So, I got this feeling tonight. Not in the pit of my stomach - that usually just means I have either gas or indigestion. No, it was feeling in my chest, like a fluttering tremor. Like a very tiny earthquake. It started the moment I walked in the door to dogsit here, again. I love dogsitting at Brenda and Gary's place...it's like pretending that I'm responsible and independent. I have a key to the front door, I can watch tv and sleep in a bed and here I am, the only active human. The only person. I can almost pretend that it's my place. I think that's why I got the earthquake initially.
I like being alone. I know people are always saying that "man is a social animal" and "no man is an island" and things like that, but I thrive on seclusion. To close the door and listen to music and read a book...a lot of the time it's all I need to feel happy. And the internet, of course. I have to able to learn new things too, that's what the internet is more or less for in my opinion. And when I'm by my lonely I can think about things at my own pace, I can let ideas percolate and solidify in whatever manner they like. Not that the great white tower of self-seclusion is always a safe place to be. It can be dangerous to be always by oneself, you lose perspective on the outside world, you forget the power of human interaction. Woah tangent. Anyway, the earthquake is actually a symptom of the other part of me. That part that needs to smile and laugh at strangers. That needs to dance enthusiastically. To sing kareoke. To not think. To chat carelessly with friends.
Why the earthquake came when I walked in the door isn't that surprising. I've been in hermit mode for the better part of four weeks. My personality being cyclical in nature, it was simply time. Time to go out. The change in environment spurred my resolve.
In answer to the earthquake, Dezi texted me. She must have a sixth sense about these kinds of things, she sought to "liberate me from my basement cave," which is naturally where she assumed I'd be. And I was all about that.
So I went out, I had a shot or two, sang ridiculously loud and sometimes off key! I met Dezi's new girlfriend who's awesome, and I had an all around wholesome good time. But when I got back to my car, there was this feeling I got. It was not the earthquake, or indigestion. I felt somehow anxious. Somehow nearly panicked.
I don't know why I felt like that. All the way home, the anxiety was there. To my benifit, it did keep me driving the speed limit (but then, my constant fear of concealed police cars can do the same!). But this nameless dread...
maybe it's because I know this isn't my house. This isn't my life. I'm still a basement-dwelling, nearly-postgrad, unemployed semi-adult. I'm gutless when it comes to pursuing my own dreams. The money I spent out at play tonight is not money I had to "work" for. I earned this money pretending to live a life that's not mine yet.
The new feeling, the anxiety, is not unfamiliar. It stirs up every now and then. It's this restlessness. It makes me want to hit the street and walk until I can't walk anymore, and then find a hotel and somehow start a new life. It's what made me, last semester, take a bike ride out ten miles, as far as my screaming legs would let me. The anxiety that makes me want to say fuck it all and just GO. Just stop treading water.
I want my own place. I want a job, where I can feel appreciated and I can do my work well and improve. I want these things, but I am (as always) petrified by fears of my own inadequacy and the specter of failure.
I'm not precisely unhappy with my current situation. There's a lot of free time involved. But as mentioned before, the white tower is a dangerous place to be.
Those are my feelings for tonight. Huzzah.
<3 Maddie
