Showing posts with label read. Show all posts
Showing posts with label read. Show all posts

Thursday, August 7, 2008

How Much Room?

I need room.
I have to have plenty of space around me or I feel trapped. I’ve been claustrophobic all my adult life, but lately a new layer has been added. I feel crowded when I eat. Even when I have the table to myself.
I have to spread things out.
I like to read when I eat and it’s usually the newspaper. Broadsheets take up a great deal of space and I need it far enough away from me so that my almost ten-lustrums-old-laser-buzzed eyes can get a proper bead on the words.
In the past I needed a bit of free space around me, but managed to make do with whatever was available.
Not any more.
It’s gotten to the point where I can’t seem to get enough space on the table. No matter how much room I take it’s never enough and it’s making me growly.
A few months ago I had lunch with a friend and we sat at a table for two. I felt assaulted from the lack of room around me because the table itself was so small.
This sensation of crowding is expanding now to other areas. I feel better with the doors open in the house because it provides the illusion of space.
I find I have to raise my arms and spread them out or up as much as I can to open myself to the space around me. It’s as if I have to claim more physical area for myself. My territory must expand.
Lately I’ve found I need even more space to prep food. I get very irritated if I lack space when I’m chopping something and I’ve had to move the drain board away from the sink so I can have that space to work with, too. It still isn’t enough.
I’m not sure where this is going. Space is limited. Either I have to find out why this is happening so I can channel the expansion to the right area of my life, or we get rid of the furniture.
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What about you? Do you ever feel crowded? Do you need a great deal of space, or are you okay with just enough?


I need room when I chop.