I pick at my fingernails when I’m anxious or restless. I’ve reapplied my “Peach Perfection” nail polish three times in the last five days.

How did I get here? I’ve been repeating those words silently to myself lately. Not the cosmic how did I come to be? / What is the purpose of life? Hoopla. Just why Madison?

I have a nice life here, friends, steady employment, a great apartment. No neon signs pointing to wrong decisions which brought me to this point. But I still feel stuck here. My parents are going to be moving into their condo which I helped them find, so they would be closer to me. While at the same time wanderlust is tugging me in a dozen different directions. I want to move somewhere else, be someone else entirely. Or maybe just be the me than none of these Madison people seem to know very well.

I miss the people in Milwaukee who get together to play scrabble at midnight. The coffee shop goers and the weekend house partiers. Even freaking karaoke is better than being here. Madison is boring without them here. I don’t feel like I do anything interesting anymore – unless I’m away from here.

There is a void too with people I’ve known for years. Conversations punctuated with awkward pauses and vacuous expressions. Caused by the distance, It’s always the distance which ruins things.

I want to move south or north or east or west. Anything but being here – but I have obligations and no matter what people say you can’t run fast or far enough to make them disappear.

Last weekend I spent some QT with my brother, his wife, and her sister. I felt wanted – a part of something. I don’t feel like that much anymore. Mostly I ask myself if people feel obligated to include me or if they really want me around? It’s tiring - this overthinking things.

The other source of my melancholia could be that shark week is here. Bloody and vicious – sucking the life right out of me. Just a thought.