Didn't We Almost Have It All?
Lately, I’ve been struggling with feeling fully alive...
Lately, I’ve been struggling with feeling fully alive. I didn’t notice the problem until last summer, but I think it started long before that, during the pandemic, and got worse over time.
I’ve ruminated on why this is and identified the root cause: working from home, working for myself, my job becoming increasingly online, the lockdowns, and moving to a new city I’m less plugged into (because of all the above).
Adults always tell you time flies as you age, but I don’t think it was like this before. Days pass so swiftly and so similarly I struggle to remember the months sometimes. I feel like a machine, constantly taking in information, analyzing it, churning out my thoughts. I'm engaged and informed, but I’ve never felt more disconnected from the “real world.”
For a few months, right after I got married, I pretty much determined the only solution was to quit my career. I told Logan I thought I’d like to buy an Ace Hardware franchise and disappear. For quite obvious reasons, he was perplexed by this. I’m not what one calls “handy,” I don’t even hang the pictures or curtains in our house. But the notion of spending my days offline, talking to real people, working on something tangible, performing the simple task of meeting needs with quality products, it appealed to me in a visceral way. I thought it would make the world make sense again.
Fortunately for Logan, my mental health, and our financial stability, I calmed down and decided not to throw away my livelihood. Instead, I’ve been trying to take less drastic measures to feel like a real human again.
Look at the colors when you drive, I prod.
Take deep breaths, try to really smell the plants around you when you walk Phoenix.
Leave your phone behind.
Touch. And taste. Pay attention. Look for stars. Make plans with people.
I just want life to feel like it used to. But despite my considerable efforts to rejoin the world around me, what I find is the world I’m looking for is no longer there. It’s subtly different in a million different ways, and I fear it’s disappearing a little more every day.
Let me try to explain.