Away and Onward (or Look Who's Talking)

Do you talk to yourself? I do. And I don’t mean the odd question silently directed towards oneself when in doubt, I mean full on conversations where I’m actually two people. Okay, I see that I might have to elaborate a bit here. See, I don’t talk with myself; I talk with other people, BY MYSELF. So effectively, I’m carrying on both sides of the conversation. Sometimes, it’s in my head. Sometimes hand gestures and actual conversation is required. Yes, I know it’s weird, but I was for all intents and purposes an only child[1] so in order to stay sane, I had to resort to insane behavior.

I can’t remember how it started. It is said that when I was really really small I had an imaginary friend called “W” who lived on the roof. I don’t remember speaking with “W” or anything about him though (or whether it was a him or her or an IT). I only think I remember that I had an imaginary friend because my parents told me so. For all I know they could have been trying to cover up the fact that they possessed a strange child who'd mumble at nothing in corners. What I do remember was pretending to be a famous person. It didn't matter how or why, I was famous and people wanted to interview me. So I interviewed myself, all the time, all over the place. Most of these interviews took place in the bathroom though, the one place where I could chatter away unobserved. Then there were the cooking shows. I would be making a snack and the whole thing would turn into a cookery show where I would demonstrate the making of the perfect Spanish omelette using random ingredients found in the fridge, all the while talking to an imaginary audience.

All this sounds insane, but it worked for me. Most of the time I didn’t have anyone to talk to and even if there were people around, they didn’t think like me, and they wouldn’t understand me, so I figured things out by talking to some imaginary person (preferably a talk show host). I did this all through my life and I still do it now. Any important event, you can be sure I’d run through several possible scenarios beforehand. One minute I’d be thinking about something and the next I’d be talking about it with Ellen. Weirdly enough, it helps. Even if I don’t end up using these conversation snippets in real life situations, I’d be less intimidated because I’d run through the scenario beforehand.

I consider hands free devices the greatest invention ever because now I can jabber away in the car and people will just assume I’m on the phone instead of shaking their heads sadly at the crazy lady.

Seriously though, you have to try it, at least once. Imagine you're sitting in a comfy couch telling the girls from The View how it felt to win that Pulitzer (breakaway for a moment here to re-enact your acceptance speech when accepting the Pulitzer). Maybe next time I'll even talk about how it felt to be an extra on The Mentalist - and the trauma of dealing with the eventual restraining order.  

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[1] I do have a sister but she’s 9 years older than me so when I a kid she was practically a grown up. So she doesn't count*. 


* Not that she doesn't count, but she doesn't count in the context of this story.