11 August, 2019

In Absentia

I'm not really here.
I've been too social, too much, for several days in a row and my brain is rebelling against being alive. I look normal on the outside, but my brain is struggling to breathe through the drowning sensation.

I don't have severe social anxiety, but being social with groups of people exhausts me, and I really, deeply stress over groups of people when I can't communicate with many of them. 
 
I'm sorry to miss Fiction Friday. It wasn't my intention. I actually sort of wrote a story yesterday, inspired by events of Friday. We were on the road all day Friday, so the best I hoped for was to quickly write and post on Saturday. But then social-ness invaded my day.

The last three days have included, not just a group of 10 people on the trip Friday, and a little one-on-one time with a friend (which isn't stressful, but still takes some of my limited reserves of social energy), plus random, lengthy, conversations with neighbors - in English and broken English, occasionally requiring translation - culminating in an invitation to a group lunch today, at which I expect to be able to converse with about 4 people. Among I don't know how many. After which I have to come home and teach

I'm okay socializing in groups up to about 4 or 5. Assuming I can socialize.

This lunch is burying me in advance. I will be non-functional until it is over. Tomorrow I will be non-functional as my brain and soul try to recuperate. For now, I'm drowning in my brain. I hate it and it's terrible, and I would rather sink into the floor than go to this lunch, but the invitation was extended by our new landlords, so I feel obligated. 

Hopefully this will be the only time.
Or maybe once a year. I could manage that.

See you next Friday.

4 comments:

  1. Hugs - I'm like you and need time to recoup after any social activities. Me? I've been neck deep in promotional stuff for my books, started a newsletter, posted my second giveaway on my author site, and am trying to write two novellas. Argh...my blog reading has been sadly neglected till today when I'm checking up on my favorite peeps.

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    1. Aww, thanks! Happy to be included. I need to get back to blogging and blog-reading on a regular basis. Good for you on the books! I need to check all that out. I haven't been to your blog in eons, it seems.

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  2. I'm so sorry. It sucks when you can't bow out of social obligations that are more obligation than choice. Perhaps that's a good blog post: good excuses for bowing out of social obligations ;)

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    1. Of course the lunch was fine. It always is. It's always weird to me when I feel I'm leaving someone out because of my language, or being left out because of theirs, but it was fine. I just feel like (as always) I said too much or the wrong things, or created new social situations by accident that may come up later. "But you said we should..." Ugh. I do that.

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