Me And The Cartoon Fish – Guest Post by Emily Moir

Welcome to Lovin’ Friday here at More Cowbell where anything can happen, as long as it involves something I love.

Today’s post is from Emily Moir, fellow Life List Club member. (And you know I LOVE the Life List Club.) This is her post that got pre-empted last Friday due to SNAFU’s.

Emily is on deck to take comments today, plus you can find her any time on her blog. I’ll be lurking around too, adding my opinion whenever possible. Here’s Emily…

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When Jenny told me the theme was Lovin’ Friday, I immediately wanted to do an article on Lauren Bacall that I’d been meaning to get to. Turns out that it was harder than I thought it would be. So I went with plan B.

Truth is, I’m like five-years-old on the inside. I love chicken nuggets, hot dogs, blowing bubbles and kid’s movies. One kid’s movie I love is Finding Nemo. First of all, I have an unnatural obsession with fish. Secondly, one of the quotes I live by comes from the mouth of a short-term memory challenged fish:

“Just keep swimming”

I’ve always sad that you don’t get to the end of a road by lying down and dying in the middle of it.

It’s the same sentiment repeated in another kid’s film I love and previously blogged about Meet the Robinsons. “Keep moving forward”. However, as much as I adore singing frogs and the fact that T-rexes have ridiculously small arms, it’s the fish that keeps one metaphorical foot in front of the other.

You see, a human can stop moving forward and still survive, but if certain types of fish stop swimming they die. This is the part where we ignore the snobby fish with advanced pump systems that allow them to be lazy and focus on the swim or die fish.

I’m a swim or die fish myself, and for far too long I wasn’t swimming. The general drudgery of life weighed me down and I allowed myself to sink to the bottom, barely moving enough to survive. My inner fish was slowly dying.

In that last death gulp, I decided to swim. I decided to embrace playing in the rain, pretending clouds are dragons and be as my new hero The Bloggess puts it, “furiously happy”. It’s not just moving forward, it’s swimming up. If I want to reach the top, it’s simple.

Just keep swimming.

Are you a swim or die fish? What keeps you swimming? And of course, how old is your inner child and do you remember to indulge him/her?

Emily has lived in Utah for nearly twenty years, and in the Tooele area for about fifteen of those years. When not writing, she can be found with her nose in a book, lurking around the movie theaters or out enjoying nature. Emily primarily writes fantasy, short psychological-horror, and humorous articles. She is currently writing a fantasy series entitled The Chronicles of the Gossamer Dreams.