Thinking at Half Speed

I came downstairs this afternoon. My partner was talking to me.

I couldn’t understand a word. Not the sentences, not the context — just the occasional word floating through, disconnected from everything around it. Talking, and I was watching, and none of it was arriving.

Frustration on both sides. Talking to yourself when the person you’re talking to is right there is its own kind of lonely.

I didn’t know what was going on. So I came back upstairs.

This isn’t a hearing problem. The sounds reach me. It’s somewhere between the sound and the meaning — the part that turns one into the other just wasn’t working. Words without meaning. Conversation without comprehension.

Crazy is the right word for it. Not dramatic. Just surreal.