Here We Go

A little tumult in the brain today.

And what else to do but publicize it to everyone? (To Lynn's confusion, which is, of course, a valid reason to do it.)

A history of a mild panic attack:

My teacher of all things Islamic asked me to meet her at a forum she was presenting at this morning on cross-religion communication, since she knew she would be late to Sunday school. I hopped into my little car and drove the hour into Charlottesville, and followed the directions until I arrived at an Episcopal Church where the parishioners were shifting between services.

I sat in my car, paralyzed.

From my musical experiences in high school, I've been in countless different denominations (and non-denominations) of churches. Everyone in their dressy clothes, dragging the children off to church, was about the most normal scene I could imagine.

Except that I now had no place in it. I watched a woman in a knee-length skirt walk by. A woman with her dark hair tied up in a pony tail. All the while, I stared at the hijab, carefully folded on the passenger seat (I haven't figured out how to actually drive a car and see while wearing one.) I don't normally wear the hijab, except to prayer and Sunday school. In some way, this has made me feel increasingly like a fraud, as if this particular part of my life is compartmentalized into a few hours here and there.

I didn't know exactly where I was supposed to meet my teacher. And I couldn't decide whether I should put on the hijab and go out into a crowd of Christians and, in some sense, publicly expose myself, or if I should keep my hair uncovered and demonstrate how I truly act in the world.

In the end, I pulled up the hood of my coat tightly, so that I could fit in as anyone, and walked up to the church to investigate. I didn't find my teacher after all, and drove off relatively unscathed to school--unless, of course, you consider that I started crying so much that I had to actually pull off to the side of the road on the way there. I've always been one for melodrama, but in that moment I had absolutely no idea who I was and where I fit into the world.

I'm still floating a bit in that stratosphere, hours later.

I thought certainly that watching the Steelers game would help, but it didn't.

I'm sure that it does not goes without saying--so I'll say it--that a certain object of my affections did finally drag himself home about two weeks ago. I don't know how to make that into a newsflash that's worthy of your reading time (both of you). And it's hard to be truly excited, since the only pleasure I've extracted from it has been talking to him on the phone. A sweet luxury to hear his voice after five months, but no substitute for actually seeing him. And I have no idea when that will happen.

At the very least, I'm less of a mess than I would be if I had not intrepidly ventured to Pittsburgh last weekend, camping out on the floors of various kind friends, and partaking of a marvelous dinner at sster's home. For a moment, I looked out at the world around me--a world of writers and familiar streets--and I could see, if only for a few days, somewhere that I belonged without question.

Possible commentary starters:

1. Do I need a therapist?
2. Do you think the Steelers will win the Super Bowl?
3. Am I overreacting to my own sense of displacement?