Burning Man 2009

Should I be writing right now?

Probably not.

But I need to. Burning Man this year was... well, I think I need a wide array of adjectives to actually address what it was.

I wake up every morning since, and I don't feel right. I don't have my comfortable rituals to engage in, I don't have a clear path ahead of me. Everything I've ever known as "normal" is gone, and all that I'm left with is a frightening path into a hidden wood. I don't feel like "me" anymore.

What did I manage to achieve going to burning man? Maybe I shed something away. I certainly did my best at eroding existing relationships down to raw nerves and irritation. I packaged this year's experience as part of a gift for someone, and somehow confused the message I was trying to send, or they got the clear picture, and decided they didn't like the screen.

I have no idea. My brain is probably only functioning at 25% right now anyway. Heat, sun, 3-4 hours of sleep a night, and shift driving across a total of 4000 miles have left me feeling bludgeoned and confused.

My dreams have been frighteningly intense lately, too. I wake up screaming, or wanting to cry, and not being able to remember why it was so important that I get that man off the train before it explodes. Just that it hurt my heart to think I wouldn't succeed.

I think that right now I feel unfinished. I had a goal with this whole trip, an intended plan, and somehow I didn't manage to achieve it. So now I'm left with this sense of things unfinished in every dream I have. I look at the schedule of things to do that I laid out for myself before I went, and wonder if its really my handwriting.

I feel lost.

-Sean