I distinctly remember sitting in my second grade class with Miss Fisher up front teaching us cursive letters. I remember thinking the whole lesson was just silly because not only had my sister already taught me how to do the letter 'J' in cursive, but my dad had taught me how electrical circuits worked just the night before because my daddy knew everything and since I was clearly superior to the other kids with my science knowledge, I didn't need second grade anymore.
I remember tuning out the teacher and mulling over in my mind what Dad had taught me the night before and doodling a picture of a closed circuit lighting a light bulb on my paper, trying to make it look like I was making it some made up cursive letter. Then, a thought occurred to me.
As I thought of electricity, I thought of how that costs money... and my parents had to somehow pay for it. Then I thought of our house, and how they had to keep up on payments for that. Then I thought about school and how my parents had to keep up with that, my assignments, my dentist appointments, my meals, etc. They kept up with our new address which had just changed even though we hadn't moved. I thought about all that I required from my parents and then I realized that I had to multiply that by FOUR because I still had siblings they had to watch out for! Then there was all the extra volunteer work that they did, Church things to take care of, vacations to plan, no to mention the times when we got sick or if something broke on the house or car! I even thought about how ridiculous it was for our government to actually expect so much from people to actually keep up with all the extras they put on stuff like figuring out taxes or registering cars (I don't know how I knew about all this stuff at such a young age, but I do remember making a list and I definitely remember writing "government stress" on it as one of the things I thought should stress a parent out)
As I tried to think about all the stuff my parents had to think about my brain just wanted to explode. I specifically remember wanting to cry as I thought about how maybe one day I would have to keep up with all that stuff (I was a very emotional child, people... and I may have taken things a little bit too seriously). In the end, I decided that the brain of an adult simply had to be far superior than what my brain was in order to handle that. Maybe adults had some implant they put in their brain to organize it all. It just shouldn't even be possible to keep up with all that information. I probably would have decided to simply hire a life manager to take care of it when I grew up... but I didn't know what a life manager was at the time.
Well, I sit here nearly twenty years later to confess that I have had no such implant, and my brain is, as predicted, ready to explode. The last few weeks have stressed me out as I try to remember all the stuff with my church callings, the new CPs I've met, my job and all that entails, finances and bills, taxes, doctors appointments, dentist appointments, hanging out with friends, needing to exercise, spending time cleaning and eating healthy, etc. etc. etc. My brain simply wants to explode.
I don't know what my parents secret is. I don't know what anybody's secret is. But at least I know how a closed circuit works. I know the basics of life, I guess. I survive and where I fail or struggle there are people to help me.
And if all else fails, I can just go to Disney World and pretend none of it even matters in the first place.
Yeah, I guess that's why that company exists. It is a pretty good purpose.
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