Every time I wear my old blue socks, I think of mid-September 1996

Last week, I was looking for clean socks, then I found my old blue socks...and story begins: it all started many, many years ago.

In mid-September 1996, I  paid my aunt Maluli and my uncle Miguel a visit to say goodbye, baceause I was about to leave to Austria. After chatting and saying goodbye, my aunt handed me 20 USD, she told me it was not much, but they could be useful.

A day (or two) after that I was in El Paso, Texas (My first flight to Innsbruck started here) and went shopping. I wanted to be prepared for the Alpine weather. I bought shoes, sunglasses and my first pair of non-white socks. You may not know it, but when you are a teenager and you get your first pair on coloured socks, you feel like you are on your way of becoming a responsible and productive member of society. With my aunt's money, I bought three pairs of socks: Blue, gray and bordeaux

Fifteen years later, I still wear my blue socks; the other two pairs got lost, because as everybody knows,  getting lost is the favourite activity of socks. Nobody knows why, it just happens, and we all accept it, because there is nothing we can do about it.

Last week, my aunt past away. She was the closest family member who died while I was in Austria. I talked to my father and to my grandpa. It is hard for him. I cannot imagine how empty can one feel after loosing your own daughter, your own son.

I haven't had a chance to talk to neither my cousins, nor my uncle, but when I see them, I will tell them that every time I wear my old blue socks, I think of mid-September 1996.

it is my dopamine system which has just been activated.

Early this year, Diana I. Tamir and Jason P. Mitchell, two psychologists from the University of Santa Barbara, California, published a paper in which they state that humans really enjoy telling about themselves. According to their paper, we devote almost half of our time informing others about our own experiences. They also quote other studies which even link “self-disclosure” to a triggering of the dopamine system. It is the system in the human body that gets activated when people eats chocolate, gets sunlight or use dope.

Tamir and Mitchell conducted an experiment with people and came to the conclusion that adults would be prepared to resign to a percentage of their salary (between 10 and 20%!!!), if they could talk more about themselves at work!

If you are a facebook friend of mine, you may notice that I frequently write quotes from the sitcom „Seinfeld“ on my wall. If you are note a facebook-friend of mine, now you know it: I am a Seinfeld fan.

I re-discovered Seinfeld some months ago and it has developed into my second best leisure activity (number one is preparing a Gin&Tonic before watching Seinfeld).

Some minutes ago, I was watching a Seinfeld episode in which Seinfeld is sitting in his car scratching the right side of his nose, when suddenly, his girlfriend sees him from the left side, and because of the perspective, she thinks he is picking his nose. Later in the episode, she broke up with him because of that.

As I saw that, I started to recall if I have experienced something similar (I love finding links between the sitcom and my life). I couldn’t think of something, so I continued watching.

Today is so nice and warm outside, that as soon as I came back home from the office, I changed my working clothes for a t-shirt and shorts. I had dinner in bed and I was so full, that I unbuttoned my shorts – an activity that proves that my body is changing (this started when I turned 30).

Well, my stomach was full, the atmosphere in my room was relaxing and watching the sitcom was so entertaining, that without thinking about it, my right hand started to move by itself. It suddenly landed right below my belly button, above the bladder. Then it happened: My flatmate entered my room without knocking and the first thing she sees is Oscar lying on the bed, watching something on internet with his right hand moving inside his shorts.

It all happened so fast that I could only say “Veronika, it is not what it looks like”.

She said “I am sorry” and left the room immediately.

Even though it was very embarrassing, I am writing down this story, I will publish it in the coming minutes on my blog. I already feel happy, I assume it is my dopamine system which has just been activated.