Skip to main content

i don't want to miss anything

 
 
i don't want to miss anything. 

that's part of the story of my life.  maybe it's part of the cost of being so wide-eyed with wonder at the width and breadth of this crazy creation, but, for better or worse, it would, at least at this point in my life so far be a suitable epitaph on my tombstone:  here lies greg milinovich who tried to make sure he never missed anything, and who died trying. 

i don't know why this is even in the forefront of my mind right now, other than it just seems to keep coming up and showing itself to me in various ways, and perhaps even writing about it here is narcissistic, but, alas, i might as well just own up to that charge. 

here are some examples of my condition:
-i have terrible difficulty ordering at a restaurant, because to order one thing means to not order everything else.  i almost never decide what i am going to order until the words come out of my mouth.  it is as if i am only ordering because i simply must choose something, rather than because i really want to choose that one thing.  i might want a reuben, but i also don't want to leave all the other sandwiches unchosen, unpicked, untasted, and inexperienced.  i want to try them all...i don't want to miss anything!

-when in large groups of people, i have a hard time focusing in on just one conversation, because i want to know what everyone else is talking about, too.  this is, obviously a terrible trait, and i try to work on it, but in the end, i don't want to choose just this conversation; i don't want to leave all the other conversations unheard...i don't want to miss a thing!

-i listen to my ipod almost exclusively on shuffle, which, for those who don't know, means that it randomly plays its way through my 15,000 songs.  why?  because how in the world am i going to choose one cd to listen to, out of all the hundreds of albums?  to choose one album would be to not choose all the other ones.  so i let my ipod do the choosing, leaving it to random chance, and i feel that i am off the hook.  i don't want to miss a thing!

-if you have ever asked me one of the those "what is your favorite?" questions, you will almost certainly have heard me say that i really can't pick favorites.  this is been true for so long for me.  how can i say that cinnamon toast crunch is my favorite cereal, when there is also fruit loops, reeses, and fruity pebbles?  how can i say that a twix is my favorite candy bar when there is also cadbury, caramellos, milky ways, clark bars, and so many more?!?  to pick one favorite is to not pick so many others.  and i don't want to miss a thing!

-one more.  media.  come into my house some evening after the kids are in bed, and you might very well find me doing all of these things at once:  (1) watching a baseball game, (2) listening to music, from the ipod on shuffle, of course, (3) watching an old episode of star trek on the ipad, (4) playing a game on my phone, (5) and surfing the web on the laptop, looking up things as i experience them, like "what are the lyrics to that vampire weekend song?" and "how do you breed a t-rox on my singing monsters" or "what was captain kirk's middle name?" and other such important issues.  i could choose to really watch one thing, or do one thing, but choosing that would mean not choosing all the other things, and think of all the things i might miss.  i don't want to miss a thing!

sigh.  this is my life.  this aerosmith condition (i don't wanna miss a thing) is both a blessing and a curse, i think, like most anything else, i suppose.  anyone else out there have a similar experience? 

Comments

Emoly said…
I can't say that I have. The closest I've come is; while I was scraping paint off the door trim, I realized how I'm a doer.
Bill wants to pay someone to re-glaze the windows, but I'm not about to let someone else paint when I am perfectly capable of painting the trim, windows and sills myself. Just because it's going to keep me busy for the next sixteen years (we have sixteen windows left to refinish) it keeps me busy.
First, there's a saying (I wish I had thought of this, but I did not): the only thing working in an old house is its owner.
Second, if I weren't busy doing something like painting or working around our house, I would quickly become a "Housewife of Grand Rapids", spending time at the mall, buying things we don't need.
I have a very difficult time, just being still.

Popular posts from this blog

bad haircuts (for a laugh)

everybody needs to laugh.  one good way i have found to make that happen is to do a simple google image search for 'bad haircut.'  when you do so, some of the following gems show up.  thankfully, my 9th grade school picture does NOT show up.  otherwise, it would certianly make this list!  please laugh freely and without inhibition.  thank you and have a nice day. 

happiness is dry underwear

we started potty training jack on thursday. we followed a program called POTTY TRAIN IN ONE DAY, which, by the way, i think is kind of crazy. i mean, if someone were to offer you a book called, "ACHIEVE WORLD PEACE IN ONE DAY" i don't think you would take it seriously. and yet here we are, trying to accomplish an equally daunting task in one 24-hour period. it is intense. the day is shrouded in a lie because as soon as your happily diapered child wakes up you tell him that it is a big party. we had balloons and streamers and noisemakers and silly string - all the trappings of a legitimate party. but it is most certainly not a party. it is a hellishly exhausting day. as soon as jack got out of bed, we gave him a present: an anatomically correct doll that wets himself. jack named him quincy. several times quincy successfully peed in the potty and even had an accident or two in his "big boy underwear." he also dropped a deuce that looked and smelled sus

the crucifixion of Robert Lewis

  "the crucifixion of Robert Lewis" mixed media collage with leaves, acrylic paint, and found objects by gregory a milinovich october 2023 this october i was invited to participate in a three day trip which was called a "pilgrimage of pain and hope."  while that may not sound super exciting to many of you, it actually really intrigued me.  i am the kind of person that wants to feel big feelings, and i am drawn to the deep places, so  i was interested in traveling to the scranton area, where the trip was planned, to see what it might look like to be a pilgrim that was wide-eyed and listening to the pain and the hope in the stories of others.   this trip included hearing the stories of immigrants to the northeastern pennsylvania area, and the work in the coal mines that many of them did.  it included hearing from folks who are working for housing justice and equity in downtown scranton.  it included hearing from those indigenous people who first inhabited that land.