My Very Own Doppelgänger

So, today I think I encountered by my very own doppelgänger.  In fact, I think I woke up as her and couldn't become myself at all today no matter how much I tried.  It was strange.

I woke up at my usual hour, which lately is 7:27 am.  On the dot.  But when I got up, I didn't feel like myself.  I ate potato chips for breakfast instead of an omelet.  I didn't want coffee until 11 a.m. even though I usually want it right away.  Then, I spent the day taking pleasure in doing super mundane activities like opening my mail that hasn't been opened since February and vacuuming my rugs.  I even obsessed over creating files and started posting a bunch of my belongings on Craigs List without giving a second thought to my attachments to my lamps and bookcases.  If you don't know me well enough to know that this is out of character, let me assure you, none of these are activities that I would usually engage in of my own volition.

Then, I had to go to work today for an event from 2-8 p.m.  And things, from the get go, did not start out normally.  I was calm rather than agitated.  I laughed at my personal misery.  And then, shit hit the fan.  I couldn't stop myself.  I made inappropriate comments all evening long about how being a good bureaucrat meant that I couldn't order a drink for a participant, he/she would have to get it him/herself.  I made friends with the least likely people to have money.  I offered to make t-shirts for people who felt uncomfortable wearing suits and laughed in my boss's face as he asked for my help and I simply said "I'm sorry; I can't take responsibility for that."  It was very strange.  It felt amazing.  And yet, I don't feel like it was me at all.

Now that I'm home, I feel a certain sense of dread about my behavior.  I feel like although everything I did is perfectly within the bounds of protocol at the university, I acted precisely within those bounds and thus, not as myself.  And yet, I am thoroughly amused by it.  I am so surprised by this because even just yesterday I was so enraged/outraged by my workplace.  And yet, so suddenly, I've shifted and become apathetic.  

This feeling was compounded by the fact that as I cleaned out my files earlier this morning, I came across two significant creative writing pieces that I wrote in 2009 -- a year that was highly creative for me.  I was surprised at my wit in the two dramatic stories I wrote and had actually forgotten that I had written them...I mean, I remembered writing two stories, but I had totally forgotten the depth of the pieces.  I didn't recognize myself as an author.  Today that creative, ironic person re-emerged with a vengeance.  Wreaking havoc on the precarious formalities of my current life.  And it felt amazing.