I had this thing, a dinner, last night, and it was one of those… formal deals, you know, the kind where you feel like you’re wearing a costume, and I had on this dress that felt stiff, not really me, but it was what I had, and I was sitting there, trying to make small talk, and the food was fancy but tasted like nothing, and then someone, this guy, started talking about his gap year in Patagonia, and another person jumped in with their summer in Santorini, and it just kept going, like a parade of expensive stamps in passports, and I just kept thinking about that one time, when I was 19, and my idea of an exotic trip was a weekend pass to Tijuana with the boys, and how different that felt, the whole vibe, the reasons we went, and what we came back with, and it wasn’t pictures of beautiful sunsets, but maybe something else, something harder to explain, and it just got stuck in my head, this contrast, this chasm. And I’m not even sure why it bothered me so much, because I’ve been through worse, seen things that make a fancy dinner party seem like a joke, but still, there was this dull ache, a kind of flat feeling, like I was watching a movie I couldn't quite follow, and everyone else seemed to have all the background info, all the context, and I was just there, a bystander, nodding along, trying to look interested, but inside it was just quiet, empty, and I kept wondering if I’d made the wrong turn somewhere, if all this, the grad school, the trying to fit in, was just a waste of time, because it feels like I’m constantly translating my life for people who just don’t speak the language, and it’s exhausting, honestly, just plain EXHAUSTING. And then I just wanted to leave, not in a dramatic way, but just to disappear, to be back in my apartment, watching some dumb show, not having to pretend, not having to listen to tales of sailing yachts and ski trips, and it’s not envy, I don’t think, it’s just… a sense of being perpetually out of sync, like a marching band where everyone is on a different beat, and I just keep marching, and keep marching, even though I don’t really know where I’m going anymore, or if anyone even cares, and that’s the real confession, I guess, that I just don’t care enough to care about not caring, and it’s a weird place to be, but it’s where I am.