Yesterday I went to brunch and the ballet with two of my dearest. In the process I was around thousands of people. I watched them. I got to know everyone in my vicinity in my own quiet, introverted way. I named people. Formed attachments to humans who may not have even noticed I exist. I always do. That’s the danger of being out with me.

And I had the best time. I really did. It was lovely to talk with my ladies over brunch and coffee. To laugh. To sit on a heated patio, watching the rain absolutely gush from the sky. We met dogs. We had the sweetest waitress, the kind of person you want to tuck in your pocket and take home, especially after she said we looked like the kind of women she’d run into at a Stevie Nicks concert.

Then the ballet.

The stage was dark and gothic. Dracula’s cape dazzled the audience with its bat-wing shape and death’s-head moth design. Renfield spun across the stage in wild, whirling dervish bursts of energy that made it impossible to look away. The lead vampress flitted across the stage like she was still swinging from the wire she had been flown in on. She wasn’t.

What a treat… to see art alive and moving right there in front of you. All of those wonderful, magical moments, but also… everything else.

The sweet dogs we met at brunch had shaken off and covered us and our table in fur. There were long restroom lines, people shouting to friends across the lobby. Then coughing, sneezing, breathing. Phones ringing. Message alerts pinging. Clapping, off-beat footsteps, staff thuds. The sound of a woman behind me taking a flash photograph on her phone… with the fake shutter sound turned all the way up. Thank goodness for my earplugs.

And then you have the touching issue.

Any time you go to the theater, the ballet, a show, a movie… anywhere people are packed in… you will be touched. Not on purpose. Not with intent. Just by sheer mass. I have a lot of ass, and I’d love it if just once no one bumped into it while I’m moving through a crowd. Then there’s the sitting. Shoulder to shoulder. Arm to arm. Each time the woman next to me shifted, she leaned in just a little too far. Our arms pressed together. I could feel her breath. I could feel my shoe peel off the sticky floor when I shifted.

By the time we left, I’d removed my belt and stuffed it in my purse.

By the time we reached my friend’s car, I’d taken off my sweater and started tugging at my necklace.

By the time I walked through my front door, I was shedding everything that touched me.

I stood in the shower, letting hot water rinse off every lingering sensation from the day. It had been a great day… and also an overwhelming one.

So I shouldn’t have been surprised when I woke up this morning unable to find a single thing beyond socks, a bra, underwear, and a romper that I could keep on for more than a few minutes without feeling like I might choke, vomit, pass out, claw my skin off, or simply die.

I have a lunch date today, one I’ve rescheduled three times (and my friend once). None of it has been malicious or disrespectful. Just life. Just necessary shit. But as my therapist reminds me, socialization is important. So we keep trying. I didn’t have it in me to cancel again and I wanted to see her, even if I didn’t want the world to see me.

So today, the mask is simply this: pretending I’m a functioning human.

And if I’m honest with myself, which I am trying to be, it feels like that’s the mask I’ve worn the most.

Just “I’m alive and capable of being.”

As I write this, I’m sitting across the street from my lunch spot, trying to learn something about myself on a tight three-minute deadline before my friend arrives and I have to put the mask into practice.

Let’s see how it holds.

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How do you balance the joy of connection with the cost of overstimulation?