The Spider in my Mind 1

I never liked spiders. I don't know if it's instinctive or the fact they look so alien, or they sneak up on you when you least expect it. You would think something with that many legs would at lease make a sound. Forget belling the cat, put some hard soled shoes on those arachnids.

Well the trouble began, as it always does, with something small. At least this time it wasn't a spider. No, for me it was an idea. My friends always tell me I think to much. Maybe they're right. But what do they know, right? Just because you know a guy for a couple years doesn't mean you know him. Right?

This blog started with a simple idea. To chronicle positive change in my life. Simple enough. Or so I thought. Somewhere along the lines the goalpost shifted.

To understand I have to take you back a few years. Imagine it. I'm a teenager, sheltered lifestyle, socially awkward and snotty, academically brilliant but shy (translation: Nerd. Second translation: Virgin) I'm lying on the floor having a conversation with one of my few friends who isn't imaginary and he turns to me and says out of the blue like a silent assassin, "You know, you're a very negative person". You could have heard a pin drop and bear in mind the floors were carpeted. "I'm sorry," I said trying to keep my voice under control through gritted teeth. Personally I had never viewed myself as being a negative minded person. A realist yes, but never negative. "You're very negative,"  he repeated with what I though at the time was some gall. In my mind I was fighting with myself. Growing up as an only child, I was not the kind of teenage boy who was accustomed to being challenged. My word was law. I could see I was going to have to put this little upstart in his place. But yet, at the same time, my arrogance would not allow me to become one of "those people". You know the ones I'm  talking about. The ones that dismiss anything that challenges their world view despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary of how wrong they are. So I did something very difficult, I listened instead of fringed interest.

I think that was the day my life changed. I began to gate watch my thoughts and actions and I realised that although I didn't fully agree with my now estranged friend, he may have been right. He had planted a seed in my mind. A contaminant to my manicured and ordered life. It was like watching your neighbour's dog take a dump on the astro turf of my mind. Well, I had no intentions of letting that pile lie. I picked it up and sealed that idea in a garbage bin of fear, denial and pride. However the thing about these ideas that out of sight doesnt necesary mean out of mind and as the years pass I would occassionally get a whip of that turd. It wasn't until years later that another friend told me the same very thing. Another dog was taking a dump on my mind. I had two choices, change my thinking or get new friends. ...to be continued

"The itsy-bitsy spider
Climbed up the water spout
Down came the rain
And washed the spider out..."