Think Happy Thoughts

After two years and one month of college, I have finally discovered the secret to not hate my life when things get insanely busy (and I mean INSANELY busy). I've had nervous breakdowns and panic attacks and used to hyperventilate regularly. At least three people during the day would stop me and tell me to "breathe...just breathe..." (The rhythm of that phrase still dances about my head like a familiar, obnoxious friend.) It turns out the secret to my very sanity was spoken to me in my childhood: "Think Happy Thoughts." In the movie "Peter Pan," the children get sprinkled with fairy dust and they need only to think happy thoughts to be able to fly. The youngest one, I believe, keeps repeating "candy!" and he is the first one to take off. So sometimes when I'm getting in the shower at three in the morning after chugging coffee to stay awake to finish a paper, I think about candy. Seriously. Candy Canes, sparkling purple and green gum drops, Fun Dips, chocolate Christmas truffles, the little pink mints my Grandma would give me...those candy hearts you get around Valentine's Day... The thought of candy is so much better than the actual thing because it can live on, forever, in my memory as it was during childhood. Candy during childhood was magical. Candy now makes me feel like a fatty with no self-control and bad teeth. When I was nine years old, the smell of my plastic Halloween pumpkin mixed with tootsie rolls, smarties, peanut butter cups and Carmel apple suckers was this exciting transcending experience. If I did that now, in reality, I would be thinking about how many carbohydrates I already ate that day and how far I need to run in the morning to work everything off.
The point is...the thought of candy, with all of its emotional and sensory ties to childhood, can be kind of an elixir to get me through when things get crazy. Of course, it works with much more than candy. I can pretend it's Christmas. Last night I rode my bike home at ten o'clock at night. I new I had a ton of work to do before bed, so I started singing Christmas songs at the top of my lungs. It totally worked.

After re-reading this blog, I have come to the conclusion that I am insane.