "let me send you the spreadsheet" is enough to make me rip my hair out. To have a day like that, when the most innocuous of questions makes me want to scream, helps me understand how it requires action and energy and purpose to avoid the sucking drain of black and white, the ease of a television filled night to block out the voices of the day, the sameness of my actions. I have to actively seek instead of letting it just flow over me naturally.

I have been lucky in my life to have different jobs, to be an interpreter, to use my brain to tap into language and culture and color. I have been lucky enough to work as a freelance interpreter and go to a different place every day, meeting different people, interpreting new topics and learning something every day. These experiences live in me - whether they live at the top of my consciousness or whether they are just in the flow of my brain every day. In those moments when I get close to the edge, I can pull out those colors, ideas, experiences and it eases my mind. I know that this is just the island I am on now. I will travel somewhere else someday, if I should ever want to.

Lots of mixed metaphors, I know...just a jumbled brain looking back at a long, exasperating day and trying to make sense of it all...there are pictures and thoughts swimming around up there, but I can't quite get them to come out the way I want.