Obsessive Thinking

What did my shirt say?

In High School, I had a black t-shirt. It had a few words on the front, in white print. I'm pretty sure it was a full sentence, as opposed to a phrase, and may have been a quote. But what did it say? I'm not sure. I haven't seen it in...a few years now, I guess. I'm not even sure where to look for it. Most likely, if I still have it, it now occupies a space that the clutter in my bedroom prevents easy access to. Probably.

I don't know why I want to know. This thought just occurred to me about two weeks ago and has been bothering me ever since. I'm trying to deal with it rationally and calmly. And, admittedly, I usually just end up distracting myself and forgetting the whole matter of the shirt until a day or two later, when I think about it again. I'm trying to not obsess over it.

Obsessing over something is dangerous. A person becomes so focus on one thing, they develop a sort of tunnel vision, which can leave them quite unaware of what's going on around them. It may also start to negatively impact your everyday thoughts and actions. There's a Tom Waits poem called "What's He Building in There?", in which the narrator (somewhat obsessively) wonders what one of his neighbors is up to (the narrator is certain that the neighbor is up to something). Stepping back, the narrator sounds kinda paranoid, and it is entirely possible that this whole this is just a huge misunderstanding.

Speaking of the neighbors, I have been having some obsessive thoughts about my neighbors this past week. I hadn't seen the people who live around the corner and mow their lawn frequently (I wrote about them back in June) in a while. Usually, someone is out there, but for a while, no one. What really got to me was how long their grass was getting. They never let it get that long. Never. And so, I was left to wonder about them. Maybe they're just away visiting family. Or maybe something really bad happened to them! My mind latched onto that second idea and just ran off with it, and for the last few days, I have felt a growing sense of dread about their absence.

My dread was only fueled by the realization that I had no plausible excuse for going over to check on them. I barely know them; I've barely spoken to them (if at all), let alone had a full conversation with any of them (I don't even know their names!). And supposing that they were home when I called on them, then what would I say? Something about how, even though we've never spoken before, I was worried that something had happened to you because the grass in your yard is getting awfully long. Looking at it written down, it sounds even worse than it did in my head.

To top it all off, it seems that no terrible fate befell my neighbors that I don't know the names of. I saw two of them in the yard yesterday afternoon, and one of them was hard at work mowing the lawn this morning.

But what did my shirt say?