I am half-sick of shadows....

I had a disconcerting feeling last night at work. It actually made me stop and look around, puzzled, because it confused me, it had been so long since I'd felt it. I don't know why but for a few moments I almost felt like... *me*.  Just an intangible, nebulous, momentary, barely there sense of being... myself.  Instead of some wounded, hollow, bleeding, numb or whatever all else I've been for most of the past year.  I think I've had it happen before, actually, but it wasn't strong enough to really know what it was, or maybe to trust/believe that that's what it was, you know?"I am half-sick of shadows," said The Lady of Shalott. (Tennyson)  I can empathize with her, living in yet apart from the rest of the world, seeing it only through a window, at a distance.  That's rather what this past year has felt like. Being half-afraid to open that window, to let in the sun, other people, emotions, to trust, to love, to live. Some people have gone out of their way to prop open that window, to coax and cajole me into at least looking through it instead of pulling the curtains tight. Perhaps, just perhaps, there is something of me left after all. It didn't feel like it, it hasn't felt like for a very long time.  It's felt more like... going through the motions of living because other people were worried about me.  Oh, I don't think that hey, things are magically better now but it's a start.  A first step if you will. And hopefully I'll take more of them forward than I will backward.Ugh.  Why is being philosophical so exhausting?  ;p