30 Facts About Me As I Turn 30!

Meandering through life like a winding stream, I came upon a plain of wonderful delights and realised with much surprise that my leisurely trek had spanned 3 glorious decades. I turn 30 in a few days!

What an awesome privilege to have walked this floating ball of wonder for 30 wondorous years. 30 years of delighting my parents' hearts; 30 years of skinny ankles that have always supported my full bodyweight; 30 years of a strong mind that shoots out creativity like a prism; 30 years and 3 magnificent 'decade balls'; 30 years of falling headlong into the beautiful, complicated, frustrating enigma that is me.

In honour of my 30th, I have decided to write down 30 ragtag facts about me.

Things I find beautiful

I think it is only right to begin this list with the beauty that I see in life.

1. Babies. When I see a child, I see a lovely little blank slate, perpetually drunk on life and joy.
The dangerous curiosity, the unquenchable desire for learning, the unreserved smile, the unabashed self-fullness, the large guileless heart, the uninhibited self-expression – babies and young ones are the embodiment of all the goodness that we grow out of and spend our lifetime relearning.
Not to mention the antics, the giggles, the toothless liquid grins, the heavenly scent. I love those little scoundrels.

2. Rain. As a child, I was never forbidden to dance in the rain and so I did every chance I got; the mud jumping off the bare earth and splattering against my feet and legs, the fat water droplets pelting my shoulders, head and upper back in a sort of cosmic massage, the smell of refreshment as elements fused together in a a heady concoction of promised rest.
All these crescendoed into a boisterous chorus of restful giddiness within me, and have done ever since.

These days, I don't bathe in the rain so much but the feeling never goes away – the promise that everything is just fine. Through leaky roofs, achy joints and sustained power outages, my joy at the rain -like the inevitable sunshine- can never be repressed. 

3. Music. Music is spiritual, it is life-affirming, it is a lance and a suture, the cause and the cure.

However, I won't claim to be a music lover, for alas! I don't love all music forms. But the music that I love, I absolutely love. Music holds very sentimental value for me, and I can often be found listening to the same song I have loved for 7 years with rapt wonder and tear-stained cheeks. I love music for the sentiment it holds, I love music for the connection it gives me to forgotten times, places and people. I love music for the warmth it infuses to the coldest days, and the key it provides to unlock towering doors of emotion.

Things that make me cry 

4. Books. The power of a story is never as potent as when hidden between leaves of painstaking creativity poured from the mind of a textual artist. I love a good book and cherish it as a special delight to be savoured in bouts of voracious madness and staccatoed misery.

5. People crying. Oh, nothing undoes me quicker than the anguish or hope or joy of another person expressed through tears. I don't know what it is about seeing another person cry but suddenly my seams come undone, I am blinking my eyes and averting my gaze, biting my lips and willing the blood to stop rushing past my ears.
I appreciate the power of crying as a powerful elixir of healing, but I hate to see others cry.

6. Praying. When I come in heartfelt contact with The Divine, my heart bows its knees in obeisance and my eyes yield their salty offering in acknowledgment of my nothingness.

Weird Things About Me

7. Dreams. I am a dreamer who takes no holidays. Chances are, if I have interacted with you for up to 10 minutes at anytime, you have starred in my dreams. I have a most bizarre rotation of dream features that often leave me chuckling.

From loaded foretellings to nonsensical projections of a compartmentalising brain, my dreams provide endless resources of premonition and entertainment.

8. Appetite. The most succint way to put this is that I am not an eater by any stretch of the word. I have very peculiar tastes that mean that I can eat the same rotation of meals for weeks on end, until they suddenly inspire nausea and then I can never touch them again. Thankfully, I have some lifetime favourites that have never failed.

9. Heat. I run hot - very hot. This is weird because I am a skinny person with anaemia that also makes me run cold. Go figure.

10. Animals. I love animals (apart from creepy crawlies) and think that they are precious and should be treated well. But for the life of me, I cannot touch animals. Something about the way their skeleton feels under the fur, hair or thin layer of skin makes my courage fail. 

11. Hand-washing. When I cook, I wash my hands after every ingredient I touch - not so much for hygiene reasons as that I hate the feel of things on my fingers. It's not out of control or anything, but if I can wash my hands, I probably will.

Things that annoy me (I'm the problem)

11. Noise. Random loud noises fill me with inexplicable rage. I often feel it in spasms down my back.

12. Sharing my physical space uninvited. People standing too close to me in line. People touching me when I haven't asked to be touched. People speaking to me when I have earphones in. People not leaving me alone in general.

13. Unexpected Knocks. If I'm home and I hear an unexpected knock on my door, that pisses me off. My irritation rises in proportion to the loudness and persistence of the knock.

14. Apps asking for my location. I have yet to get to the bottom of this one, but it is a thing. A big thing.

I'm beginning to notice a pattern here...

Things that make me truly mad

15. Injustice. I hate all appearances of unfairness, and get truly angry. Angry enough to speak up no matter the circumstance. Angry enough to pick a bone with a bully in a matter that has nothing to do with me.

16. Lies. Particularly the types of lies that are directed to me and, to a lesser degree, about me. The way I see it is this - why would you lie to me? If you care enough to lie to me, then you probably know enough to know that I will appreciate and be more merciful to the truth.

17. Being Taken Advantage of. If I give you any sort of access or privilege and you try to play hanky panky with me, prepare for my boiling or icy wrath - depending on how the flesh leads.

Things about me that make others mad

18. Stubbornness. They call it stubbornness, I call it If-you-want-to-change-my-mind-then-give-me-a-stance-better-than-the-one-I-currently-hold. I stand to be corrected but you would of course need to convince me (haha).

19. Invulnerability. I manage to extract considerable annoyance from my loved ones through my intendency to share my problems in realtime. It's not that I don't like to share, but rather I don't like to rehash painful matters or issues I am helpless about. I also don't like to make them worry. They don't see it that way though, and I understand. Most of all though, I just need time to explore my own thoughts on an issue before exposing it to other opinions. 

20. The gift of the gab. I'm the least 'braggy' or 'sales-y' person you'll ever meet, but if I'm passionate enough about a topic, I can sell water to a whale. Apparently people take me seriously.
The issue is that I am often more talk than action, to the frustration of my homies.

Things that make me unique 

21. Arithmomania. The simplest way to define this is that I have a counting disease. My mind is constantly counting random things - the letters in a word, the syllables in a sentence, the breaths in each line of a song, the steps between one place and another. Another flavour of this madness is the love for symmetry that forces my mind to fixate on perfectly dividing the most useless and inconsequential things at all times. Nonstop. No, for real. Nonstop. 

22. Ever the optimist. I've never met a cloud whose silver lining I couldn't draw out. I am optimistic to the point of annoyance for most people who know me (they think of it as false positivity). I don't know it is, I didn't practice to become this; I just am. Most things end up working out anyway, so this seems like a suitable outlook to hold.

23.  Extremely analytical. Every matter is weighed and laid, bisected and dissected. Turned over and flipped around, and considered every which way.

23. I don't give up. Once I am fully committed to something, the only way to get me to give it up is to pry it out of my cold dead hands. I just simply do not know how to give up on things I truly believe in. You've probably seen videos of marathons or relay races where a straggler brings up the rear about 30 minutes after other athletes have crossed the line. That could very well be me.  

Interesting Facts

24. Physically, I've been the same size since I was about 16 years old. It seems like my body rushed to do its growing up then stopped after deciding at 16 that it had reached the perfect shoe size, cloth size and height for the rest of its time. I'm not complaining though, at least I get curvier with each passing year.

25. Acceptance. There are things I cannot change about myself and life - I accept those things without too much regret. I don't worry about things I truly have no power over, and I don't have to worry about things I have power over. 

26. If I would lie down all the time, I simply would. But if I could also run all the time, ...who am I kidding? Get me the hammock! 

Thing that annoy me about myself

25. Perfectionism. It annoys me that I will turn an idea over in my head for years because I am waiting for the perfect set of circumstances to execute it. 

26. Idealism. Some of my worldview is too far removed from reality. I tend to view life through ideal-coloured lenses that nobody else cares about. When I fall short of my own farfetched ideals, I punish myself sorely for it. Then I double down. Oy vey!

27. Flamingo qualities. You've heard of flight or fight but allow me to introduce you to the freeze response. When I get overwhelmed with tasks, emotions, or other demands of life, I tend to just freeze and do nothing while time passes.

Even More Random Facts

28. It took me weeks to finally sit down to write this, and I was done writing it within 2 days.

29. I wrote about three different facts here and kept deleting them, including being a natural at mixed martial arts, being able to put both of my legs behind my head and 'walk' on my hands when I was a little girl, and being able to break the fourth wall effectively in writing. Hello :-)

30. This is not a random fact about me but a space filler to remind you that they don't call me a rebel for nothing, baby.

QUESTIONS FOR YOU

- Did you notice the (glaring) errors in this list?

- If you know me personally, can you confirm or counter any of my facts?

- Since I have essentially written an autobiography, what can you infer about me?

- If you were writing random facts about you, what would you be sure to add in or leave out?