I sit in the dark of my office. There seems to be a fuzzy glow around my eyes as the unnatural light from the laptop illuminates my lashes. I can hear life going on outside my door. Husband piddling in the kitchen; kids winding down with a favorite cartoon; and here I sit – alone in the dark. It’s so quiet, really other than the clickety-clack of my thoughts being put together. I can hear what is going on “out there,” and it’s just enough for me to know they are content.
And I am not.
I feel like I live my life this way. Even when I’m out and about – working, shopping, socializing – I’m still in my dark place. It’s just a bit smaller and less obvious as I have to reel it in and keep it close. But I have to take my dark place with me. It’s a kind of safe place. A retreat. A place where I feel normal.
In blackness.
I want to stay just far enough away from “out there” where I am safe. Safe from the happy. Safe from the normal. Safe from all that I am not.
Yet I am a master at deception. Anyone and everyone that knows me (but doesn’t really KNOW me) thinks I’m all of those things that everyone “out there” is and ought to be. I can make them think I’m one of them. I can sway to the music, do the dance, go through the motions.
Yet, inside… blackness.
Will I ever be a true member of “out there?”