Playing with Fire/Shake it Up, Baby

I'm playing with fire.

I'm hanging out just at the edge of "not such a great idea." I'm caught up in a game I know better than to play, but I'm playing it anyway. I'm intoxicated by the danger, the excitement, the possibility of a coming fall, that feeling of vertigo, that slim hope of a redemption, whatever redemption may be.

I'm holding my hands over the flame, and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I'm going to end up with scorched fingers. So why do it? I don't really know -- except that sometimes it feels so good to know that you can still feel that pain, that your skin hasn't gone numb.

Masochistic? Some might deem it such. Personally, I think it's got nothing to do with that. It's not about pain, it's about intensity. It's not about feeling bad -- or about feeling good -- but about knowing you can feel strongly at all.

I'm on a quest to pack as many intense experiences into my life as I can. Maybe when I'm old, I'll look back on that desire as a folly of youth. Maybe it's reckless and immature to think that's a wise way to live a life. But right now, I can think of nothing more worthwhile than to know every experience, every emotion, every situation I can.

I had a conversation with a friend the other day. I was making a joke about red wine hangovers - that terrible headache that comes with too much tannins - and she said that she'd never had a hangover. I've had enough bad ones in my day not to wish them on any soul -- except. Except, I found myself making the argument that I was glad to have had hangovers, of all varieties, because now I know what they are like. I argued that I thought it was important to my growth as a person to know what that level of drunk, and that level of post-drink regret, feel like, if only to be able to relate to others who have also had that experience. I argued that I was glad to have experienced food poisoning, and a car accident, and any other host of other awful, but temporary, things, because now I know what they are. I don't know if I actually believe my own argument - it did feel like one of those times I find myself taking a position simply to see where it goes - but I'm thinking about it. I somehow think there's a core of truth in all of that.

My life has been overdue for a good shaking. The little snow crystals have long since settled in, and it's time to flip the globe around and let them fall once more. I worry about too much stability. I worry about inertia, about slowing, about settling. I don't know if I'm simply more prone to it than most -- and thus feel the need to be continually on my guard about it -- or if I just fear it more than most.

My usual mode of operation is to pack my bags and set off somewhere else. I like to move, and I get antsy when I stay somewhere more than six months. I like the leaving. It shakes everything up. Makes me figure it all out all over again. I've been in Boston almost nine months now. That's a big deal to me. I like it here. I think I'm going to stay, at least for awhile. And I sort of think it might be a good idea for me to learn to stay in a place for more than a year. But it does mean I've got to figure out other ways to throw myself off-kilter every now and then.

So it feels good to be shaken. To be flipped around for awhile, and not to be sure what the landing will look like. And not to really care till I get there.

Nothing more, nothing less. It feels good to be shaken.