Hiding

I'm at this point where I really don't want to engage with people very much. It happens every now and again, and the last time I really remember it happening was when I was living in New York. I would leave my cellphone at home, not check my email, go on long walks and bike rides, not tell anybody. In a smaller city it's more difficult to remain anonymous. When I was really struggling to get over my heartbreak a few years ago, it required about four trips to New York, a trip to Amsterdam, and one completely solitary trip to France to recover. The trials of the last year or so were more varied in both nature and duration. It would of course follow that the recovery process has been varied and more nebulous. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around it. There's less of the somebody-heal-this-broken-bone feeling that I had with the breakup, more, like, what-the-fuck-was-that.

But again, I need to hide a little. There are about a handful of people whose presence I welcome. I'd been feeling a little bit guilty about this, but I got over it. I don't care to offer up excuses for my behavior, and while I appreciate that people enjoy being around me, I often feel very burdened by social interactions where people expect me to kind of carry them. When I'm ready to dance I will dance anybody into the ground, but I just have to be in the right place. What most of them don't know is if I have no desire or motivation to be part of a situation, I lack many of the social reverences that compel others to continue to engage with it on any level. I do have the social wherewithal to take a time out when that side of me is present. A few weeks ago at a party at my own house, I extricated myself for an hour and a half without explanation. I just went to my room, shut the door, and sat in the dark for a bit. When I was ready to come back down, my friends were still alive and seemed a bit surprised but then things kept rolling merrily along.

I needed to get back down to basics, hard and fast. Last year was tough, man. And the year before. Everything I thought I'd wanted, really, thrown myself towards -- from college to boyfriend to jobs to galleries -- haven't worked out. It's ok. I learned a lot. LOTS of really great "learning experiences." I'm almost afraid to say it, but I just want something to pull through for me. At this point, I'm wary, nearly cynical, but really trying my best to fight that impulse. Cynicism, people tend to forget, is so easy in a world like ours.

In the process of learning so many "valuable life lessons," I remember that a handful of people did pull through for me in a big way.

So. I don't know. I am with the people who really matter to me, and just turning down the volume everywhere else. And I think now that my grad school applications are all-but-finished, I'm gearing up to throw myself at the next great beyond. So I am taking the liberty of giving myself a time out. It's not that I don't love the others, or care about them, I just need a volume decrease.