Tharn

Hrar elil make a rabbit tharn, but it only takes one hrududu.

    I have been in a great upheaval of my life recently, and during that time, I have been reading. The most recent book I'm reading (which I have not yet finished) is Watership Down by Richard Adams. I really admire the world that Adams created using such simple thing as language. Adams created a world no different from our own, but from the perspective of rabbits and in their own language (translated for our convinience) in order to get his message across. This isn't necessarily a post about what he has to say as much as it is a post about what is going on in my life, and I thought the language he uses in the book fits pretty well, so here's a crash course in Lapine.  The word "hrar" means "a thousand" or "many." "Elil" is the Lapine word for enemy or predators. I intend to use it here a bit tongue-in-cheek. "Tharn" is, as I said on my Twitter, "The state of being a rabbit or other animal goes into when stuck in headlights".  Which brings us to the final word that I'm going to be using, "hrududu": a tractor or any other motorized vehicle.

I graduated in the Summer, and since then I have been working to find a place to root myself. Somewhat like the rabbits in Watership Down, I have been looking for a safe home. This started off with me living back with my parents and looking for a job, which I found quickly enough. That job required me to drive, but I only had a permit at the time, so I worked to get my license by practicing on the way to and from work. Before I could I lost several people very important to me, which has been hard, but I'm not naive enough to think that I could avoid it, so I've just been trying to take it in stride. Now I hate driving the hrududu, so when I finally got my license, it was a big deal, and it was terrifying; I still tense up every time I'm behind the wheel. Add to that that I made a sudden decision to move away from my parents' house to the other side of the city, and now I need to drive if I want to get anywhere or see anyone, including them, I have a lot of time in that tense state. I feel like not a day goes by but I'm almost responsible for a wreck. (Though I know that's not true by now.) Still, I can't help going tharn if I get in the car.

Moving out is well and good, but I'm definitely not rooted yet. Like the rabbits, I still need to get to know my surroundings and watch for elil or other dangers. I still need friendship, because, like rabbits, people are communal, so though I visit friends, friends visit me, and my roommates are here, I can still get pretty lonely. I decided the other night to go hang out with some of my roommate's friends, but silly me (almost) forgot about my social anxiety. Not being in a social situation for so long has been good in that I haven't been tharn in a long time for that reason, but I had forgotten the techniques I was developing to avoid it, so my one go-to solution had to be enough. After I had been with these wonderful people, I began to feel that dazed buzzing that comes when I clench up and freeze due to the anxiety. I quickly found the book and read until my roommate was ready to go, who had generously invited me and driven to boot,

This episode combined with the fact that I what I was reading made me chuckle, and so I began to think of myself as a rabbit tharn and surrounded by hrar elil, but at least I wasn't dealing with the hrududu.