Inside Out: College Edition
There have been a few changes at headquarters over the years. There have been console changes and lineup changes. There was even a short period of time when I thought I wouldn't be in control anymore, but I've been able to maintain that position. Not that it's been easy, but I can't complain. As long as it's me, Joy, running the show, we're going to be okay. Particularly, with my fancy new override button I've gotten for when the others get a bit crazy with their intensity levers. And we've gotten better learning to work with each other, particularly with Anger and Sadness. It's Sadness and Fear that are my wingmen now, with Anger and Disgust on the outskirts when we need them.
"Ugh! I hate textbooks," Disgust started to complain as we stared at the open page.
"Like, what does this even mean?!" Fear slammed his fist down, accidentally pushing his intensity level up. My girl slammed her head down on the book and Fear started pacing in circles, "We're supposed understand this. We're supposed to understand this! We can't understand this! We need to understand this! Why can't I….If I don't get this. We're never going to be able to get that job if we can't get this!"
"Hey, hey, hey." I came over putting one hand on Fear's shoulder and moving his lever back down. "It's going be okay. Look me at me." Fear paused in his pacing, willing to listen. "There you go. We're going take a deep breath. We've got this. We can do this."
Fear nodded. "Right. Okay."
"Let's do this," I said, smiling and staying by his side as we looked back at the text book.
"I mean, really, though" Disgust mumbled, "Do they have to make textbooks so dull?"
We were doing okay. It wasn't so abnormal for there to be a little stress in the air. But, for the moment, things were back on track. We were dutifully taking notes and not having a full meltdown. Then something caught my attention. A knock at the door? Tara! I smiled. Tara's our best friend. Oh, and she looks awesome in the glittery blue dress.
"Will that fit us?" Disgust smiled. "She'd totally let us borrow it."
I smiled a little, but Fear was tapping me on the shoulder. I acknowledged him, but wanted to give this a chance.
"Hey, do you wanna go out tonight? There's a dance downtown and then we can get some drinks afterwards or something."
Fear had grabbed my shoulders and was shaking his head "no" furiously.
"A little break woudn't hurt." I tried.
"We already took a break!" He pulled out his clipboard and knocked up his intensity level. "Thirty minutes ago we stopped and took way too long listening to funny music videos on YouTube. We still have to review this information so that we actually understand it, which let's be honest, may not happen. Then, we should really get started on that essay. And, on top of all this, you want to go and…socialize! We don't like people!"
"Ugh, we would have to make small talk interesting. And it's loud. I hate loud crouds." Disgust complained.
"But, just a little…." I argued. Tara was waiting.
Fear turned my attention back to the textbook and his clipboard, and pulled out the last test that could have gone better. I sighed. I couldn't ignore him right now. I nodded reluctantly.
Sadness answered the request, talking into the microphone. "I'm sorry, Tara. I wish I could, but maybe next time. I've got to study this…"
"BULLSHIT!" Anger stepped into the microphone.
I cracked a smile briefly-he wasn't completely wrong-before giving him a stern look and pulling him gently out of the way. He shrugged, but stayed back in his place.
Tara chuckled, looking at us, but shrugged before giving us a hug. "You'll get it. I'd tell you to take a break, but I know you. I'll catch you later okay?"
Sadness nodded and started humming, " 'No fun today, no fun at all, no more talking on the telephone. Read this. Write that…'"
Oh, no. Hey, we got a hug, right? I crossed my arms as I gave her a stern warning look. "Right. Sorry."
She let us get back to work before I made the mistake of looking toward the window. The last of the sunset was giving way to the dark night sky on a clear, cool evening.
"It was a gorgeous day," Sadness remarked. "And we didn't do anything but study. We didn't see any friends. You know, they say the word studying is created from student and dying combined. Sounds about right."
"Sadness." I warned sternly as my girl started to drop her shoulders and I saw Sadness place her finger over an intensity button.
I was distracted for just half a second as the peripheral caught the clock. 10:30PM.
"We're not a night person!" Sadness lamented, her intensity level officially going up a notch. "We should be sleeping, not doing this!"
"I mean, we used to have fun." Anger piped up.
"Right!" Sadness agreed, going over to memories before I could stop her. "Remember this? We'd spend all day at the beach, pretending we were mermaids looking for treasure."
I smiled. That was a good memory. But, Sadness was too close!
"We don't do that anymore." Sadness cried. "And then we'd have movie nights and Dad and I would go for bike rides. We don't do any of that anymore!" My girl was already starting to breath a bit faster, a clear warning sign.
"Hey!" I called, yanking her back as the memories started to change from yellow to blue.
"And this stupid textbook!" Anger called, pushing his lever up. "I mean, really! We're tired. We're frustrated! This shouldn't this hard! This is like our personal hell!"
Oh, no. No. Nonono. I should know better than to leave the console. The others still like to try to take over, but I couldn't let our childhood memories be permanently changed. My girl had dropped her pen and had her head on the textbook.
"No!" I shouted. I was afraid of that. With Sadness and I both focused on memories and Anger's increase, it triggered a memory. A memory we were trying hard to forget. And not an important one. Just one that wouldn't go away from a TV show because it was so cruel.
Sadness saw it and starting shaking. I looked back at the console. Fear's intensity was getting higher than I normally let it these days and Sadness's just kept rising. My poor girl looked so miserable. We were trying, but this was getting to be too much.
"Guys, it is not that bad! We used to not even know what that was! You know what? Anger, honey. Can I see that? Thanks" I grabbed the memory and threw it out the console window.
Everyone froze. I'd never done that before. I briefly worried about it, but it wasn't an important memory. I had had nothing to do with that memory, nor did I want anything to do with it. Besides, we weren't memory control. If memory control really wanted it back, they'd go get it. The important thing was we weren't thinking about it anymore. And I'd gotten everyone's attention. And yelled at Sadness, again. Her meter had hit the automatic trigger. My girl started sniffling.
I ran over to the console, pushing the manual override, dropping all levels. It left my girl just kind of still, but calm, at least. I'd get her back in a minute. Right now, I needed to get us back on track. Again.
"Sorry, Joy." Anger said.
"We'll do better," Fear said.
I nodded. But, there was still Sadness, staring at old memories, but from a safe distance. "Sadness. If you don't get control of yourself, I'm gonna…" I had to be careful. Fear was still on edge, just muted. I didn't want to make that worse.
"Okay, everyone. Take 10. Sadness, we still like those things. Those were good memories. We'll be sure to do some tomorrow, okay? Come on, let's play some Disney songs."
Crisis averted, narrowly. I had to be honest, I was a little worried. I think Fear could tell. After all, that was his specialty. He hadn't been wrong. None of them had really been wrong and I need to address it, but my top priority was my girl. I hadn't handled that the best, but it was just get exhausting. This was about the third or fourth time this week. And, it turned out okay. But, that's call for a mandatory break with management, me, control. And we love Disney. " 'Tale as old as time.'" I spun around, dancing. We were laughing a little now. Alrighty. Let's go. Disney is awesome. Two more transition songs and our 10 minutes will be up. I picked Try Everything. We can do this! Chocolate, yes.
"Alright, everyone! I know it's getting late."
"It's 11PM and…" Sadness and Fear noted.
"Ah…" I interrupted, letting the music fill the room. "I know. We're almost there. We going try. We can do this. And we're gonna get chocolate for energy and good moods. Ok!"
"Better be a lot of chocolate," Sadness mumbled.
I cranked up I'll Make a Man Out of You. "'Let's get down to business!'"
Well. It was a good plan in theory. But we're not perfect and we're really not night guys. And the chocolate is good. And sleep is good….
Next thing I know, someone's tapping me on the shoulder. My hand flew up, hitting something, as my eyes opened again. Oops. That was Fear and I'd hit his lever.
"We fell asleep!" He cried. "We can't fall asleep! We have things to do!"
Mmm. I heard him. But, it really was late. And sugar only lasts so long…
"We. Have. To. Get. This. Done." Fear insisted.
I looked at Sadness and nodded as she looked at the clock. 11:35PM.
Sadness came over, putting a hand on both our shoulders. "No. We're not going to get this done tonight. We're exhausted and aren't going to retain anything. Memory's already closed for the night."
"We're a morning person," I conceded and Fear couldn't argue with that. "We'll get up early and try again."