Slightly Out Today

There is very little reason for it, but I feel slightly out of my body today. Yesterday I had to force my eyes to focus, but today I’m just a few inches out of my own skin.

It’s not disassociating–I know what that feels like, and it’s in my head rather than a whole body thing. Disassociation, for me, is accompanied by a roaring in my ears and a folding up, curling around myself inside my brain and leaving my body behind. Coming back when it’s safer is the big trick, you have to have a sense of how long the bad will last. Coming back too early or too late are both equally dangerous.

Anyway, this isn’t that. I’m still in my body, yet just moved a couple inches outside as well. It’s not a feeling of unreality–I am still aware that things around me are real, and (to a lesser extent) that I am. It’s just a strange, lightheaded feeling, my essential self just a fraction to the side. Maybe my soul is a little stronger than my body can contain at the moment.

Or maybe I’m breaking down under the stress. WHO KNOWS.

I’m no stranger to divisions of self–at any moment, during any task other than writing, I may be untangling a plot or exploring a character inside my head. Training your imagination until it is agile as a ferret has the unintended consequence of making it the size of Godzilla as well, a truly fearsome proposition. Not only can it break all the china in your shop, but it can also turn on a dime and lay waste in many directions at once.

…well, that metaphor has been well and truly pummeled, I must say.

I’m wondering whether caffeine will make the slightly-outside-myself feeling better or worse. It’s not unpleasant, and it doesn’t seem dangerous, but still…I think I’d prefer not to be outside my own skin today, thankyouverymuch.

That said, I’m off to work on Cormorant Run revisions. I’ve reached the part of the book where the dominos are all set up and need only a flick of the finger to bring them down, but the real trick is, the finger-flick is not what the reader expects. It’s all but invisible. You can probably imagine me rubbing my hands together with glee, can’t you.

Well, you should, because that’s what I’m doing, in between using them to type.

Over and out.