This is one of those strange, unnerving moments when I realize with a jolt that I haven't said a word out loud in hours. My mind has been spinning away, as always-- mentally drafting this post to you, my lovely non-existent readers, having conversations with itself, replaying work last night at work-- but I haven't actually spoken to anybody. I've always been the type of person who can handle, even appreciate, long spaces of time spent in solitude. I think the reason for this is that I never actually feel alone.

I've had a couple lightening-bolt experiences this week. One is the realization that not all people think like me. By this, I of course do not mean that I have just now realized other people hold different opinions (No, I found that out years ago when I wore the Bush shirt my mom had bought me to school), but that the way they process things, they way their minds work, is different.

In my head, I am continually writing. Since perhaps age eight, there has always been a story being unwrapped, revised, and rewritten in my mind. It is my story, and I will be working on it until the day I die. It has always been like this, and I can't imagine life without it. I was rattling on to Mom about it the other day, assuming she knew what I meant because she is a writer too, and therefore had probably always had her own story going. She just gave me this confused look. "What?" I asked. "You're not writing all the time? What's going on, then? What do you think about?"

I was feeling sorry for the math types at the time of our conversation, particularly my boyfriend, and counting on Mom to join my little pity party for all the physics majors who were born and would die without a story. I had never imagined she could be grouped with them.

"I always have a conversation going," she replied.
"A conversation?" I questioned. "With who? Yourself?" I started sniggering.
"Ah, you know. Invisible friends. Bob, Charlie. No! Just a conversation. I'm always strategizing about what I'm going to do next, and how people will react to it."
"Oh. Well, what do the poor math people have, if they don't have a story or a conversation? I can't imagine just having plain thoughts. How depressing!"
"Maybe they always have an equation going," she suggested. "Maybe they're always thinking about time and miles per gallon and what percent of the workout they've completed on the treadmill."
"Oh," I said.

Still, I wouldn't want to go through life with only an equation when I'm all alone. I can't imagine they make very good company.