Deep, Deep Thoughts

Yesterday J-Man showed me a video that he thought I would like. It was a fair assumption. The video was deep thoughts with Anna Kendrick, so what's not to like? Perhaps you've already seen it and really liked it and laughed out loud. I'm not really sure why I didn't.

I love Anna Kendrick. I love her movies. I laughed til I snorted at Pitch Perfect and even went to the theaters for Into the Woods. Don't even get me started on how I ugly cried my way through The Last Five Years at 6am while my family slept soundly one Saturday morning. It was just after a big fight J-Man and I had (which I refuse to detail here because a) you probably don't care, b) it's been resolved, and c) it's not really your business even though you hopefully know that we are human and have been married seven ((seven?!)) years and therefore occasionally find ways to drive each other beyond insane before forgiving one another and making up and remembering all the reasons we love each other) ... where was I?

Oh, right, AK's deep thoughts. Man, I got off track...

I think I didn't get all giggly because when you say the words "deep thoughts," only one image comes to mind: a college classmate's Jack Handey AIM away messages circa 2003.

I told J-Man this and he did a half smile, but I got temporarily transported back in time. I mean, I used to spend hours upon hours in front of my super heavy Thinkpad "studying" and "writing papers" while obsessively staring at people's away messages. Remember these?

I used to try to write clever ones. Sometimes a profound quote from something I was reading for class. Sometimes a deep pondering of my own. Often something weird and semi-salacious like "showering with KB" because I was nineteen and still awkwardly trying to learn how to be flirtatious. Anything was better than the generic message above. Seeing that exact font sends shivers of anxiety through my fingers. Short-lived crushes began and ended over AIM, and an away message managed to say more than the hundreds of status updates I scroll past on facebook these days.

When my friend started doing Jack Handey quotes, I actually thought he was brilliant, a comedic genius. Call me naive. I'd watched SNL less times than fingers on my hand. I didn't know Deep Thoughts were a thing. I figured he was more intelligent than I'd given him credit for as a football player and continued my spiral of everyone-here-is-so-much-freaking-smarter-than-me-and-prettier-and-funnier-and-I-hate-them-all. At nineteen that spiral was mad deep like a cyclone.

How relieved was I to find out that he was just like the rest of us, stealing ideas to keep people interested. Borrowing from others to start conversations. Hoping someone had something to say about the tiny bat signals of loneliness those AIM messages really could be.

My mind wandered down those paths while I listened to this new set of Thoughts. I considered what a kid I used to be. I considered how insecure I felt, waiting for messages, watching names shift from black, to idle gray, to black again, wondering if certain screen names would write, or if I should write first, or if anyone watched niloha05 as closely as I watched them.

Sometimes I wish I were a college kid still: young, free, inventive, with endless life potential. And then, sometimes, I'm really glad to be in my thirties, settled and routinized yet brave in surprising new ways, not giving nearly as much of a flying fig what the cool kids think.