PEOPLED OUT?

I sometimes wonder if getting peopled out has more to do with the intensity of whatever's in the air than with that actual number of people who are present at any given time.

Or not present as the case may be and often is.

It's a strange sort of thing to ponder, this I realize.

Yet I can find myself peopled out even when I'm 'alone'. Reading on line posts, comments, discussions ... none of the people whose words I'm reading are physically in the room with me, but they can still get me peopled out.

At my shift-work job, there are rarely more than fifty people in the immediate vicinity, and interactions even more rarely include more than three or four people at any given time - yet there are times that I want only to be alone, truly alone, by the end of a shift.

It's not that I don't love my job and the people I work with, because I do. It's just that it somehow takes a lot out of me to do what I do on a regular basis. I'm stronger now than I once was, which does indeed help - most of the time.

They've finally begun asking for our input on scheduling, a true relief for me. I'm hoping that I'll be able to tell far enough ahead of time that I'll need a day or two extra for re-charging as I get further into the full time thing there. So far it's been okay. Not terrific, mind you, but okay. I've managed to keep at it and am pretty sure I'll be able to make it through the next couple of months, maybe three, before I'll need a 'real' break (as opposed to scattered days off).

It doesn't help in the least that our world in general seems to be somewhat more 'needy' just lately. 

Part of me very badly wants to just go back to avoiding the news ... part of me acknowledges that it's going to affect me whether I know exactly what's going on or not. 

How? 

Well, it's one of those things that's hard to explain to someone who doesn't pick up on whatever's in the air at any given time.

Last week was a difficult one for me - if I went to funerals I'd have had seven to go to in just the past week. And that's not even counting the effect that national and world events have on the general 'aura' ... I'm not sure exactly how to explain that either, unless you want a sort of esoteric interpretation of quantum physics as it relates to a sensitive soul or some such. 

Realistically speaking, I could have used a couple of days off here but haven't taken any. I'll have this weekend, only a couple of days away now, and will hopefully spend those days in relative solitude with my paints and brushes and pencils and canvases and such. If I'm lucky I'll be bopping back and forth between art and writing  - some short stories are yelping at me to write them.

At any rate, the sensation of having too many people inadvertently draining my internal resources makes me a lot more tired than I want to be.

And yes of course I mean it when I say 'inadvertently'.

It's not like everyone knows exactly where I am and deliberately sends all their emotions winging in my direction. They have no idea in this world that any such thing is even a remote possibility. I have no idea in this world why such a thing would exist, but apparently it does. 

All I know is that when a whole lot of people are emoting it doesn't really matter whether I know who they are, where they are, or what they're emoting about ... I get the fallout. Emotionally and often physically as well. Whether I've been watching the news or not, it hits me.

And so be it, I guess.

It is what it is, as my daughters would say.

I can, and probably will, avoid watching/reading the news for a spell here, try to focus on healing the hurts I've been dealt recently, and see if I can find some quiet alone time. 

It's not that I'm trying to ignore what's going on in our world - I couldn't even if I wanted to - it's that I have to find a way to keep it all in balance.

When we get too peopled out, we just need that healing and strengthening alone time or we won't be able to be who and what we need to be when we need to be.