Addled.

Lately I've felt especially untethered.  Teetering.  Unbalanced.  Without roots.

I suppose this feeling could be attributed to the change in weather or lack of sunlight that is ubiquitous right now.  Or the looming holiday season ahead with all its accompanying busyness.  It seems that this time of year always has me feeling somewhat self-destructive.  I spend money I don't have on things I don't need.  I have no appetite and stop eating.  I sleep too much and then not at all.  I quit feeling any emotions and then grasp at anything that causes me to get the feels, however small or fleetingly, and then end up making bad choices.  In people, in words, in whisky, in general.

There is also a tiny bit of good that comes out of this time and that is a deepened sense of introspection. An increase of self-awareness.  But that, unfortunately, leads me to feeling even more off-kilter.

I'm keenly aware of how strange my life has become.

I was walking with a friend the other morning and I was trying to find a way to clearly express to her how I was feeling.  I searched for the words and found a few analogies that seemed fitting.  I told her to imagine what that it felt like if you had spent your whole life trying to put together a huge puzzle which you thought was a picture of a field of sunflowers but it was really a picture of a snowy mountain range instead.  All this time your were trying to use blue and white and grey pieces to make a yellow and green and brown picture and you were not even finished with the edges yet.  Or imagine if you tried to play Monopoly using only the CandyLand board and playing pieces.  Or think about trying to follow a recipe to bake a chocolate cake from scratch and the only ingredients you have in your kitchen are for making venison and vegetable stew.

That is how I feel.  

Like I'm ill-equipped to succeed in this world.  That my ideals and values are neither true or realistic.  I feel as if my life has been nothing more than a mirage.  An illusion of reality.  I feel as if I have been inadequately prepared for "the real world" and I'm too old to relearn what to do.

I mean, was there a class that I missed somewhere?  Did everyone else take this Real World 101 class and I was just building a rocket out of a large cardboard box because I tested TAG?  (This is actually a true event!)  Maybe I was reading a book during this particular class period?

It just seems like I'm the only person who cannot grasp the rules of life.  Everyone else is playing this game and I'm just standing on the sideline trying to figure out what the hell is going on.  What is the object of the game?  Where is the freaking ball?  Who is on which team?  Is someone keeping score?  Is that against the rules?  Do I need special equipment to play this game?  Am I being judged on my ability to play?  Does this uniform make my ass look huge?

Everyone else seems to get it.  And it's all foreign to me.