There is a story from my childhood that I always tell people. It's the butter story. Most of you have heard it, but for those who haven't, it goes like this.
When I was little, I used to think bread and butter was the most delicious thing in the world. Really, it was the butter that blew my mind so much, the bread was just a delicious vessel. I used to want to put layer after layer of butter on my bread, but Mum insisted that we just have a thin scraping, I assume for health reasons. In my view, this was never enough. I mean, if a little bit of something is good, then surely more of it is better, right?
One time, Mum and Dad were going out for the evening and I decided that while they were gone I was finally going to eat as much butter as I wanted. However, I am famous for my inability to show restraint in certain situations, so as soon as the doorbell rang to announce the arrival of the babysitter, I went at the butter like a seagull on a bag of chips. I was at with a teaspoon, just shovelling that delicious stuff in to my mouth. By the time Mum and Dad came to give us a kiss goodbye, I was lying on the living room floor in a butter coma. I may have been crying, I don't really remember. They just shook their heads and looked a little embarrassed for the babysitter.
All I know is that I was lying there, feeling like I wanted to die and wondering where I had gone wrong. I didn't realise that there was such a thing as too much of a good thing.
I feel like there are a million stories from my childhood that go like this. If I think little bit of something is awesome, I go and seek out much much more of that thing and then it goes horribly wrong. I didn't seem to be able to stop when I was still having a nice time, I would always push on until shit got real and then the good times were over. Obviously this happens less and less as I get older, but I tell this story now because the same kind of thing happened recently and I guess it just reminded me that sometimes, I still find it difficult to know how much is enough.
In this recent example, I went overboard on listening to
This American Life and the consequences were a little pathetic and a lot ridiculous. How can you overdose on listening to TAL? I hear you ask. Well lucky I am in a sharing mood guys, because I am totally going to tell you.
Because I love TAL, I listen to it all the time when I'm pottering about doing stuff at home. But lately, I have been listening to it when I go to sleep. At first I thought this was a great plan, particularly for those times I wasn't totally exhausted when I went to bed. I would read for a while and then play a TAL podcast and drift off to the sound of Ira Glass saying his pretty pretty words. It was a real treat.
I should have stopped there, but of course I started doing it every night, and now I've gone too far.
I know this because the other night I drifted off to sleep very quickly, and then awoke with a start about 15 minutes later. When I heard Ira speaking in my half-sleep state I thought to myself,
oh good, Ira's home and then waited for a sec for him to come in to the bedroom and get in bed with me. And then I became fully conscious and realised that Ira Glass is not my boyfriend and was not in fact about to get in bed with me, but rather was just talking to me through the interpipes. When I realised this, I felt my cheeks go red and I basically had to lie in bed, blushing in the darkness.
This shouldn't happen, guys. I really need to figure out how to draw a line.
