A writer friend and I have a joke (that maybe isn’t really a joke) about how, when we’re too happy, we can’t write anything worth reading. For us, there seems to be some kind of lock in our brains that is only wrenched free by pain or complicated emotions. And it’s not like we’re unique in this regard. Think of all of your favorite songs and books and stories. Sure, maybe some of them are happy. But I’d wager a guess that most of what we think of as the best in literature and music has at least a hint of sadness, loss, grief, pain.

Why does our brain hold onto pain so readily? Even in memories? My earliest memory is of baking cookies with my mother in our tiny kitchen in the first house I ever lived in. I remember her scraping the cookies off the cookie tray and setting them on the cooling rack. As she placed the last one on the rack she said, “Don’t touch that tray, it’s very hot.” I don’t remember not believing her. I don’t remember being angry at her, or wanting to prove something to her. I don’t know what the thought process in my noodle-brain was, all I know is that I reached out immediately and slapped my hand, palm-flat, right on the tray and then proceeded to scream my freaking head off.

It was a perfectly good day. I was baking cookies (I loved cookies!) with my mom, and then I went and ruined it by purposely burning the shit out of my hand after being told not to do that very thing. Just to see what it felt like, maybe. Just to see if what my mom thought of as hot would be the same thing I thought of as hot. Maybe I was unsure if we all perceived reality the same way, maybe I wanted to have a frame of reference for when my mom said something in that stern voice again in the future.

Maybe I was just an asshole kid trying to make her mom mad.

I told this story to my writer friend one day, after he explained that, sometimes the trouble I find myself in is a result of me saying things in real life that would make great lines of dialogue in stories, but probably shouldn’t be said to real people in certain situations. I try it out to see the reaction. The “writer in me” can’t help herself, God love her. She just keeps saying and doing things to see what it feels like, to evoke some sort of emotion, to be able to write again. Maybe I’ll never get over this whole, touch it just to see if it’s as hot as everyone says bit. Maybe I’ll never tire of trying on personalities and borrowing others’ emotions so that I can spin them all into sad stories.  Maybe I’m still an asshole.