Living in a bubble: as romantic as it sounds?

So essentially I walk about all the time and I don’t know what I'm doing or really where I'm going, I have all these dreams and aspirations that I don’t really know what to do with myself. I live much of my life in one of two types of bubble. 

The first type of bubble: the one with a few people in....

This is what I call my social bubble, as I have stated before I have few but amazing friends, which is great and amazing until they are unable to be in the immediate vicinity. Like France or Portugal or even Gloucester. I know so few names of the people on my own university course, I know them to recognise, about 50 of them but I don’t know more than 13 or 15 names? It’s really ridiculous. I do feel bad about it of course, but that has only been lately. My family are in my social bubble too, mother, father, sister and obviously Glenn. However I have a brilliant ability to not miss people, to switch of the sense of missing them and resume normal life. My psychologist mother calls it "compartmentalising" while I call it a super power. This I do with my dad as we are both hopeless when it comes to calling the other and we live fairly far away. Occasionally my super power breaks and there is the all-encompassing sense of loss. Like he is a million miles away and I'm never going to see him again. This social bubble is the most social part of me really and I don’t tend to stray from what I know and love. 

The alone bubble. 

This is the bubble I adopt for when I am actually alone, or walking down the halls at uni. I’m just there like "Oh don’t mind me I'm just invisible" and it’s pretty much being entirely self-absorbed. But I think I do this because at uni I am alone, I don’t tend to walk about with people or go the IT barn with people, I go to the library and I sit there are I work, or I read, or I sit in Starbucks and I read, or I go to the gym, the best place to be alone. I love the gym it’s the worst type of escapism.

However there are benefits to being a bubble person and there are many bad points. 

The good points include:
1) Being able to pretend your somewhere else.
2) Play games in your imagination, or play guessing games.
3) You’re totally allowed to people watch when sitting on your own. I think. 
4) You learn a lot by sitting back and watching others.
5) You can indulge your "woe is me" side. 
6) I have learned that if you leave the world alone, the world leaves you alone.
7) It can give you space to reflect on things.
8) It gives you a chance to take a break from being social.
9) It can be empowering to sit by yourself and have a coffee, or take yourself to dinner.
10) By letting your mind wander can often be a clue into what it is you really want, you know I often day dream about being in a job that helps people and is seen as a good person type job. That, was the exact reason I chose not to do law studies as a degree.

The bad points are actually many of the good points just pushed a little further like: 

1) Pretending you’re somewhere else.
This I have learned is actually a bad thing, because the only real reason you fly away to another place is to escape the one you’re in. And that is bull shit. You should stand up for your sorry little self and challenge yourself on what it is that you don’t like about where you are. Or if you can, challenge your environment. 

2) Playing games in your mind.
There isn't really anything wrong with this, it just may make you look crazy if you keep giggling every time you guess correctly what food a person will order....

3) You’re totally allowed to people watch when sitting on your own. I think. 
There is nothing wrong with that one. Honestly.

4) You learn a lot by sitting back and watching others.
Learning by watching others is the same as living by watching other people being alive. Sometimes watching some poor girl get her own heart broken by a beautiful but mean guy is not a good enough lesson for heartbreak and it’s just gonna have to be you who learns. You can’t watch someone else fall behind in their work and learn how important it is to keep on top, you need to be there with that underlying anxiety and a trembling hand that wibbles every time you take a sip of your 11th espresso of the evening. 

5) You can indulge your "woe is me" side. 
While this can therapeutic for about 10 minutes but anything more than that is just destructive to yourself and your day.

6) I have learned that if you leave the world alone, the world leaves you alone.
Again, I can’t help but notice that this is the easy way out and that sometimes you have to cause a stir and shake things up. Sometimes the world needs to you to pay it some attention too...

7) It can give you space to reflect on things.
Reflection is always good, if that sounds too sappy for you, call it evaluating your goals and motivational techniques. That should do it. 

8) It gives you a chance to take a break from being social.
Yeah this I guess is also a good thing; there is definitely a saturation point for how long I can be around some people before they start to get annoying. When you start to get fed up with everything they say, just go, sit quietly and breathe. Then go back.

9) It can be empowering to sit by yourself and have a coffee, or take yourself to dinner.

However you do look like a loner, but it is very fun to order a three course meal and share your evening with fine wine and a good book.

10) By letting your mind wander can often be a clue into what it is you really want.

BEWARE sometimes you aren't really ready to see what it is that your mind really wants, it can be a bit of a startling experience. Like ouiji boards but less satanic.

I think the most worrying part of living in a bubble is not being able to see people who need you when they are desperate. Like for example, I nearly went through a door without holding it for the elderly person who was walking (slowly) behind me. And while it sounds like a small thing, these are the little things that make me who I am and what I am, a person that always tries to help.

So there you have it, the pros and cons of living life in a bubble a far less exciting and much more introverted view of the world. Living in a private bubble will one day lead you to feeling you only live life 50%. Don't feel everything the way it should feel, you don't know half the things you should by now. Go on, burst your bubble and live a little. Throw yourself out there, and if people throw hate at you remember that people only throw rocks at things that shine. 

Take care
Claire xx

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