stripes_on_my_toes ovenbird The world has always felt overwhelming. So many sensations are too intense to be comfortable. As a child my mom had to turn my socks inside out because the seams across the tops of my feet were unbearable. Three year old me was prone to screaming, “There are STRIPES on my toes!” which would bring my mother running to fix my socks for me. I can still remember what it felt like, those knit seams pressing into the soft skin of my feet. It was not pain, exactly, but something adjacent to it, something so intensely uncomfortable that I would have to rip my shoes and socks off to find relief. Dust had a similar effect. I would not wear sandals as a child because the feeling of dust or grit on my feet was like the squeal of chalk on a chalk board. Even the thought of that particular sensation still makes me cringe. I haven’t exactly grown out of these sensory aversions, they’ve just shifted over time. I can wear my socks the right way out but I have a very low tolerance for uncomfortable clothes, a very low threshold for noise overwhelm, and trouble managing busy or fast paced environments. I’m the sort of person who, had I lived in a different time, would certainly have been prescribed months away in the countryside to breath the sea air in order to calm my nerves. I wish someone would prescribe that now because I would make an excellent wanderer of shorelines, dog at my side, wind tangling my hair, pockets full of seashells, long skirts billowing behind me. The role I have been cast in is not the one I was born to play. Yet I play it well, most days, or well enough. Still, I wonder what it would be like to live in a way more aligned with my most essential character. Would I be able to sleep? Would my body move with ease? Would I be able to sing without tightness in my throat? I’m not sure I’ll ever know, but even the wondering releases something in my jaw, a clenching desperation I didn’t even know was there. 251110 what's it to you? who go blather from