Do I Dare Disturb the Universe?

"Do I dare disturb the Universe?"

The line echos somewhere down near her spleen in a way she hasn't allowed much of anything else to do recently. It's not that she's done being thoughtful and introspective and deep - because God knows she's not - but she just needs… some space. From herself. And yes that sounds idiotic, like how the heck is she supposed to take a break from herself, she's tried that before - drowning her thoughts out, numbing her feelings, and all that jazz, mostly using other people's words - but amazingly, miraculously, this time the universe is letting her. Is letting her and not punishing her for her lack-of-thought and lack-of-emotion. The universe is brilliant, she thinks, but that brings it all back, that line from the TS Eliot poem she's heard before, but never quite like this, like it's an echo from the deep thoughts inhabiting her inner orgrans, the ones that don't go away even if the ones on top are skimmed off and not replaced. Does she dare disturb the universe? She thinks that maybe this is it, this is the truth even if it's not the factual reason she's been floating lightly on the surface of her own life lately.

She doesn't dare, right now.

It wasn't a huge traumatic blow-up, or that she got tired of feeling so much (although she did, she was tired, exhausted even, under the weight of herself and the emotions she held). No, it was a simple decision, or rather a non-decision. She just woke up one day and instead of taking an acquaintances' small talk as a challenge to dream up goals and to-do lists and plans for the time coming up she just… didn't. Said "I want to take a break this summer. A sabbatical, of sorts, you know?" She didn't say from her emotions, or from her thoughts, and she maybe implied that it was only from all of the activities and meetings she attended regularly, but honestly she didn't know what she meant exactly. And she didn't care, really. Which was the point, you know?

"Do I dare disturb the Universe?"

Her caring disturbs the universe, she thinks, in the brief and instantaneous moment following those words echoing under her ribcage. And she doesn't dare anymore. Doesn't dare to feel enough, doesn't dare to re-embark on the roller-coaster of feelings that her life had become somewhere between the first time she pressed a sparkling pink gel-pen against a creamy white page in middle school to record herself, her thoughts and feelings and introspections, to become a person who did so; and now, the girl sitting in her living room, surrounded by chocolate bars and cooling Earl Gray and the hum of the refrigerator and contentment.

Contentment couldn't disturb the universe, could it? It was too… bland. But sometimes you wanted bland, craved it, couldn't stand the sharp and overwhelming bitterness or sweetness or sourness or saltiness of your reactions, she thinks. Contentment is alright for now, and she smiles, remembering this morning and how she thought of that line from one of her favorite shows about how alright was wonderful, and then the way she instinctively, momentarily couldn't meet the eyes of her co-worker (even thought she wanted to) after he said she was lovely today because even though he's gay he's also a guy and that means something and maybe that thought is the beginning of daring again, daring to disturb her own personal universe, a pebble dropped into the placid puddle her thoughts have become in recent months, and yeah, that's alright too.

That's alright too.