I needed to hit the “publish” button once and for all, but instead of writing it felt like I’d have been throwing up words hoping they would magically make sense to you (they do for me). Hence I decided to resume by explaining to you my nature.
You know how your brain knows that it has to think and choose the proper words before sending the command “open” to your mouth? Mine doesn’t.
Say I want to respond to you with a “Z”. My mouth is anxious to talk, and my tongue cannot wait to start dancing with this weird accent I have for having lived in so many places. But the proper script doesn’t come soon enough; so it begins telling you: “A B C, It’s easy as, 1 2 3, as simple as, do re mi.”
The Jackson 5 never got to the Z, and I hardly manage to do it also.
I’ve been told I talk like that because I have ADHD, but I don’t know much about it. Deficit of attention? I don’t feel it. So, I’d like to consider myself as word-thrower, an addict to speak. If I were to join a therapy group, I imagine it would go down like this:
“Hi, I am Laly and I am a word-thower”
“Hi, Laly”, the group responds.
“Laly”, says the therapists, “Would you like to share your story?”
“Yes! Well… Hi! I already said hi. Sorry! I wouldn’t know here to begin. I’ve been throwing up words since I can remember, and nobody has ever complained about it so I never thought this was an issue I needed to address. I get pretty anxious around strangers. I mean… there is a whole person, with this great hole of emptiness of “my stuff” in her. I NEED to fill that hole, you know what I mean? And, people don’t complain when I fill their holes!
Yup.
That’s another thing. Things don’t come out of this mouth as expected. I either sound like a sex addict, or someone in serious need of mental mentoring. I do sound sarcastic most of the times (maybe because I am?), and when I realize the other person is freaking out (which sometimes I don’t) I go like, “No, no! It was a joke!”
And I digress like a pro… Take the last time I was at the airport. I was super excited about the concert I was going to attend, and that was all I could think of. So here’s what happened:
“Madam”, said the officer in the line after the check in
“Yes?” I replied with wide-opened crazy eyes, and one hand inside my handbag
“Any makeup or…?”
“Yes! Sorry”, I said stirring my handbag with one hand, while holding a bottle of water in the other one, “I was just looking for my …”
“No waters allowed, Madam”
“Yes! I know! I was gonna explain that. I was just searching for my nausea medicine so I can take it here and not buy a new bottle. Why is water so expensive at airports?!? Never mind, I don’t even know why I take those. I haven’t had nauseas on an airplane since I was… Can’t recall… I do take some clonazepam for my panic attacks. I have the prescription! Do you need it?”
“No Madam. I only need your makeup, liquids, gels, if you have any, so I can give you a zip bag”
“Oh. Yes. I mean, no! I have everything in a zip bag already… I’ll just throw away the bottle… Sorry…”
“NEXT!”
Maybe I do have a deficit of attention. I also zone out a lot. As my mouth, my brain seems to have a life of its own. However, I only zone out from the world when I am very focused on something, or when I am bored. I mean, who wants to pay attention to something boring?
And that day at the airport, I was going to get VIP treatment at the freaking Madison Square Garden! Who would want to stop thinking about it for the safety of all passengers in a flight?
I am a word thrower… but, there are two kinds. And today I felt it would be nice to explain that it is not polite to put us all in the same bag.
What’s the difference between them? Allow me to explain with an example: You sit down on an airplane, facing a ten-hour flight, between two women:
On your right, sample A: The woman is in her sixties. She’s dressed up for cocktail hour and has a tiny bag that contains exactly what she’ll need during the flight. She sits down, buckles up 30 minutes before the captain asks us to do so, and she is very anxious to speak… and you know it.
On your left, sample B: The woman is in her thirties. She’s wearing a pair of loose jeans and a hoodie. She has her headphones hanging out of her t-shirt, a backpack about to explode and a carry-on that barely passed the weight control. She stands up and sits down four times before the plane takes off, because she keeps pulling out and in things from the carry-on. This woman, is also very much anxious to speak, and you know it too.
Now, this is a “choose your own adventure” kind of scenario. You need to ask one of those women something… I don’t know. I don’t know your needs.
So, who do you choose? You know that one word to each of these women is going to open a pandora’s box.
Answer: You choose sample B. Lady B.
Why do choose Lady B? Because “Sample A” is white trash. She is going to complain about absolutely everything about the flight. She’ll tell you that this is last time she is flying coach – lying –, that she can afford first class because her son is a doctor and just had a baby! And OMG: cue to baby pics.
Sample B’s response, on the other hand (me!), will quickly deliver to you what you need to know. Plus, she’ll add extra information you were not aware of, and then escalate to the mysteries of the Universe which – somehow – are related with what you needed to know.
Then after the flight, you’ll go to a friends’ gathering and tell the story saying: “OMG you won’t believe the weirdo who sat down next to me on the flight!” And you will be, my friend, the life of the party thanks to me.
See?
Word-throwers like me, are the people you need to be surrounded by.
So, support the word-thrower cause.
Sign up here.
