A familiar desert

I don't feel like a part of this group.  It's not their fault, really.  It's a diverse bunch, and all but one of them seem to be lovely people who've been kind to me.  I don't dislike them.  I'm just not accustomed to spending this much of my time with people.  Between the transfer days in the bus and the planned gatherings, even having my own room or sneaking off alone during free time doesn't give me enough time to charge my batteries. I'm making a focused effort not to be unpleasant, and at the moment that consists of sitting at a table alone, far away from the others, across the nearly empty cafeteria where we've stopped for what the Spanish would call an early lunch.

Central Spain looks a lot like west Texas, only with much older churches and way fewer pickup trucks.  It makes me miss home, if you can believe that.  I miss my friends, my family, my cat, my bed, my computer that lets me format pictures on these posts so they're not huge, and my trusty thermostat.  I miss familiar faces, and others I haven't seen in ages and dare not mention.  I miss being understood, not so much verbally as personally.  As kind as they are, they just don't get it.  They don't understand why this experience takes so much out of me, or that I'm more an exhausted and anxious person than an absolutely terrible one.  Even if I tried to explain, they'd still just think I'm a spoiled, weak-willed, whiny American.  Maybe that's what I am.

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Finally in Madrid, and I'm afraid I'm getting sick again.  It's uncertain whether I'll go out at all while we're here, and it's a shame.  I'll try a siesta on for size.