According to Google search on “habit definition”, this is what pops up:
hab·it
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Noun
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My worst habits right now are my thoughts. The downward spiral that gets triggered when I hear the particular name of a person and they both share similar profiles, which in turn leads to a roller coaster of memories. Like how my manager’s name is K, and he’s a skinny, tall, Korean, just like my ex from college. My immediate reaction being, “Really?” and having a smirk on my face remembering stupid things the ex-K did while the new-K is training me at my job. The worst is when they both share those same boyish qualities and I actually remember why I was with the ex-K for so long, and then when I try not to smile I end up looking confused or maybe I’m just thinking really hard, because I AM working. When the new-K comes close enough to me, not close enough for any barriers to be crossed between a manager and employee, but he comes close enough to where I realize how much I had forgotten the physicalities of the ex-K. And for any of the other ex-anyones actually.
Or how about when I hear a certain song and I time warp into a place when summer starts to burn my skin in the salty air with the dry sand giving an ashy cover to my bare feet. All those drives with the windows down and sunroof open letting the wind blow through my hair (and my determination that one day my hair will be flowing like a glamorous movie star, not draping across my face like the grudge girl) with no destination in particular but to enjoy the day pass by with the company in the car. The nights with the off-tuned singing and “I know, right?” conversations and dancing until my back is damp and I’m hoping the sweat marks don’t show through my clothes.
Those nights. The long nights where I wish I could disappear into and the next day wouldn’t come. The responsibilities would be put on pause and I didn’t have to worry about anything else but what I’m going to do in the next minute and who can come along for the experience, and how many new faces I can remember for the next time I happen to cross their way. And when everything is quiet and still, I constantly look up to the dark canopy of sky to try and and find burning streaks of light. I’m always waiting to yell out “I SAW ONE!” and then forget completely to make a wish. I have so many wishes to make. Like for the shooting star when I was standing on the bridge over a frozen lake in the middle of snowcapped mountains. Or the other shooting star I saw when we were all huddled up trying to keep each other warm but still looking up enough for three of us to catch the same star. Then the other time when I’m shifting over on the concrete floor to get closer to you and I happened to turn over to see a white line cut across the sky.
“Our lives are the sum of our memories. How much are we willing to lose from our already short lives by losing ourselves in our Blackberrys, or our Iphones, by not paying attention to the human being across from us who is talking with us, by being so lazy that we are not willing to process deeply…But if you want to live a memorable life, you have to be the kind of person who remembers to remember.”
Joshua Foer – Memory
I get lost so easily in my thoughts and memories. Sometimes I have to say “stop” so I can concentrate more on what I need to do. But those triggers that I haven’t found yet keep popping up. Damn you emotional and memory guns.
Nancy Yeang 