can you tell i'm not political?

i just erased a post that i had started. it had nothing to do with the date. today's date is important in so many ways to so many people. to me the big difference between today and any other day is that everyone else is thinking about the past. there was no music on the radio this morning. just talk.

can i remember what i was doing when everything went down five years ago? nope. can i remember what i was doing when princess diana died? or when the pope died? nope and nope.

is it a matter of me being forgetful, absent minded, plain dumb? i don't think so. i am one hundred percent positive that i would remember these things if i was personally affected. if i had lost someone that day there's no way i would forget. in my little bubble world, especially five years ago when i lived in "the queen's bubble", i bounce around and only notice the things that directly influence me and whether i will have food for my belly, a bed to sleep in and, 5 years ago, alcohol to drink.

i've changed a lot in the past 5 years but that doesn't mean i remember where i was when the tsumani hit last year or what i was doing when i learned australia's steve irwin was killed. i just don't work that way.

i try and remember the important-to-me things in my little self-centered world. i remember very clearly the night i was "asked out" by my first serious boyfriend. i remember the day we brought our cats home and how much they squeeked the whole way. i remember the day we paid off my student loan and how good it felt to finally be even. even if "even" meant i had no money to my name. at least i didn't have debt.

but i think part of getting older is having time speed up. you've been there done that for so many things that the days go by quicker. you have another birthday and hardly notice. you go to work day in and day out. sure little things change but it all blends into a summer or a year or a decade.

i've heard people say that their [fill in the year]st/nd/rd/th year was their best. i've never looked at my life that way. there are tons things i try to do: i try to stay active and healthy (which seems to get harder all the time), i try to stay busy and involved with things that are important to me, i try to stay in contact with people close to me who are far away.

one thing i never try to do is get more involved in politics. don't get me wrong: i read and watch the news every day and i listen to the radio. i am not sheltered (by choice or by chance) and i do vote every chance i get. however i do not write letters. i do not belong to any political party. i do not discuss world issues with my colleagues or friends. mostly, it is because i do not have an opinion. to tie it all together: it doesn't affect me, or i don't notice it's affect, so it doesn't bother me.

this is not a blase view of the world. this is a coping mechanism. if you let things bother you they will bother you. you can turn off your response to things by not noticing them or avoiding them completely. we have the ability, consider it a strength, to be able to focus on what's important to us and survive with our minds intact, free of unwarranted worry for souls unknown. we can then devote more of our worry-time to people we know and love. the people who hopefully don't want to talk politics over dinner. at least not with me.