Overthinking

I sometimes feel like I’ve put myself in a box that I’ve spent about three years building. I spent the whole pandemic working on this box. I did the woodworking — and I was meticulous. I carved the little motifs on the box and worked on decorating the trim. And then I stained the box, and then shut the door. Now I want out of this box, but I accidentally forgot to install a knob on the inside.

Before I got in, I also filed down the corners of the box – and filed off all my interesting edges – so that I’m now little more than a sentient pile of something. A trapped something.

I find that I have to warm up before I can have a good conversation. I have to get through three or four awkward sentences – or awkward pauses – before I can say something that’s actually interesting.

And I know what the right thing to do is, in plenty of situations, but … I find myself not doing it. And I don’t feel depressed at all, but I do feel frustrated and stagnant.

I feel like one of those inertia exercises – where I’ve spent so much time moving so fast that now it doesn’t look like I’m moving at all. And the reality is – yes, at some point, I may have stopped moving, because I don’t know how to keep pushing forward when I feel like I don’t know this version of myself. She’s so bad at having conversations, at shutting things down, that I can’t even have a conversation with myself – not without editing, revisions, second-guessing, and … bunches of ellipses.

Just … bunches … and bunches and bunches of them.