"Oh, I think I've got a clue."

I could hear bits and snippits of their conversation around me as I drove home from Wal-Mart. I think 'Ama could sense them talking too, for she kept quiet for most of the ride. Now, I know I usually never use this diary to divulge in observations about my... people, but tonight is different. Tonight, I feel very apart from them. Like we're being separated by this wall of thick glass, clear as spring water, and just as muffling. When we got home, 'Ama sounded hurt with me, said not to snap at her. Something about me letting out my frustrations on her.

And I swear to God I have no fuckin' idea what she's talking about. I mean, did I even talk during the whole ride? They were talking, but to each other, not to me. And definately not to Mom. Did they? I don't think they did. But she was really hurt, so I'm guessing I just went through a Black Pool. It's a psychological term used a lot by multiple systems to describe a state where one personality or entity takes over the body for a while and then goes away and the person who was originally in charge of the body doesn't notice, save for that big chunk of time missing from the person's recollection. I haven't gone through one of those in years, I think. My people and I, we've got a good thing going on here. We communicate really well, I'd like to say, and information flows through us smoothly. I mean, we've got to; it's how we keep Outsiders from knowing we're actually a system at all. But tonight I heard Ninja and Svl talking to each other and I felt so apart from them, while at the same time Moco dictated an as-of-yet unwritten letter to our cousin where he told him how much we love him, and how maybe he was my brother in another life, or a great love of some sort. See? And that pulsing is starting again in my brain. So slow and soft, but it hurts while it doesn't. I don't even know who I am right now. And someone knows that we're getting close to depression again; heck, even I know that much. We're getting depressed just like when Marco died, like when we first realized how fractured we could be. I suppose that's why it took us so long to realize we were Many: we were just so darn good at passing information along to each other, so even while we were calling ourselves random names like Jack and Grizzly and Piojo and BB in junior high, we never really quite realized we were talking amongst ourself until after we were 18. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I feel very much like a teenager again, and if you think life is hard enough being a teen, you should try being a dozen of them at once.

*sigh*