The Life Of An Introvert
Sara Nostrant
I woke in my sunken bed, just lying there not keeping track of time. An hour could have left or maybe it was five slow minutes ticking away but I did not care to know. I wake up every morning. What is the accomplishment in that? It’s the middle of May and I will not get up because of this. The weather is too nice, and the people outside are too happy. It would take too much energy (out of the little I have) to go outside and put effort into faking the cheerfulness that they are feeling. I look out of my white, worn down window pane and watch the people feel, hoping that I can feel too just by observing them. However, I am expressionless; emotionless. I peer out with this solitude permanently painted on my pale face. Neighbors complain of me never leaving the house. They think I’m crazy because I only appear out in the frost bitten air of winter. Every few weeks a man in uniform will appear at my door seeing to it that I still breathe. They worry a lot about me, for one women’s “sad, pathetic” life that they should have no business in. But I fret not (not that I could care even if I tried), I simply holler back at the policeman “I’m live, sir. See you in November.” November: when climate gets chilled and the sky turns gloomy. That is when I can go out and do things that normal people do. All the people’s delights have been turned down a bundle of notches and I can blend in. The ordinary people seem almost like me when it is dull and cold out there. But for now the large yellow globe shines softly on their skin, and they all look so genuine; they don’t need to put any effort into what they are doing. They just live. I envy the little people for that. I envy them for what I am not and what I cannot do. This is what I am: I am too exhausted to do, well, much of anything. To be around people dissimilar to me only drains me even more. When I am around the joyous beings, I get agitated and tense. I don’t always understand how or why they can be like
I woke in my sunken bed, just lying there not keeping track of time. An hour could have left or maybe it was five slow minutes ticking away but I did not care to know. I wake up every morning. What is the accomplishment in that? It’s the middle of May and I will not get up because of this. The weather is too nice, and the people outside are too happy. It would take too much energy (out of the little I have) to go outside and put effort into faking the cheerfulness that they are feeling. I look out of my white, worn down window pane and watch the people feel, hoping that I can feel too just by observing them. However, I am expressionless; emotionless. I peer out with this solitude permanently painted on my pale face. Neighbors complain of me never leaving the house. They think I’m crazy because I only appear out in the frost bitten air of winter. Every few weeks a man in uniform will appear at my door seeing to it that I still breathe. They worry a lot about me, for one women’s “sad, pathetic” life that they should have no business in. But I fret not (not that I could care even if I tried), I simply holler back at the policeman “I’m live, sir. See you in November.” November: when climate gets chilled and the sky turns gloomy. That is when I can go out and do things that normal people do. All the people’s delights have been turned down a bundle of notches and I can blend in. The ordinary people seem almost like me when it is dull and cold out there. But for now the large yellow globe shines softly on their skin, and they all look so genuine; they don’t need to put any effort into what they are doing. They just live. I envy the little people for that. I envy them for what I am not and what I cannot do. This is what I am: I am too exhausted to do, well, much of anything. To be around people dissimilar to me only drains me even more. When I am around the joyous beings, I get agitated and tense. I don’t always understand how or why they can be like