Shut Down

It was something that had been building.

Building for 3 years.

Maybe longer.

I don't know when exactly it had started, or how it had managed to build without me noticing.

But it did all the same.

It rushed over me like a wave, or perhaps it hit me like a wall. It had brute force. It came without warning or precedent. I had no time to prepare. No one would have.

Slowly I lowered my head to my desk. I felt exhausted. The boy and his girlfriend at my table continued to coo and murmur in each other's ears, not taking heed of me. No one did.

I wrapped my hands around my head and tangled them in my hair.

I closed my eyes.

The sound and look of the world around me became blurred, faded.

I felt a dull, aching pain in my heart. A restless feeling. A need to cry. A need to rest. All at once.

It overwhelmed me.

Later I would discover that this had been an expression of my sadness, my hurt. The insurmountable festering of stress that had been accumulating uninterrupted and undetected. But at that moment, none of that registered.

All that registered was the horrid apathy coursing through me, the detachment from everything and everyone, and above all, the despair engulfing every fiber of my being.

It was something that had been building.

Building for 3 years.

Maybe longer.

I don't know when exactly it had started, or how it had managed to build without me noticing.

But it did all the same.

And it was all it took to make me shut down.