sensory overload on Easter sunday

my ears are greedy!

they gobble and gorge themselves on everything around me: baby squealing, pen clicking, microphone screeching, water bottle falling, pants rustling, person coughing, steps echoing, littles snacking, parents hushing, teeth clenching.

my eyes are greedy!

lights flicker, projection wobbles, children toddle. people in motion: exit, bathroom, soothe. dig around in the purse. do we have what we need? shh, keep her quiet. here, take my hairtie. i have to pee, can you let me out? be careful, don't trip on my backpack.

there may be something wrong with me and my greedy body. i take everything i see and hear and i chew on it violently, tearing it to pieces as soon as it happens. sinking my teeth into the sensory experience of being alive except it tastes bitter and i can't help but swallow. 

the thought of being here surrounded by people i don't know with so many LOUD things and so many COLORS and i have to introduce myself and if i have to explain what i do for work one more time i will scream and perhaps die of shame simultaneously (i am embarrassed to be unremarkable / quiet / feeling / myself in a crowd of PHDs and software engineers and mothers). and besides, it's too loud and there's too many colors and they all catch my eyes and burrow their way into my ears and i want to drag them out by their sensory tails but i don't believe in docking and so they are stuck fast. 

//

the world wasn't made for me. the world was made for everyone else and i am an outsider. i do not belong here. i was made for a hermitage and a vegetable garden and reading and writing and solitude and quiet and the sound of the wind in the trees and the laughing sound of a stream or river and the spirituality of nature. perhaps a sermon absorbed through earbuds or even the pages of a book. 

after today it is hard to feel like i belong around anyone at all.