There is this hollowness inside of me that I’m not sure how to reconcile. It’s a separation from what’s happening to everyone else -and what isn’t- for me. Mostly there is a fondness I have for my isolation. I am living. My own way, my own speed. Yet, every few weeks I hop back on social media for a moment to check a businesses hours, or to look at a friend’s photos and uncomfortable notions sink in my gut. The longer intervals I go between these checks, the stranger and stranger they feel when I log back in.
That’s when the othering of myself begins. Suddenly, it’s as if all the living I’ve been doing wasn’t real. It didn’t exist. I’ve just been on pause. Why? Why does it feel like that, and why does it make me sick to my stomach?
Is this just the way things are now, and maybe really it is normal and it is okay to be tethered online? I just simply cannot believe that.
Lately when I think and when I write, I’m filled with more questions than ever. The world feels like an endless pitch upward at the end of a sentence, and everywhere I want to end with a period, seemingly of its own volition becomes a question mark.
Quite frankly, I’m so tired of writing about this. Even more honest still, I’m scared of it. Whatever these answers I’m seeking, this void I’m filling with more queries, the more detached and unsure everything seems.
Is this the precipice of madness? (Ahh there it is) like a neglected door, screws loose, on the verge of unhinging?
My father in laws pool has to be pumped out, the liner replaced. So it sits, unusable by us. You know, it’s never been so beautiful to me. I’ve never seen so many shades and depths of chartreuse, with tiny tadpoles braving the steps. Frogs swimming about lazily. Bloated toads who couldn’t make it out. I reached in (gross) and pulled out as many live and struggling toads as I could. Who all promptly jumped right back in. Maybe they all wanted to die, actually. Maybe I was inhibiting their efforts. This is something I tell myself when birds swoop in front of me on the road. Or when a squirrel makes what seems like a concerted effort to actually get hit. There is only so much language we actually understand. Unfortunately, we’ve lost our grasp on the more primal means of communications, of feelings. Which as unnerving as they can be, did serve a purpose albeit out of fashion or leftover generic imprinting.
So what are these feelings serving me? The pitted warning feeling of being somewhere you don’t belong? This desire to stay out? Are we all toads? Destined to float bloated and rotting in my father in laws pool..??? (Joke) maybe everyone else is the frog, who laid eggs, whose children are born adapted. Maybe I’m the toad who jumped out using the floating, bloated and rotting body of a friend or passerby. Maybe I’m grandstanding to frogs, when I should be screaming to the toads. Maybe I should take a few Zofran, edit this piece and learn to trust my instincts again.