disconnected

I shut the lights off, closed the blinds, and covered my eyes with my hands. I laughed to myself, pretending someone was behind me, pretending my hands were theirs and we were playing "Guess Who?" I sat this way for a long time, allowing myself to take everything in. The shitty music from across the street, the shallow babble of three girls below my window, the shockingly loud rumble of yet another motorbike making its way down my street. I open my eyes again, feeling, but not really feeling, my pupils contract, and I allow myself to take everything in. An employee handbook for a sandwich shop, an unopened book on web design, a crinkled receipt from an expensive coffee place. Sometimes it amazes me how disconnected I feel from my surroundings. It's at times like these, when my belly cries out to me for food and my mind screams at me to GET OUT, that I calmly sit down at my computer and share this with you.

childhood fantasies

There's something magical about getting lost in a story. When I was a little girl, I would take every storybook off my tiny shelf, set them in a tidy stack upon the floor, and carefully spread them around me in a circle. I was literally in the middle of a sea of books, a flood of words that could take me anywhere I wished. I spent hours hiding behind the pages, never moving or making a sound, a trait normally found in older children. Hours happily spent with mermaids and dragons, and birds who could not only sing beautifully, but talk, and share memories and tales of different times.

I really miss that. I miss reading something purely for myself, selfishly hoarding my characters and claiming them as friends. Now it seems that everything must serve a purpose. I feel trapped within the confines of reality, and I wish I could go back to when my life was driven by passion and nonsense and fantasy. I still find myself drifting away every once in awhile, happily allowing myself to leave behind the mundane and ordinary life I lead, and sail, once again, on an ocean of neverending possibilities.