decent exposure

When I was in high school some friends and I used to think that a local park, Chaparral Park, was haunted. This belief came from my older brother claiming to have seen a ghost there as well as rumors of other ghastly manifestations. From time to time we visited the park late at night in hopes of witnessing such an apparition. A few times we scared ourselves into thinking we saw such supernatural phenomena, but looking back it was probably the old weird dude out walking his cat (which, admittedly, is pretty creepy).

I remember spending part of a late Saturday night at Chaparral Park with a group of a dozen friends, give or take. I was a junior in high school at that time. It turns out the park was a popular destination for other teenagers as another group of adolescents arrived at the park and began frolicking around the active sprinklers at the bottom of the basin in the park.

I can't remember what gave it away, but it was somewhat obvious that the guys in this new group of kids were trying to impress their female counterparts. I don't know who came up with the idea, but in no time me and two other guys in our group were running down the hill -- wearing nothing but our boxers -- toward the sprinklers where the other teens were hanging out.

We reached the other group and ran a couple laps around them, yelling at the top of our lungs. After a couple laps and laughs, my two friends started back up the hill toward our friends. I made to follow when I was overcome by a fit a spontaneity. Instead heading back to our group I began my final lap alone -- but this time, I removed my boxers and swung them wildly over my head.

I'm not sure how I did it, but I managed to get my boxers back on while running up the hill to where my friends were watching and waiting.

It doesn't hurt to do something absolutely outrageous. You'll know what to do, and you'll know exactly when the time is right.

A few weeks ago I was on the phone with my buddy Jeff who lives in the far away land of Washington. We were discussing a particular occurrence that had been troubling me for a couple weeks. From there our discussion turned to a more general topic and Jeff concluded by saying (paraphrase), "Myke, you're overthinking it. I don't think you gave it much thought when you went streaking through Chaparral Park." We both laughed, but he was right.

I am a chronic overthinker. There's nothing wrong with processing and drawing conclusions and trying to learn from a certain situation, but when thinking gets in the way of taking a necessary action, you have a problem. I hope I can catch myself overthinking, and I hope I can remember the time when I exposed myself -- albeit inappropriately -- at Chaparral Park.

And it is true what you said
That I live like a hermit in my own head
But when the sun shines again
I'll pull the curtains and blinds to let the light in

Thankfully, I happen to live where the sun shines 300 days a year.