sitting alone in my cube, the floor quiet, nothing but me, my book and time.

when i get holed up like this, whether by choice or circumstance or choosing circumstance, i always get a bit turned inside myself.

i feel as if i am closed up in a sand paper mouth. i tried to talk with people when i got home but the best i could manage was talking online a little bit.

when i spoke to my sister i know that everything came out strained and at half volume. she asked me if i felt sick, and i said no. i felt like i was underwater. i don't know if that's the same thing.

is this self-doubt?

why does everything come back to water, the sea?

all my best intentions are slipping under my skin and taking root, but that doesn't mean that the loathing and fear they are displacing are leaving me altogether. i can feel them on the surface, trying to get back in, winning half the time.

isn't this self-doubt?

i was around a ton of people at lunch because of a pot luck fundraising thing for the disaster victims. office politics are such that i couldn't not go without there being looks and whispers and i am trying to ride out the next 7 months as smoothly as possible. besides, it was good food, cheap.

but sitting there, surrounded by people talking and laughing it was so apparent that i didn't know anyone and they didn't know me. this is, i am sure, my fault almost entirely. my shy nature and the logistics of my job have kept me from reaching out all that much. it was really lonely, though, and i tried my best to be friendly and smile.

but mostly i lost my appetite and swallowed down my food in hurried mouthfuls (you can't toss fundraising food) so that i could get back to my cube and read.

it makes me wonder if i am more people broken than i realize, if i have lost that part of me that understands. i am doing so much more work to understand lately, people simply confound me.

so much of my life these days is a struggle to wake up from life-long sleepwalking.

i am worried i have missed my time.

i just wish i could figure out where i am supposed to be.

"supposed to be".

just looking at that makes me crinkle my forehead.

how ridiculous.