(dis) connected

amazing paper dolls from this website here

It seems that I have become so dependent on my ability to instantly communicate with people that those moments when I am not afforded this connection I start to find myself lost, caught in a tailspin of disconnection and suddenly second guessing not only my ability to communicate, but my existence in a world so intrinsically interconnected with each other.

And this is not to say that there is anything actually wrong in my life, that I would need the contact and connection in order to feel validated, alive; rather, my simple efforts at reaching out, asking questions that become unanswered, sending words that are left unresponded to, are trivial, simple reminders and thoughts that are otherwise immaterial and not really worth articulating.

However, in the absence of any kind of response, the idea that someone may be unavailable to me, that something may actually be wrong, begins to ebb and etch its way in to my psyche... why hasn't she replied? What have I done to offend her? Is she busy? Is she okay? Is she upset with me? Did I say something upsetting? Am I being too much?...Most definitely, yes. Yes, much too much... why did I send the second message? Why did I say that? Why didn't I say that? What?! Why? Why? Why?

And then... the phone trills. A reply! A simple, appropriately non-committal response deserving of the simple, appropriately non-committal text message that I sent her hours earlier.

And all is well within the world.

please bear with me while I open my mouth and spew forth a pile of unintelligable gibberish

I really loathe those days when I feel I swing a pendulum between talking too much (and saying very little) and not talking (and still, saying very little). There is no middle ground here, simply a dire case of foot-in-mouth, and uncomfortable silences.
Case in point - today, when, during a meeting with other Honours students and their supervisors, I felt I either babbled incessantly, or stared at the table intensely, hoping someone else would say anything so that I wouldn't feel the need to continue to blather on about nothing in particular. Fortunately, my supervisor appears to be quite empathetic to this unfortunate condition, as she rescued me on more than one occasion. She's like me, I think, in a short, intense personality kind of way.

Now, because I'm terribly vain, I like to think I'm intense in a Peaches kind of way. Of course, Peaches is brilliant and intense and a musical god, but still, I'd like to think there were parallels between the the more abrasive and challenging aspects of her public persona (she makes no apologies for who she is, indeed, she challenges people to question their presumptions and preconceptions) and myself.
I wish.
Ha!

Picture courtesy of The Scenestar