Living as an Extreme Sport

I’ve always been a bit of a self-acclaimed ‘go-getter’. I don’t necessarily mean I aim to climb Mt. Everest or have plans of kick-starting my own business. I simply mean, I chase gut-feelings. I chase what feels right. As a kid, this meant, running after the boys I liked in the school yard. Singing for anyone who would listen. Pushing my boundaries with my parents by swearing at a young age and hitting my older brother. I was always the one going a bit too hard at the blue light disco. When I was a teenager, I wanted to be the first to do things. I wanted to do the naughty, rebellious things. I wanted to get a laugh. I wanted to be seen and heard and commended for my hunger and ambition. Now that I am 20, I’ve noticed that this habit has presented itself in what I like to call “Extreme-living”. I move in extreme and change my attitudes at an extreme rate. I’ll go from being at the club dancing with strangers I just met and feeling way too comfortable not knowing where my phone… or shoes are. The next day I’ll wake up and feel the need to read the newspaper or knit. I can be ready to flee the country at 10:00am and clinging to my mum at 3:00pm, exclaiming, “I’m just a baby and this world is too big for me!” I’ll wear long black nails and then bite them off to play guitar. I’ll laugh so hard that snot comes out of my nose before revealing that I’m feeling really depressed. I’ll go from wanting to be famous, rolling in money like a dog in cow shit and then get the inclination that a small cabin in the forest would do me quite nicely. These extremes often make me feel like I’m on a whirring rollercoaster or in some sort of tacky haunted house at a carnival. Just when you think it’s smooth sailing a zombie pops out with a cheesy grin, holding back laughter, and I am probably laughing with him. I don’t know why I change my mind so much. It’s like a possession. Some inspiration strikes and I am getting a tattoo now? It’s fun. It’s young. It’s exciting. It’s also not for the faint of heart. Viewing your life like an extreme sport also makes time manouver itself in a very strange way. Sometimes days pass without me having done anything but snack on grapes and watch Blended for the 14th time. And those days drag on like a 40 second ad break on a good youtube video. Other times, a whole month can fly by in a day because I was intoxicated every second day and spinning around on dancefloors or in backyards with my friends and typing on my computer in sporatic frenzies and comforting myself and getting back up and turning up the music and driving way too fast to another location and swimming and singing and dating and dying. Just to be revived because there is a gig on at 7 and it’s 6 already and we would have to leave now to make it in time. Broo, where is my wallet? Okay, I’m ready, wait do you have gum? Yes. Okay, let’s go. I think I’ve become an expert in the perpetual state of motion which takes me from saying, “Yep, this feels stable and healthy” to “What the fuck happened last night?” in a weeks time. Maybe this a universal experience. Maybe I am just actually a normal 20 year old person and the world is moving really fast and it’s not just me that feels confused. It’s moving around us and oppurtunities are popping up all the time and maybe I’m just grabbing the ones that take me as far away from the place I am standing as possible. Maybe I like the sensation of being picked up and tossed across situations like a frisbee. I don’t know. I think that’s all for now.