"I need some distraction now. So many people nagging about things, and- I need some time to myself after last week.
No, it wasn't bad, there were just... things... I haven't done in a while.
And that wasn't negative, at all. But I have to think a bit now about what I want with life and the world and stuff. As long as there were no options, and no reason to do anything else, it's been okay to just let things be whatever."
You have your things to think about, and I have mine. I never ask the first question; am I an 'option' now?
I ask the second one; whether you need time from me, if I should vanish again.
You say "No."
I leave the whole conversation and walk outside with loud voices in my headphones, wander to the place where I get my coffee, and then I wander back, and nothing more has been said.
I discuss the other issues somewhere else; that's where I ask the other questions: Like when, I know no one can answer me but I ask anyway, and why, did it become so important to me to not be needy and clingy, that I became totally absent instead?
There is no answer, but someone understands. Poetic as it might be, I know it didn't start with you. I can't guess at where it started; was it my incessant reading, was it my demonstrative difference from my peers, was it my family and the split-up and my dad, was it anything? Or was it always just me?
It's what I would say if anyone asked: It's just me, never more and never less. No matter how people, sometimes, tear at you and weaken you at the seams. Ultimately, it's just you.