General

Schoolhouse Blues

Yeah, I know there's probably already a thread like this somewhere on Basil, but I wanted to vent because I can't get any sleep.

So yeah, school's back in full swing. You know, crowded college campuses and sharing your living space with arbitrary strangers. Delightful for some, but toxic to a shut-in like me. This week's been pretty... hard, and I kept finding myself daydreaming about the Summer I let slip between my fingers. When I could roll around in bed and go days without talking to anyone, or trying to think up what clever one-liner to tell the guy next to me in the elevator or whatever else. I'm really starting to feel a mix of frustration and absolute terror swimming through the crowds of grins and conversations day in and day out. With no way out.

I think they call what I'm feeling "culture shock". I forgot what it was like seeing hundreds of people in one place, all of them moving and thinking and acting... it's really jarring and impossible for someone like me to process. The thing is, I tried to get myself psyched up for it, but I have close to zero-confidence, and whatever was left of it shriveled away almost instantly. I tried taking it in small doses, but there's so much information and motion happening at once that I simply can't follow it in chunks. So I did the only thing I could, I shrunk myself into the corner. Didn't speak. Barely blinked. Drew no attention to myself.

...Except for the people who remembered my face from last semester. Person ABC and DEF stroll up so casually and say "Hey, aren't you the girl from Circuits?" and I would scream in the back of my mind "Noooo! I d-don't want this!" And I would clumsily string words together until they dismissed my crippling anxiety as "cute" and waved goodbye. (sigh) I just want my brain to calm down enough for me to... well... function for a little while. Maybe in a nice, empty field or a coffee shop. With cake. That would hit the spot right about now.

Welp, I'm done ranting for now, and it's like 3 in the morning. Good night. Get some rest. I know I probably won't, and if you took the time to read, sorry and thank you. Check's in the mail.