can you hear me down there?

so, I have a second cousin named Aria... yes, similar names. this is very confusing when we are together because my mother calls me Arya a lot, and when I was growing up my name was ridiculously uncommon, so I am not used to hearing someone call my name and it not be for me... I'm actually conditioned to do the opposite, which is respond to anything even remotely close to my name, including but not limited to, airy, ory-on-a, airy-anna, oreo, arial, uh-ree-un-uh. I also respond to the confused look followed by silence, while someone who has never seen my name before looks at a roll sheet, and sometimes I even turn my head when someone says "are we" or "sorry," both which somehow make me think that someone just said "ary." (I just had a flashback to a friend's middle school birthday party... we went to the movies and someone called me airy, then everyone decided to have their own "airy" friend and leave an empty seat next to them... thanks for that, parents.) But I digress... 

so the other day Aria is visiting us, she's eight by the way, and while we are playing she says "wouldn't it be cool if everyone else in the world disappeared except you and you could have anything you wanted" - by the way, thanks Aria, for letting me survive that theoretical disappearance - so at first I'm thinking yea that would be awesome you could just walk in a store and get whatever you wanted, I, personally, imagined myself heading to the electronic section and loading up, but then I really started thinking, well, what would be the point of having an awesome laptop, phone, camera, etc. if there aren't other people around... what would really be the point? let's just assume by some miracle everything still works like normal - like electricity, internet, etc. - you would be getting online to... talk to no one? learn about things that probably have no relevance now because what are you going to do with that information? would you care about what kind of clothes you are wearing or how you look? would you really care to travel to see things? do your accomplishments, such as an educational degree or any type of award really matter? i'm going to go out on a limb and say "no" to all of the above... which basically means that the only thing that matters in life are the relationships you have with people... or for that matter even the relationships you don't have with people that somehow still govern what you value and what you do with your life... wow, this post really went heavy... so on that note, *climbing off soap box,* i'll just leave you with one of my favorite quotes....

"If you see someone without a smile, give them one of yours."

                                                                                                                     [Dolly Parton]

[ arya + aria = trouble ]