on better thinking

it was a long time coming, but recently I finally admitted to myself that I am not very good at thinking alone.

"thinking out loud" with others comes easily to me, though I suspect my friends grow weary of my vague allusions and verbal mulligans as I attempt coherent thought and speech. it must be like watching a toddler as she tries to capture butterflies with a net, or chase chickens into the henhouse. how uncooperative my thoughts can be.

but I digress. such considerations for my listeners notwithstanding, I've straightened out many of my thoughts after trying them on for size out loud with trusted friends.

perhaps I've relied so heavily on vocalizing my thoughts because they won't budge otherwise. when left to my own devices I just can't seem to get things straight. I drown in my own internal thought life. it has been chaotic, thus direly unproductive.

I just get distracted. I begin thinking about something in a reflective way and my mind darts off in another direction, leaving whatever thoughts that were beginning to form in the dust before they can coalesce into anything coherent and recognizable. honestly, it's quite discouraging to be nearly twenty-one years old and feel as though I'm still navigating this world with a primitive, undisciplined mind.

but hallelujah: all of this is changing because I am choosing to respond to the world with an internal voice. it is clear, deliberate and reflexive.

it's simple. I just say the stuff I would say to a friend, but instead I say it inside of my own head.

is that how everyone manages to be a thoughtful and coherent person? if so, I am behind the times. because it feels stilted and unnatural. and I constantly question whether I am truly reflecting the nature of my thoughts, my feelings, or the situation at hand or if in fact I am presenting some version of it to some veiled, hypothetical listener. it begs the question of whether or not we possess a singular, true "voice" or if even in our internal lives we can only manage to access some side of ourselves--some organizing theme.

(more on that last bit another time).

in any case, it's working. for example, it used to be that I struggled with task organization at the farm. all of the elements present in my circumstance would swirl around me without any imposed order. so my mind would be a mix of these pieces--sometimes named, sometimes mere notions such as pictures or scents.

these days, when I can muster the mindfulness to do so, I begin constructing a narrative about my surrounding situation. the mix of initial sensory responses are not disregarded but rather built upon. instead of my mind remaining a mix of images of squash bugs and large pumpkins coupled with the musty scent of tomatoes, the word "overgrown," a recollection of fungal rot followed by a pang of fearful dread, and the memory of rough tomato vine skin against my fingertips as I remove a sucker from the crook of two branches, order emerges:

"there are squash bugs attacking the pumpkin vine so I should remove their eggs and spray the living escaping adults with greenlight pesticide. nearby, the tomato plants are developing more suckers than I've been keeping up with so I should prioritize spending extra time removing those to avoid the clustered branches and leaves that led to fungal problems last summer."

it's a process, retraining one's brain to develop better thinking habits. but it's about time.