Insular. Isolar. Encapsular.

It’s 7:30 p.m. on a Monday evening.

I am sitting by myself in a long empty staff room in school, facing the laptop, listening to the MP3s playing through my Bose speakers.

Feeling lonely. Extremely lonely.

I feel like I am under tremendous stress. I feel like I’ve been expected to run and fly even before I can toddle or even crawl. I haven’t felt much genuine lifesavers or even witnesses around... everyone is just passing by, caught in their own individual sense of forlorn and distraught, I suppose. In a sea of ocean liners and cruise ships, who is to notice a tug boat hooting by, being tossed by the tide and waves, lost in the froth of their after waves and backwashes...?

I feel alone and lonely.

Being the only one from a cohort of thousands to be posted to a school isn’t helping my sense solitude. Actually, it does help... it increases my sense of isolation. A poet once said that no man is an island; everyone is connected in a sea of humanity. Is that true? I have yet to see genuine humanity. Like I said, everyone is caught up in their silent misery and the closest thing I have experienced as compassion was a singular line, “you have my sympathy”, a wry grin and then... gone.

I feel lonely. Extremely lonely.

I am attending a so-called investiture tomorrow. It is a supposed official event. But it feels like such a hassle. It was so difficult for me to apply for absence from work to attend what was deemed mandatory. In ironic contrast, the others from the PGDE program were urged to apply for absence to attend the ceremony. Any sort of absence would be granted. But when I, a graduate from the degree program tried to apply, a myriad of questions were asked. I felt a tremendous amount of guilt applying for a short period of absence. I wonder why.

But do I need to? Really?

In this busy life filled with a busy-ness of everyday nothingness, there seems so much isolation. It feels so insular.

I feel encapsulated. Let me crawl into my foetal retreat of embryonic security.